180. Baking it Down - Reach 4 Q4

Summary

Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪 - Episode 180: Reach 4 Q4

Release Date: October 1, 2024
Hosts: Heather (A) and Corrie (B) Miracle

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1. Introduction to Q4 as the "Super Bowl" for Bakers

Heather and Corrie Miracle kick off Episode 180 by emphasizing the critical importance of Q4 (October 1st to December 31st) for bakery businesses. They liken Q4 to the "Super Bowl" for bakers due to the significance of major holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, which drive substantial sales and profits.

Heather [01:05]: "Q4 is our moneymaker, but Q4 is everyone else's moneymaker as well."

Corrie elaborates on how Q4 sets the stage for bakery success, highlighting the intense competition and the crucial role of effective marketing strategies during this period.

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2. Challenges Faced in Q4

The hosts discuss several factors that make the current Q4 particularly challenging:

• Economic Uncertainty: Ongoing economic issues, including high interest rates and inflation, restrict consumer spending.

• Political Events: Elections and political advertising consume significant ad space on platforms like Facebook, reducing organic reach for small businesses.

• Global Events: Natural disasters and other global happenings divert attention away from businesses.

• Increased Competition: Retail giants like Target and Walmart ramp up their advertising, making it harder for small bakeries to compete.

Corrie [02:34]: "This is one of the hardest Q4s we've ever done because of the economy, the elections, national disasters, and sheer competition."

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3. Strategies to Boost Reach in Q4

Heather and Corrie outline seven key strategies to enhance reach and sales during Q4:

a. Shift the Types of Posts ([06:05]-[07:33])

Instead of solely showcasing aesthetically pleasing cookie photos, bakers need to diversify their content to drive sales.

Heather [07:12]: "Your cookies are gorgeous. But if we are looking for sales and not just likes, likes don't pay the bills."

Action Steps:

• Incorporate storytelling and customer testimonials.
• Use creative copy alongside high-quality images.
• Experiment with different content formats like behind-the-scenes shots and tutorials.

b. Be Direct with Pricing ([11:24]-[14:19])

Simplify the purchasing process by clearly stating prices in posts to reduce friction.

Corrie [11:24]: "Don't make your distracted audience jump through hoops to buy. Use that [attention span] to your advantage."

Action Steps:

• Include prices directly in the post captions or on the images themselves.
• Avoid vague calls-to-action like "DM for price" which can deter potential customers.

c. Increase Posting Frequency (Be "Annoying") ([14:19]-[17:59])

While it might feel excessive, increasing the frequency of posts ensures higher visibility in crowded newsfeeds.

Heather [14:38]: "Post consistently and frequently. Double your posting schedule."

Action Steps:

• Utilize multiple platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok) to maximize exposure.
• Repurpose content across different formats to maintain consistency without seeming repetitive.

d. Leverage Contests and Giveaways ([20:36]-[23:29])

Engage the audience through interactive content that encourages sharing and participation, thereby boosting reach organically.

Corrie [20:37]: "People love to comment on stuff and win things for free."

Action Steps:

• Host regular giveaways with clear entry requirements.
• Ensure giveaways are relevant to your products to attract genuine leads.

e. Avoid Political Content During Key Election Days ([24:00]-[26:44])

Steer clear of political discussions on your business pages to prevent alienating potential customers during high-tension periods like election days.

Heather [25:38]: "Don't post political content on your cookie page."

Action Steps:

• Schedule non-promotional, low-effort posts during election periods to maintain a presence without engaging in divisive topics.
• Focus on neutral content that aligns with your brand without touching on politics.

f. Encourage Customer Reviews Through Ethical Bribes ([27:10]-[31:19])

Boost credibility and attract new customers by incentivizing satisfied customers to leave positive reviews in community groups.

Heather [27:27]: "Bribe your favorite customers to leave you reviews in community groups."

Action Steps:

• Offer small incentives like free samples or discounts in exchange for honest reviews.
• Engage with reviewers by responding to their comments to build community trust.

g. Embrace Reels and Video Content ([32:38]-[39:52])

Incorporate video content to capture attention and satisfy platform algorithms favoring dynamic media.

Corrie [33:25]: "Reels are getting like 3,000 views."

Action Steps:

• Create time-lapse videos of cookie decoration processes.
• Share baking tips and tutorials to provide value and engage viewers.
• Keep videos short, engaging, and high-energy to align with current trends.

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4. Recap and Final Tips

Heather and Corrie summarize the seven strategies, emphasizing the need for adaptation and persistence during Q4. They encourage bakers to implement these strategies thoughtfully, testing what works best for their unique audiences.

Heather [40:15]: "Mixing all those together. A diversified strategy is always a safer bet to me."

Key Takeaways:

• Diversify content types to maintain audience interest.
• Simplify the sales process by being transparent with pricing.
• Increase engagement through frequent posting and interactive content.
• Avoid contentious topics that can detract from your business goals.
• Utilize customer feedback to build trust and attract new clients.
• Adapt to platform algorithms by embracing video content.

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5. Community Engagement and Success Stories

Throughout the episode, Heather and Corrie share anecdotes and success stories from their own marketing efforts and those of their community members. They highlight the effectiveness of strategic posting, customer engagement, and leveraging community support to navigate the complexities of Q4.

Corrie [45:00]: "If someone posts something that sings your praises, you need to be commenting back to every person. Thank you so much."

These stories serve as practical examples of how implementing the discussed strategies can lead to tangible business growth during the pivotal Q4 period.

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6. Upcoming Events and Final Thoughts

The hosts briefly mention upcoming events like the Vendee Blendy—a 24-hour sales event—and discuss the importance of planning ahead for seasonal promotions. They encourage listeners to stay engaged, experiment with the strategies, and remain resilient despite the challenging market conditions.

Heather [67:54]: "Planning is key. Prep now to avoid wasting money and to stay competitive."

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Episode Conclusion:

Heather and Corrie conclude by reiterating the importance of strategic marketing during Q4, urging bakers to implement the seven key strategies to maximize their reach and sales. They emphasize the need for adaptability, community engagement, and consistent effort to navigate the competitive landscape successfully.

Corrie [86:12]: "Listen to yourselves. Listen to ourselves."

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Notable Quotes:

• Heather [07:12]: "Your cookies are gorgeous. But if we are looking for sales and not just likes, likes don't pay the bills."

• Corrie [11:24]: "Don't make your distracted audience jump through hoops to buy. Use that [attention span] to your advantage."

• Heather [14:38]: "Post consistently and frequently. Double your posting schedule."

• Corrie [20:37]: "People love to comment on stuff and win things for free."

• Corrie [33:25]: "Reels are getting like 3,000 views."

• Heather [27:27]: "Bribe your favorite customers to leave you reviews in community groups."

• Corrie [31:34]: "If someone posts something that sings your praises, you need to be commenting back to every person. Thank you so much."

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This episode provides a comprehensive guide for bakers aiming to enhance their online presence and sales during the highly competitive Q4 period. By implementing Heather and Corrie's strategies, bakers can better navigate the challenges posed by economic factors, platform algorithms, and increased competition.

Transcript

[A]

A rainy Tuesday yet again on the Baking it Down podcast with sugar cookie marketing princess Group.

[B]

Welcome to the Bake it down podcast. If you are hearing you are you're such a like I'm bringing energy to.

[A]

But I have it set for a no energy Corey.

[B]

It's always energy Corey.

[A]

Go right ahead there. Energy Corey.

[B]

Welcome to the Baking it Down podcast. If you didn't know, we are your hosts. Correct. Corey and Heather. Even though Heather was born first in.

[A]

Your heart and your belly.

[B]

If you didn't know we have a group on Facebook. It's about 47,000 baker strong and that's where we get the topics that are typically trending within the baking community. We're able to bring one of those topics to the podcast each week and this podcast topic is going to affect us all because we are all entering dun dun dun q4 complex q4 complex q4.

[A]

So Corey wanted to call this. Let me turn you back up, back up.

[B]

I'm going down on my head.

[A]

So we have reach for Q4 a strategy, a strategy sesh gaining newsfeed reach in what is a complex Q4. So, so breakdown first what Q4 is October 1st November to December 31st. So it's you know obviously there's four quarters. This is our Super Bowl. This is the baking industries big game in the next three months are behind in profits.

[B]

You can make up.

[A]

This could be your. Yeah, your this will make your is your moneymaker. Q4 is our moneymaker but Q4 is.

[B]

Everyone else's moneymaker as well.

[A]

Yeah. I think in terms of always a landscaper in the summer is the landscapers super bowl and in the winter they all switch to these secondary jobs of snow removal and stuff. So their, their super bowl is the summer. Our Super bowl is Q4. And the reason why is because of these three major holidays. And then add in if you want to add in Hanukkah and New Year's, you5. Yeah5 really major holidays just coming off the back of back to school. This is what sets makes us or breaks us.

[B]

But just like bakers have this as their Q4, many many other businesses are also using Q4 as their money maker as well. You have to think target anything that's retail.

[A]

So we have a lot of factors that make actually this Q4 one of the hardest Q4s since we've done the podcast because and you're going to guess this the economy and the elections, the national disaster. Just the fact that we have these holidays, other global events and the sheer competition of black Friday.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So this is if you're wondering why.

[B]

Your reach is so low or your start to decline.

[A]

It should start to decline. And as we'll see a lot of reprieve after November 5th. So keep in mind this, and I think this is always, you know, I like to loiter in the Facebook ads. Subreddit. Yeah, those people, this is Facebook ads. They're called media buyers. This is careers. These are their careers. They're moving. Their ad spend per day is 250,000. Right. So they're all lamenting like, you know, their goal, their job is to spend 250,000 in ads. Our mere hundred dollars a month budgets. Sad. So these people are saying with the 200, they said Facebook took my ad spend from 250,000, which is what I allocated and they're only spending 20,000. I'm getting in trouble at work.

[B]

And you might say, why wouldn't. Facebook loves to take people's money. Here's the thing, people are throw money at Facebook right now because we have so much going on and we only.

[A]

Have one newsfeed per user.

[B]

So at the end of the day Facebook's like, I do want to take your money, but I'm taking a bunch of money from everybody.

[A]

So consider how Facebook ads and Google Ads work. They work on an auction based platform, meaning Corey says, I want to Facebook, I want you to show my ad. I'm going to give you $5. So Facebook's like, okay, does anybody want to give me $6 for the same space? Heather comes and says I'll pay $6. Well Corey, they never take her $5, but they take my $6.

[B]

What Facebook does like to say, it's like we're different than Google. We don't do that. We go off of like how good your creativities are and your copy. But at the end of the day.

[A]

Money is money, Money is money. So now factor in these elections, these, these mammoth political parties. Their ad spend is in the millions of dollars per month. Some said, someone said per day, I don't know. But it's more money than me and Glory have to be playing with. Right? So we have now remember, we're only talking about newsfeeds and the competition for news feeds. We have the economy, so interest rates, hot button topic. It's causing all these like lowering interest rates. All these mortgage companies are now running ads. Hey, you can get your housing in. We have the elections. We just talked about that million dollars in ad spend. There's no way we can compete with that. Then we have natural disasters like the hurricane. That's going to take up a lot of news feed space. That's what everyone wants to help. If you're not posting content about helping, we don't want to see it right now. Holidays. Now we're competing with the likes of Pottery Barn, Target and Walmart. Deep, deep pockets, running major, major ads, retargeting ads, new campaign ads, because they all want this Black Friday money.

[B]

They think also inflation's high, Every dollar counts. If they can get you in the store with your $1, maybe you would spend 4. So because inflation's playing such a big role right now in the economy, they're trying to get in front of you.

[A]

And then we have the global events, which have always been a factor. But when there are things like active war zones, it really does affect what reaches the newsfeed.

[B]

I do want to say my last little one is any baker who has been asleep for this year, they all wake up.

[A]

Yeah. We have the competition within our own industry, so this is a lot. So you may say, wow, that was doom and gloom, girls. Thank you. I'm going to not enjoy this money. What we're saying is your strategy has to shift along with your expectations. So what may have worked last year before an election year, it will work two years ago before an election year, is going to look a lot different this year. And then all of a sudden we'll see a huge reprieve come November 5. But that throws us into Black Friday. Okay, fine. This is a business. This is how it works. This is how it'll always work. There's no running from it. There's no shutting down and opening later. This happens when the election is every four years. Yeah.

[B]

So this is going to repeat.

[A]

This happens every four years. The economy shifts could be cool if they lighten, but it seems like these interest rate cuts will be slow. This will constantly be popping up into news feeds. It's affecting how much people have to spend. So it's a very hot button topic. And then the holidays. So we got a lot going on here. We got a lot going on here. Let's not get overwhelmed. Let's strategize. Let's come up with a plan. So number one, shift the type.

[B]

The Post types a lot of us as bakers and you know, I love a good food photography. We'll just post photos.

[A]

That's great.

[B]

It's a little bit easier. You know, you probably have a list of photos that are ready to roll. The thing that's harder to post, ask Me how I know reels.

[A]

We're gonna get to that in a second. I don't wanna jump there yet. That was a button. No, that's number seven. Thank you. Number one is shifting the types of posts. You can no longer just say, I loved baking this set and expect the cash.

[B]

Yeah, a lot of bakers love to say, thank you, Timmy, for your fourth happy.

[A]

That's a Timmy. Go to thanking him for ordering, for turning to a guarantee. So what we used to do, what you could have done in the last four years and seen decent reach is like, look how pretty these cookies are. And your, your cookies are.

[B]

Your cookies are gorgeous. But if we are looking for sales and not just likes, likes don't pay the bills. We're gonna have to switch her up.

[A]

I don't think you can get likes with a thanks to Timmy. I think we gotta really dig in here and come up with more creative copy, a better photo, and that's gonna just put us in the running to compete, I think.

[B]

Totally a sign. Do you feel like your newsfeed is giving you more, like, meme content?

[A]

I feel like it's one, AI kinks.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Two celebrity gossip and then random memes.

[B]

That don't pertain to me.

[A]

This is, I was reading that media buyer subreddit, and they were like, they have let the AI algorithm unleash and it doesn't know what to do.

[B]

I know. I, I, I do enjoy a good meme. I really do. They're weird, but I was like, before, it was like, ad, ad, ad. But I was like, random memes. Okay, I guess.

[A]

Here's one I thought was real weird. It is like, people I'm not friends with, but it's their profiles that are so unlocked that it looks like I'm friends with them. So I'm like, who is this, this person? I click and I'm reading.

[B]

I'm like, what is this that I'm reading?

[A]

Super public setting. I saw this one man, he had posted a picture of his wife, who was a bodybuilder and what she was eating. He had just posted it for his friends and family to see, but it was set to public. So he went back and he said, I don't know what algorithm I hit that you all now know what my wife's breakfast was. But wild that this reached that many people and for no reason.

[B]

I can figure out in my mind, it's like Facebook says, let's give them some not so salesy content right now. You know, give them some memes, some stuff to interact with because we're going to hit them with a solid newsfeed of ads here in a few minutes. So then we're getting weird stuff to get us addicted to not always seeing ads. So we're scrolling more, scrolling longer.

[A]

Expanding comments I think you're right that we're that weird. Content does get us to stop. But I think it's the AI that's like, people seem to like it. We're going to send it to them.

[B]

AI did a. It wakes up sometimes. Content just like it'll be like we removed 52 pieces of content from your group from five years ago.

[A]

Something and something. Sorry, we got real sidetracked here. Something happened on Friday. Last week. We removed a bunch of content. Another lady was like, yeah, my page got suspended for impersonating on the same day. And I said, something happened that day.

[B]

And it was like, content. So I tried to click to the content and it was like, content from years ago.

[A]

Yeah. And she couldn't find out what the violation was. Crazy.

[B]

Okay, go back.

[A]

Sorry. So shift the type of content. So that includes shifting the type of photography you're using. If you have always used, you know, the put them on a plate, take a kind of boring photo, put them on parchment. Now would be that time to make it a little bit more interesting.

[B]

I will say if you're kind of wanting to sell DIY kits, super popular for the holiday season, don't just take that one photo and continue to post that one over and over if you can. You can set a different stage under your. You've already done the work, you've baked it, you stay. You like, put everything in the box. So instead of just taking one photo and posting that relentlessly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Take a few different photos so you have a little bit more content.

[A]

It's also called AB testing and that's really big when we're competing for eyes. So if you upload a video to YouTube or if you. I think you can even do it with Facebook posts as well. Facebook videos. It'll say, hey, would you like us to a B test this? Which means it's going to like shop around the title, it thinks, and whichever one gets more traction, it will make that the title and it'll boot the other one.

[B]

I've been a B testing for the Vendee Blendy. In my Vendee Blendy highlights my reels and stuff. I've been posting either like, I'll be like, and here's our next the Vendee Blendy highlight clickable right there. Or I'LL put it at the bottom. If you want to join the Vendee Blendy, click here. Like trying to see who, which one.

[A]

Works, which one works. And that's testing. It's frustrating because you're like, you have to repeat the test a couple times to see what happens. But that's what we're looking at in a Q4 strategy. We are going to start testing the content types, the caption types to see which one hits. And then we're going to start leaning into that because this is a competitive space now. And. And then we got to factor. And you're getting busy as well, which is great. But also. Okay, we still need to. We need to fight the algorithm 2. Be direct, be direct, be direct. Don't make your distracted audience jump through hoops to buy. We only have their attention for about 3 seconds. Use that to your advantage.

[B]

A lot of times I see bakers, they'll post, hey, going to sell these DIY kits, right? And then someone will be like, how much? And then the baker will be like, DM me. There's a lot of hoops. So you have to think, if everyone's vying for your attention, you've given them 52 hoops to jump through. Odds are they might not end up in your messenger asking about the pricing. This is the time to be direct. It's okay. Like, I. Bakers love to hide what they charge. I don't know why it is thinking.

[A]

Like, if I say it's too high, nobody will solicit. And if I say it's too low, then everybody will think I'm charging too little. And then I'll be locked in for this cheap price.

[B]

It's almost like we're scared of the rejection. So we make it as far away as possible.

[A]

But what we're actually introducing is a covert no in the terms of ghosting.

[B]

If you have your post appear in front of somebody, you have that one opportunity to make the sale. If you want to put the price in there, be direct. Put the price in the actual caption. You can either put it on the picture itself. I see a lot of people do that. And if that's the fastest way to convert someone, you know, if you, instead of making them jump through hoops, get direct with them. This is how much it costs.

[A]

Some people may have this theory and it's not an incorrect theory. Like if I don't tell them the price cause they'll be scared away, then possibly it could convert them in the sales process. And that's a true salesman and you'll see people with really high ticket items. Those sales guys, you can't get a straight answer because they say I'm so good at sales that I could squeeze you into the price.

[B]

A lot of car dealerships will be like email in for the price and it's because they want to be able to sell you.

[A]

Right. So those people that is their expert, their expertise is that sales squeeze. The rest of us probably expertise should be baking. And that sales squeeze is a little hard. And it does have a long lead time which is when somebody comes versus when they convert. Sometimes just saying here's the price can free up some time for us as well as get people to convert a little faster.

[B]

How about this? You don't have to put the price of the custom set that you made, but maybe on things like Pyos DIY's.

[A]

Class tickets, that's a great way guarantee this is the price.

[B]

There's no upselling, there's no if it's more metallics, the price is going to go higher.

[A]

This one is like, yeah, let's clear those up. So let's be direct on those ones. That way we don't have the back and forth of people because only I don't know if you're noticing this on Facebook. I it's like you have a bunch of notifications but they're weirdly chronological. Like some are like where they should be and then some at the bottom are like a lot of it's mixing in page notifications and it throws off my personal one. So I miss a lot of notifications that way. So be direct really on those things that there's no wiggle room on, you can just say what the price is.

[B]

Because at the end of the day your price is your price. If the DIY kit's 20 bucks, it's 20 bucks. Whether they email you in or they comment on the post, you can convert a lot more people the more direct you are. And the people who are thinking it's too much now are they're going to still think it's too much then. So why not just get as many sales as you can at the point that you're able to get in front of these people.

[A]

Right. So again a balance. We're shifting from the hey, be a good Salesperson back in Q2 to now, hey, we got to race to the finish line Q4. So that's why you might hear some of the stuff here being contradicted because the the game has changed.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Thank you for so 3. My favorite one. Be annoying. You're really good at this. So you're taking this to heart and you're annoying.

[B]

You are my test bed. I AP with you.

[A]

You're annoying in both A and B test. So congratulations. But what I'm saying is be annoying. Post consistently and frequently. Double your posting schedule. Corey says remember reaches down. So you're not even being annoying. You're not even getting to them in the first place. They're not seeing any of your posts. The rumor has it's 2% on a good day that see your post in this weird complex. Q4 you are not being annoying. They aren't even seeing things. Notice recently kind of this if you the TikTok algorithm will drip out content forever. So if something was posted months ago.

[B]

You'Ll still be able to see it randomly see it.

[A]

I saw this comment on TikTok this weekend. It said never make the be the funniest comment in the comment section because you'll never not get away from the notifications of people liking it on Facebook. My page posts have a little bit more staying power than I've ever noticed. So I had asked the other day what oh, do you offer delivery? Yeah, on the sugar cookie marketing page, not group. That post is still getting answers a week later, which used to be pretty rare.

[B]

On the reels though, it's either that day or done.

[A]

I know reels have a short term staying power, so it's like the algorithm is testing a little bit of residual staying power for page posts. Yeah, you had to capitalize on this.

[B]

A meme that went off someone like crying with a spatula in their hand that went crazy. And you were getting notifications for like years and years.

[A]

It was funny. It's this kid, he's baking and said I baked to relax. But in the next clip he's like devastatedly breaking down because it's nothing relaxing about baking. So now I'm seeing that on pages. Maybe Facebook's being a little bit more forgiving with how long it drips it into the feed. So let's capitalize on that by putting a lot of great content on our pages. Again, we're not thanking Timmy for turning to. We're being more interesting. We're also going to post and I see people like if I just posted about this, I feel annoying if I post it again. Post it as a reel. Post it as a video. Post it as a. You post it as an event. You can post it. You know, depending on what the content type is, you can post it in the page you can post it in Instagram stories, Instagram highlights feed posts. So there's a lot more places we can be without being annoying.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But do not in Q4, think you're annoying. You are actually not being seen at all.

[B]

I want to say it can be discouraging to post. Once you get 0 sales, no one comments, your post feels abandoned. And to feel discouraged and be like, people just don't like what I have to make. That is not. It couldn't be farther from the truth. If you post twice a week, double it. Post four times a week. If you post every day, good for you. I don't know how you have that much content, but if you post every day, post twice a day. But you can put it in different places. So not necessarily at the end of the day, someone can only see 5 posts a day from a specific page.

[A]

It would be amazing if I ever saw five. Single page.

[B]

Never. But that's what it says. It caps it out at. But if you wanted to, instead of just posting to your feed. Because now you have your Facebook page stories, you have your Instagram stories, you.

[A]

Have your Facebook page videos, which are considered different than stories.

[B]

And different from videos is real. So you can post different from stories. Yeah. So there's a lot of ways that you can utilize posting more than once, posting more than twice. But if you post once and get discouraged, this will be a discouraging time of the year for you.

[A]

You almost have to be like, well, that one did. Like, sometimes Cory will be like, oh, that meme was so good, I'm surprised it didn't hit. I'm gonna try something else. You have to just see it as, like, that one wasn't it. I'm gonna try something else.

[B]

Heather made a good point, you know.

[A]

You'Re gonna say, I made a good meme.

[B]

Yeah, you do make good memes. Made a good point. Sometimes we like the stage photos, and the stage photos are very pretty. They're very nice to look at. We've taken a lot of time to do it. But if you have, like, a picture of you prepping in the kitchen, you have, like, 52 boxes for your DIY kids. That's a good photo, too. And it can perform very well as well.

[A]

In the age when Instagram first came out, it was the age of the curated. What do you call that feed? Like, what was that thing? When you look at somebody's Instagram, their feed, and you would have this esthetic and you'd have this.

[B]

He's eating the box.

[A]

I thought he Threw up. It's the cat. He's biting the box. He's opening the box. You'd have this curated aesthetic and then you'd only ever post content that was very similar to that. Corey and I tried it with the sugar cookie marketing page a couple years ago and then we said that was exactly what the algorithm said to us as well. Then we said, you know, to heck with it, we're just gonna post anything. The more the better. The less curated the better. Don't fall for that. It has to look a pretty feed. It has to look pretty. It's almost. And once we've got. Once we broke up with pretty feed syndrome, we found that the kind of wild posts do better.

[B]

It's because you don't necessarily care about the look.

[A]

And it almost makes you feel more human. It does.

[B]

You can with people a lot better than on a very staged.

[A]

I'm going to be honest, memes are ugly. They are not curated, they're not aesthetic. Their fonts are.

[B]

The more blurry it is, the better it gets.

[A]

The gray the white has become through reshares, the better. But on the flip side, memes do perform well and they're funny and they get people coming back to your page. Right. So I'm not saying a full meme page is the goal. I'm saying less curated is the goal. So that beautiful stage set, but also behind the scenes. And also you saying that it was hard to do this.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

That's going to be less annoying but more humanizing and it's going to increase that reach and you're going to hate that it does because you're like, darn.

[B]

It, I got more about myself.

[A]

Four contest giveaways and memes. So back to what we said here. It is hard to fight these political hot button topics with the Timmy second birthday cookies. Right. So you've got this stuff that in when somebody reads it, their bodies heart rate literally increases. And then we're like, thanks Timmy, for turning too. People are like, get away from me, Timmy. I've got to argue in the comment section. And then we're like, why is my reach down something that can. And it's wild that a thing you type on the Internet can actually change someone's body chemistry. Something that can change somebody's body chemistry and release endorphins is contests.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And giveaways. Because when people all want the hope of winning, memes can create laughter, which releases endorphins.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That is a way for us to harness that visceral response in A positive.

[B]

Way since you're already making the samples. Granted, we're making the samples so much sooner than actually nobody cares. At the end of the day, make the sample and instead of letting the cookies go to the cookie graveyard, use that as your giveaway. And that's a great way to one, put your what you're doing for a pre sale on the map. But two, also using that cookie content for your benefit instead of throwing and tossing away those cookies at the end of the day. So contest why I hate I hate giving away products for free all the time. If there was a time to do it, it would be in Q4. People love to comment on stuff and win stuff. It's a great way to up your reach by getting free things because they like free stuff and we like to like kind of sandwich those giveaways. I think that's the next topic.

[A]

Oh no, actually this is a whole nice. Yeah.

[B]

So what you're going to do with a giveaway is you're going to do a giveaway post. People are going to comment. You're going to let that ride out a little bit. And then like me and Heather do, if you've ever kind of seen the sugar cookie marketing page, it'll be a meme something informational that you could like those do horribly. Heather knows.

[A]

Yeah. My no you want to know what does horribly my weekday countdown.

[B]

People are sharing more people are sharing it more often.

[A]

You haven't seen or until you see.

[B]

So giving away useful information. Heather will say something like that she learned a new website. Something that she learned that's happening in the algorithms for you. What you'd want to do is share the next fall festival coming up, a new restaurant that you tried that's like giving away helpful information that isn't necessarily asking for something in return.

[A]

But the next one will be asking for sales. Yeah. Then we're.

[B]

We're sandwiching our sales by we're surrounding it with things with bigger reach.

[A]

Things that I've been testing. It does really well on the sugar cookie marketing page. Not as well on your community page. Is prompts just asking questions. Yeah. You did that one last night. No one called sugar cookie marketing. I was like here's everything I know about my life. And I did the exact same post on Cory's community pages. When I went to it this I went through it this morning.

[B]

Facebook was like listen, post with photos don't fall off.

[A]

But again, it's that testing thing. So Cora and I I use content buckets specifically for the sugar cookie marketing page. You'll see a meme. You'll see that sales post. You'll see a cookie class kids has dropped. You'll see a Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday graphic. You'll see more memes, a prompt a question poll and you'll see that because.

[B]

She'S mixed it in though you never feel overly staled sale to never feel salty man just sold.

[A]

So if you do choose to run a giveaway, please listen to the podcast on giveaways to stop.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. You'll see that Corey and I with the Vendy blendy we you can talk about giveaways in groups. Free free reign. Especially in their private groups. They're public groups. I'd be still careful. Yeah but look at someone said last year and I got this is a little pat on my own back. Someone said I'm a vendor at the Vendee blendy and it's I love the sales. I love the day and everything. But she's like it is such a crash course. It's like a boot camp of marketing to see how this all works from the backside.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because a lot of it is implementing how much can we push the vending blending without being too annoying. Although I know we are annoying. But to get people who want to spend money and reach these audience it's very fun little case study.

[B]

Who would like to sit on your lap? Really? It's crazy how he made a sound and we didn't yell at him and take his stuff away from his hand.

[A]

We're talking about the cat, by the way.

[B]

Except for when I make a sound, I get punished to put in a Gwen's face.

[A]

They'd be like, he can make one of his sounds now.

[B]

You've given him too much attention. He doesn't want it anymore. He said, I'm Gwen. I'm Gwen.

[A]

Okay, go on with the topic five. Okay, this one. Hop on topic. But this will save your sanity. Number five. Follow big events and plan accordingly. For example, number November 5th, selection day. Do not launch your pre sale on that day. In fact, I wouldn't touch November 1st to November 5th with anything but barely thanking Timmy for turning two. Like it's that like oh no. Why are you not mad at him for me? Oh no.

[B]

I've never been mad at a sound I've made. It's only you.

[A]

Frank is in his rare form today. Okay, so November 5th, I'm not going to launch my pre sale. In fact, if the vending blendy fell on the day, I would move the Vendee blend because we're not going to compete with election day.

[B]

I see a lot of people love to launch the shelf dude pre sales at the beginning of November, which makes sense.

[A]

I would wait until second week of November. I would wait because November 1st, you're not going to do it. November 5th, you're not going to do It. November 6th, 7th and 8th, you're not going touch. You're not going to get to newsfeeds because all people want to talk about.

[B]

People are going to be arguing in the comment section. They're going to be arguing community groups.

[A]

I. I got to say it right here, though. I know what you're thinking. I'm going to post politics on my cookie page. Don't do it.

[B]

How dare you.

[A]

Don't do it. I see it all the time. I.

[B]

It's tempting.

[A]

It's because you're like, well, the twin said the only thing that'll get through is political content. And I want to get through. Let me post political content cookies. Why not even the temptation to ask, who are you voting for? I'm going to go a step further and you guys can disagree with me. Even telling people to go vote today. I wouldn't do it. Not in this election. I wouldn't. I would just keep yourself out of it. Keep your business.

[B]

Listen, bakers are gonna do what the bakers are gonna do.

[A]

Bakers are gonna do what bakers are gonna do. We can just barely listen to us. We don't come to us crying when it doesn't work. So I would say for the next.

[B]

Couple of weeks, I'm going to release him.

[A]

Okay. Frank is losing it. So Cory's got to go. Let him go for the next couple of weeks. Pay attention to. I think that there's a vice president debate tonight. Don't launch your presale tonight. I think that November 5th, there's just a lot going on here. Pay attention to it and plan accordingly. Don't just fly blind to just big post and wonder why it's not working out.

[B]

If you post on November 5th and it goes down the tubes, you don't make any sales. It's discouraging as a baker to post and put that much time and effort into something.

[A]

I would do a low effort post on Nov 5 and not care how.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You're not going to even see me post.

[A]

So again, we're gonna look for big holidays, big events, big election type content, and we're not going to interfere with that day. It's not the content that the user wants to see. The User wants to be riled up and arguing in comments. So keep that in mind. Number six, speaking of politics. Bribes.

[B]

Bribe.

[A]

Corey says use bribes. Kidding. But bribe your favorite customers to leave you reviews in community groups. Reason why I like this strategy is community groups. Most of them don't allow political talk. So it is sheltered from politics because they don't allow that there. So the community groups do become a safe haven.

[B]

And right now, community groups have the most reach that you're not paying for. So if we can get our little favorite customer who knows us and is willing to do a little dirty work on the set, have them post a review or. I'm looking for Di. I have this DIY kit idea who's selling DIY kits.

[A]

Corey has this one client who loves to leave her reviews. It's hard to. It's hard to get clients to sing your praise. Right. Because it does feel weird. It does feel weird. But it is such a great conversion.

[B]

I'm gonna tell you something. There's some. There is some die hard, baking, loving people out there. I'll go to a comment section of someone looking for a baker and it will always be these same four people hollering.

[A]

I wanna be like, whatever.

[B]

What have they.

[A]

They should give you twice.

[B]

Are there cookies laced with gold?

[A]

They probably are. And so bribes and use ethically. So hey, if you really like this, would you mind? It would help me so much. I speak to this back in 2020. May have been 2021. It was where Covid had shut down Halloween.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You had a lady said, can I get a free DIY kit in exchange? I'll review and you in a community group. And I know all you bakers listening to this are screaming now.

[B]

Corey said, yes, I'm all for strategic giving.

[A]

Yeah. So Corey gives this lady a box. Okay. It could have gone to nothing. Cory was like, this probably won't become anything.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Instead the lady writes in a community where it actually turned out. I think she was the admin.

[B]

I. It was one group that we were not in.

[A]

We were not in. And the amount of sales it made were almost like when the lady came back a few times. I think we ended up giving.

[B]

I think for years we were giving a free diy.

[A]

We ended up selling out of that. So it's because these community groups and a third party recommendation and a really good experience do pay in dividends. And when we're talking About a complex Q4, it may be the strategy. And you guys have heard us talk about how to engage with community groups. Engage Engage, engage. And then somebody else. Corey has this community group. I love the strategy this one lady has. She's a cleaning lady. She.

[B]

Is it Cynthia.

[A]

Yeah. She never posts in the group, so she doesn't add any value. She's not an admin's favorite love child at all. However, she gets every client. Somehow I'm not sure if she's giving them 10%.

[B]

I tried to hire her because I was saying I'm gonna figure out if she's asking people to post in that receipt.

[A]

She never came to court. But what if we can all take a letter out of Cynthia's book if Cynthia could marry actually being a valued member of the community and get. Oh yeah, it was a great one. That car detailing lady.

[B]

Rhonda.

[A]

Rhonda, Rhonda. This other lady pops up. She's detailing cars. She's a mobile detailer in our area. I know it sounds like a scam because whenever you see. She posts every week, kind of her.

[B]

Chipmunk eating a little picnic.

[A]

And then she posts on sales Saturday. So she follows the rules. But she also has other people recommend her. And I can't help but like, see what you recommend.

[B]

And I'm like, oh, Rhonda, the car detailer lady.

[A]

So if you're going to bribe your clients to leave your views, make sure that you've already paid back into that community group. Otherwise you will be seen as a taker.

[B]

You're going to give someone something free and ask them to post in a local community. Or they do and the post falls flat on its face. Okay, that's totally normal. Sometimes they post at the wrong time of day. Maybe another post is trending within that group.

[A]

So you're posting, take that beautiful photo you sent and they take their own.

[B]

Sometimes they only do words photo, like word post. And it. It falls on deaf ears.

[A]

It's a numbers game. One of them will hit one of them eventually. Sometimes somebody. Somebody asked for like, do you know the yard sign people?

[B]

Yeah, I saw.

[A]

Because this lady's so post consistently, I'm able to recall her name immediately. And I was able to be like, oh, I know that Wendy does that. So again, that consistency time in Married with the bribes and reviews really does a strong lead center make.

[B]

I also want to say, this is my. I want to talk to the vendees right now as well as you bakers. If someone posts something that sings your praises, you know who needs to be in the comment section? You. You need to be commenting back to every person. You need to be like, thank you so much.

[A]

Here's what else I'm offering the vendors. If you're listening, you can do that on Instagram and they can do it in the group. That's why it's confusing to them.

[B]

Vendors, where are you?

[A]

Amy's got to tell you. Who? Amy?

[B]

Amy.

[A]

Hello. Hello. Great point. Be there or be square.

[B]

Yeah, if.

[A]

If you're.

[B]

If a lady posts in a local community group that you've given a DIY kit to, I want you to thank her in the comment section. When someone says, oh, that's so cute, I want you to sweep in there and be like, thank you so much. It's going to be so much fun to offer these. The pickup is blah.

[A]

I think it comes down to a little bit of the fear of rejection. If someone's like, that's really expensive. And you. And that's why I'm always like, you know what? Aiding cheap. Because I do like using really expensive, high quality ingredients. It does drive up the price. But I promise you, you're going to like the taste. That's how you can kind of deal with some of those.

[B]

But you can get your own post to pop off, your own bribed post to pop off if you're there.

[A]

Corey and I know, we see people doing the community group. They'll make their sales posts, they'll let it die, then they'll come back to the comments, bump it up again. It's pretty smart. The algorithm is a tool if you want it to be. It's a torture if you don't know how to use it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Number seven, last one. It's a real world and we're just living in it. And that's real. R E E L make time to learn how to record video content, whether content for sales, for lives, reviews, behind the scenes. This, this 4 of content is just a flavor. This form of content, this form of content is the flavor of the month for these algorithms.

[B]

If here's the thing, I'm going to launch these DIY kits. I'm tired of having these boxes in my Life. I need 13 of these boxes to sell. I have done is I've created a reel of me putting the box together, of me filling the box.

[A]

Can I. Can I commend if you guys are like, what content could I possibly film? I want you to go to sugar cookie marketing, Instagram. Corey posts content constantly.

[B]

A lot of it's like four bakers.

[A]

Because there is content buckets that are very interesting. So you'll give. I'm trying to upload Corey's reels to YouTube shorts. So I'm going through these and I'm watching them for the first time, if I'm honest. And I'm like, okay, she'll do a high speed decorating. Like a time lapse of a decorating a cookie that I know is in our cookie class. That's why I'm like, oh, I know what that is. Then it'll be like a tip on how to make a squanched flower.

[B]

But yeah, yeah.

[A]

And I'll be like, oh. So I upload this content. I think one thing you did was piping tips. So again, this content, you're like, do. Does my audience want to do this? Oddly, yes. They like to know these baking tips. They like to watch these baking videos. They like to see how you assemble the boxes. I think even telling your audience, here's how I use a projector would blow their mind.

[B]

It would. And I also want you to. We lean into a lot of baker's content because obviously sugar cookie marketing is for bakers. You can lean into your audience by showing them your prep days for your orders, how you make colorful icing.

[A]

Let's say you're doing a pre sale. Let's say you have. I'm going to just pretend there's five cookies. Each one of those is the content of. Guess this cookie from the cutter. A content type of a time lapse of decorating. A content type of any unique detail that you add. That's like a skill. And then you can even say, here's the ingredients that I absolutely love. Like, there's so much content I posted.

[B]

To my page yesterday, me decorating a pyo. Like I'm actually painting it like a child would do. And at the end I take a bite. Someone, are you selling these? Like, that's the content. I want to show them what a pyo is, you know, but with a lot of people don't listen to the sound of videos. I can tell because people will be like, where'd you get that box? But in my video, I'll be like, I got this box from Amazon. So a lot of people are not listening to things with the volume on, but they're watching it. It's great way to capture someone's attention for a longer period of time.

[A]

But even more so, it's a great way to capture that algorithm because it is a reels world. The algorithms constantly change what their flavor of the month is. It used to be videos. It used to be like MP4 upload. Then it became really heavy photos. Then it Became photo collages. And then now it's these reels, these long vertical film videos. 19, 20 by 1080 and under a minute, or a minute 30, depending on which platform's limitations are. Here's the thing.

[B]

You have so many excuses between you and that first video. My first reel, I forgot to put sound one and it cut off a little bit early. Someone's like, I can't hear anything. I said, yeah, there's nothing to hear.

[A]

That's it. It was so funny. You remember Cory and I, two podcasts, three podcasts ago, said that we were forcing ourselves on Thursdays to get ready, put on makeup, do our hair, put on these little microphones and record content. We've done it for two weeks now. It has been the best content that we have posted in a while. I hate the content.

[B]

The amount of people.

[A]

It's.

[B]

It's local restaurants that we've been highlighting and people have gone to these restaurants.

[A]

Everyone's clear. We're doing content for both Sugar cookie marketing and Corey's community group at the same time. To stretch this hair. Absolutely.

[B]

But the local community group to tell me what they ordered at their restaurant.

[A]

But they're also allowed to see reels more often than still.

[B]

Yeah. So we're like, how, how do we reach more people in this group? Like these reels are getting like 3,000 views. There's only 4,000 people on grow.

[A]

Right. It's pretty fantastic. Corey and I had a couple of lessons learned. The harder you make it, the more perfect you want it to be, the less it will be. And the more barriers to entry. Like I need to get a nicer camera and I need to get a tripod. And the more you have to set up, the less you'll set up. Absolutely. So we found these road video mics. You can just plug them on your shirt. They just pipe into your phone because we're recording all this. Corey's phone. And then we just stopped caring about our voices and we just went on to that.

[B]

I went into this retail place the other day and as soon as he walked in, I just said, can I film a video?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And he was like, oh yeah, sure, absolutely.

[A]

Turns out all businesses want free marketing, so they're pretty open to it. Corey had. We had gone to this restaurant Thursday. It was like a nicer, very local restaurant. Like, you know, usually nicer restaurants are chains. Uh huh. This one is a local.

[B]

One of one.

[A]

One of one. And Corey said to the waiter who was extremely funny, so it was an appropriate question. She was like, hey, can I record you putting down the desserts? And he was like, absolutely. And then Corey, like, impromptu, as he's putting down the dirt, Corey said, wink at the camera. Instead. He, like, takes liberties. And he kissed me on the top of my. My noggin like a grandpa. It was like a grandpa tag. But I was like, oh, that was so expensive.

[B]

I was like, that will be in the video.

[A]

And he was like, so stoked to be in this video and stuff. So that content as in your skin. Corey sent me. She was like, I posted the video and I hate everything about it, but it did so well, you know? So you just almost have to not care.

[B]

You.

[A]

You pick out your own imperfections. Nobody else does. They like to see your face.

[B]

Back when I wanted to start doing reals, which was like four years ago, my little cookie room didn't have good indirect natural lighting. And I let that hold me back. I didn't make. I made two videos in the years of that. I was. And I was so late to the Reels game that people had already gotten their following from it.

[A]

Because when. When a platform is.

[B]

Yeah. So there's so many excuses between us and the goal and making it less perfect. You're going to learn tips along the way. So I learned that people like jump cuts. They like really fast content. They don't want to see me working too long on one particular part of a video. Like, instead of. Of piping, where you're seeing the piping. Let's speed it up. I use in shot. Cap Cut is another great one. If you don't want to have the little logo at the end, you'll just pay whatever their little fee is. Like 17 for the year. No, but it's.

[A]

If you just try it, I think.

[B]

Give it a go.

[A]

Not even Nike. Don't even. Just do it. Just try it. Just try. Just try it.

[B]

At the worst. What? No one's seeing it. No one was seeing it anyway.

[A]

Absolutely. And because it was so low effort, because you removed all the roadblocks of perfectionism. I saw a quote the other day. It was like, everyone likes the view. No one likes to climb. So remove all the rocks from the climb and just make it even if you're like, this isn't the best thing I've ever done.

[B]

One video I sent Heather, I called a seahorse an octopus.

[A]

It did so well because so many people are like, I think it meant seahorses. And I'm like. In the comments, like, I meant seahorses are. I panic. And they're like, that's okay. We all make. I said, cory, if you can start baking this mistake soon, that'd be wonderful. Right?

[B]

So was that a mistake? I didn't even catch it myself.

[A]

Back to the weird things showing up on newsfeed. It'll be a picture of a celebrity who I know the name of, but the caption will call them somebody wrong. Like somebody else. Oh, weird. Like Henry Cavill. Yeah. And it'll be like Tom Cruise. And the comments are like, that's not Tom Cruise, that's Henry Cavill. And I'm like, that's genius. Granted, you can only use it so often.

[B]

Granted, low buy in, but what you're getting is people to either one click.

[A]

And be like, that's that. That's clickbaiting. In a weird way, it's engagement baiting. But it works when used sparingly. So to recap what our strategy sesh is, post. Your post type is going to shift. It's no longer thinking Timmy. It's going to be a little bit more strategic. You're going to be direct, though. You're going to say, here's the price of my DIY kit. It's no dm. Me, no comment. Something for a dm. Like, it's going to be as direct as possible. We're fighting with a lot of different attention grabbers. Number three, you're going to be annoying. Corey's expert on that. If you have any questions, please direct them here. 4. Contests, giveaways, memes. We're going to mix in these content buckets, but again, we're being annoying, so we're posting a lot more frequently. We're going to run through these content buckets each week. Five, follow the big events and plan accordingly. November 5th. That's going to be your low effort content, if at all. You heard Koi Station. Not going to post anything that day. I'd stay out of politics if I could stress that to you real hard. Even not encouraging people to vote, they know it feels good. Feels like you're doing something, but I think you're risking it for the biscuit. 6. Bribes. In honor of politics, let's use bribes. Get that client that loves you to sing your praises in a group and be there or be square. So when they're. When they're writing that, be there in the comments, but also be present in that group and advise value to it. And seven, it's a real world and we're just living in it. Make time to learn how to record reels.

[B]

Hate them.

[A]

That's a lot that is a lot to tell people to do anyways as well. You know, you can pick a few.

[B]

Out, take a test. You can a B test something from those list of seven. See what works, what doesn't work. One might work better than the other.

[A]

Absolutely. Mixing all those together. A diversified strategy is always a safer bet to me. But we only have so much time of the day.

[B]

We only have so much time of.

[A]

Q4 before Q4e time and then we have all the time in Q1 and we're sad again. But yeah. I can't believe it's already October 1st.

[B]

Cannot. I even had to change my little cover photo this morning. I almost forgot mom gave you.

[A]

I put it on.

[B]

Oh, I didn't see that.

[A]

Our mom is a Carter Carter. She paper things and she unfortunately she started giving everyone like a little monthly calendar that has a specific.

[B]

Unfortunately I did that for the college and I'm also stuck to it.

[A]

So now what she does it for deed gams me. You ash.

[B]

That's it.

[A]

No, something I don't think she does. That's six she has to do every month.

[B]

She never gives them on time.

[A]

No, it's usually get them halfway through the month.

[B]

One time you. I got one. The month had already passed. You can keep this one.

[A]

Moving on to voicemails. The number is 571-55-65644 but. And I see a lot of you guys are using this. You can also click the fan mail button on some podcast hosts and it just goes right to the same place.

[B]

Oh, it goes to the same exact spot.

[A]

It comes in through our podcast host and says you've got a fan. Oh, nice. So we actually got a fan mail. We actually got. No, there's a bunch of stuff. Oh my. Yeah. Got some fans out there. Oh my. Hi twins. I first wanted to thank you both for doing the. Oh, it's this one from last week, is it? There's one I didn't read last week. I'm going to read that this week. Hello. I'd like to preemptively reach out to folks who ordered cookies last year and ask if they'd like to order this year. Not sure what the message should be. And I don't want to be pushy. I'm wondering if you have any advice or language. As we all know, a warm lead is better than a cold lead. Thank you. Person texting from 716-716 what they're asking and they are correct. The cheapest lead we have is somebody who's already purchased from Us, because we don't have to find them anymore. We don't have to convince them anymore. We don't have to even probably set a payment portal because it's already been set up.

[B]

More comfortable with you. There's a lot of less rigamaro that you have.

[A]

You don't have to find their contact details. We already have. So that is where this question is coming from. I know I need to reach out to people. Last year. How do I do that and not seem like giving money?

[B]

I like to spin it as my favorite. Skip first dibs. Like, here is a gift to you. Because you've ordered from me in the past. I'm letting you bypass everybody else. You get to get on my calendar.

[A]

First so you can use that. Like, hey, I'm going to make a random person. Sharon, Sharon, Sharon. I know you ordered from me last year. A Thanksgiving platter. I have a feeling this year I may sell out. But before I post it to everybody else, I just wanted to give you a first rider refusal. If you order, great. If not, no sweat. But I definitely didn't want to turn my back on my favorites. Yeah. Before I let new people in, Michael's.

[B]

The arts and craft store, does that often. To me, it's like you're on our. You're in our text message subscriber. You get to see our catalog before everybody else. Always click to it. I want to know. I want to be exclusive.

[A]

Yeah, but you know, Michael's like, grow. We want your money first, and then we're going to take other people's money. So what you can do is capitalize on the mind approach and say, hey, I'm doing you a solid. Another thing is taking the approach of I care about you. Hey, I know Timmy turned two last year. Odds are he's about to turn three. Just want to check in with you before that book's out. If you want to reserve it now, great. If not, no sweat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just happy that I was able to work.

[B]

Spin it as a positive. It doesn't feel so much like I'm asking for your sale. They'll never know. And if you make them feel like. Like special for it, even if they say no, feels like you're looking out. I know the fear of rejection is very hard. It'd be out of very hard.

[A]

Cory, Corey hates rejection more than you.

[B]

Listen, I get rejected in my. In my comment section all the time.

[A]

And you text me about it at.

[B]

The end of the day, I'm like, it's still engagement.

[A]

Here's another one here's another one. Corey and I will do this. If somebody cancels a class ticket and they have coveted and there's absolutely nothing we can do, we'll turn to our past class attendees and be like, like, hey, you and us. It's us against like, hey, we got this ticket. I'm sure you don't want it to go to waste. Do you want to fill in the seat so we don't lose this ticket? And like, it's like our gang of past class attendees and we're your customers.

[B]

Can be your gang.

[A]

Yeah. So like, hey gang, listen, we had somebody cancel. I'm letting you guys. You guys want to do a bogo on this one or you guys want to show up half price? I hate for it to go to waste and I'd love for one of you guys to get it. Like, we're almost on this team.

[B]

Yeah, like a positive spin can make that really feel better. Even if they say no.

[A]

Really, truly. We got. Here's a fan mail. 1. Hey, Twins. I need some advice on how to handle an embarrassing situation. After about six months of high stress, I decided to quit custom cakes entirely. That's my main item. And I suddenly announced to my customers I was done going to do a pop up style bakery instead of focus. Oh, I'm so sorry. Let me read that again. And I suddenly announced to my customers that I was done and going to do a pop up style bakery instead of focused on pretty much anything but cakes and cupcakes. Changed all my marketing website over to pop up bake shop and my first one was very successful. It was also an immediate and I'll never do it again. Time versus profit was so not worth it. I realized I was way over complicating things and should have just stopped customs. But I stuck with regular cakes and cupcakes because it's what I'm known for I'm best at and my profit margins are high. My question is, do I announce that I made a mistake with a pop up idea and now I'm back to cakes and cupcakes after all? Or do I just move forward with them and simply not mention these pop ups again? It's embarrassing. This all happened in the span of just a few weeks and I don't want to look unprofessional, like I'm having an identity crisis. I mean, I absolutely was, but do they need to know that? Thank you so much, Victor from North Carolina.

[B]

My favorite game to play is the silence. No one knows if you never say it. So if you can just act like that was just a one time thing.

[A]

No.

[B]

1. People's attention span is going so fast and so many things are vying for the attention. They're not gonna be like, what happened to Cheryl and her pop ups? I'm really, truly waiting on the next one.

[A]

So you just say, just jump right back.

[B]

If I have something that doesn't take off, you'll never hear it. Didn't take off.

[A]

That's something we do. If we did something that doesn't take off and somebody's like, where is that thing where we're like, actually, we tabled that. A big thing. Cory and I realized, speaking of identity crisis crises, we didn't want to do private classes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just didn't like it. But we had darn well marketed it. Yeah. So somebody. Some people still email about private classes. Like, you know what, we tabled that for this year. But here's some bakers I know that do private class.

[B]

Yeah. We don't even say like, oh, yeah, I guess our marketing did work. Yeah. We're not doing that anymore because it was hard.

[A]

Yeah. So what we said is we, we just tabled that for now. So if somebody says, hey, girl. Yeah, Victoria, Vicki, where's it? Where did pop ups at? Yeah.

[B]

Odds are if 50 people came to your pop up, maybe one is going to email when's the next pop up? And it would be easier to address the one person than say it to everybody.

[A]

And how I'd say that is, oh, I'm, you know, I'm working on my 2025 calendar and I'll let you know. In the meantime, here's what I'm currently offering.

[B]

I see a lot of bakers do this and I'll be like, heather, I just saw this. Like, it'll be someone announces a big change. Okay. They do the change and all of a sudden I'll go back to their page and that whole post will be gone. Disappeared. Like it never even existed. And that's great because no one. You're taking all the marketing that you did, which sucks because you did market it. You're taking it away because it's no longer something you want to focus on.

[A]

Here's something. And if Victoria, I can use you as a guinea pig or like, you know, when the teacher comes around and looks over your shoulder and then makes a class announcement.

[B]

An example.

[A]

Anyways, Victoria, I'm going to use that. I'm going to use your story as an example. Not every idea you have has to be announced as soon as you have the Idea. So something you can do is I want to do. Let's pretend you say, I want to start. I never want to do do customs again. I think I'm only going to teach cookie classes. Right? You don't have to say that yet.

[B]

You can silence it out.

[A]

So what you can do is you, when people start ordering customs, you're going to start saying no privately. And then you're going to start directing them to your cookie classes. Your marketing is going to start classes, classes, classes. And it's going to be less and less customs. And then when you're happy with that, like Victoria said, I didn't know how much of a time set pop ups were and that's why I don't want to do any more. If you're like, okay, I really like this transition. My audience seems to like this transition. Then the announcement if you want to. Yeah, but I wouldn't announce it until you're positive because like she said, I don't want people to know I had an identity crisis. Although I did these big whiplash announcements, it really is hard for your customers to keep track. If I follow a page and someone says they're closing, I immediately unfollow the page. Odds are sometimes they come back, but I'm gone. All that work you did to get me that one big announcement, I'm gone. And now the good luck ever getting. So I would say if you're like, oh, I want to do this big announcement, run a test. I'm going to say wait three months. I say wait three months before that big announcement.

[B]

And you're before the big amount announcement, your marketing will start changing. Your direction will start changing. You're going to be posting less of what you don't want to do, more of what you do want to do. So when you do make that big announcement, it's not so big that people are like, oh my God, what am I going to do for my cake this year? It'll be a natural. Like, I figured that that's where I was going.

[A]

Also, you could still take some cake water if you'd wanted to. Victoria in this transition time. So you know, because may not have liked cake that day, but maybe there's some orders of cake that you did like.

[B]

Sometimes I hate cookies.

[A]

So he does. Sometimes Cory will take a macaron order.

[B]

Sometimes, sometimes I won't.

[A]

But if she posts, I'm never doing macarons again.

[B]

I'll lose any opportunity of it.

[A]

Yeah. So not every. Even though it may be that we are phasing out Custom cookies. Not everyone needs to know that until you're absolutely positive it's what you want to do. So great question. Big takeaway. I wouldn't make an announcement. I would just. I would just stop mentioning pop ups and I'd start mentioning cakes and cupcakes. Your audience would be like, okay. And would you go back and delete that post? I would. Okay, last one. But we have some other ones for next week. Thank you guys for texting in. That really is helpful. Hey twins. Happy Tuesday. This is from the585.585. I was hoping I could pick your marketing brains a bit. And there's a lot of emojis in this.

[B]

You said emotions or emojis.

[A]

Emojis, probably emotions as well. The context is a bit long. I promise it'll make sense. Sense. And then it's the monkey that's covering its eye.

[B]

I'm tuning in.

[A]

Okay. Okay, tuning in. I've been in business a little over four years and primarily have done a mix of wedding orders, customs, pre sales and some markets. Last year I hit some major burnout trying to do all the things and it's resulted in a hard look at my business in a good way. I decided to majorly pivot and focus primarily on weddings and the occasional customs. But with that change, I really want to up level my brand and implement a better process for client experience. Really nice packaging, adjusting my pricing structure, et cetera, et cetera to bring it all more of a luxury, serious high end sort of brand. I feel like visually my current branding doesn't line up with that at all. And I'm planning to change the color scheme. Honestly, I've never been happy with it anyways and redo my website to better reflect this nicer brand. So my actual question, I know that's a lot to change. So would you announce the shift to your audience and current clients? It's so funny. Is like I think it's a piggyback now. Victoria, have you been talking to 58 5? Would you announce the shift to your audience and current clients? Do you have. Do you do a big lead up and a reveal or would you just start shifting your marketing more towards the wedding scene and slowly roll out the rest of the change changes? I'm super excited for this new direction and finally feel like I figured out what I want in this business and what it's supposed to be. But I also don't want to completely alienate my audience. I'm so sorry this is so long, but thank you so much for all you do. And your advice, you might have yellow.

[B]

Heart emojis alienate your audience, but you're going to not service those people anymore.

[A]

Well, she said the occasional custom.

[B]

The occasional custom. So what that tells me is we're not just going to do this ginormous announcement because you're so excited. Yeah. You're very excited and that's something to be excited about. We're gonna. And we're going to progressively start changing our website. It'll be on the DL.

[A]

We're not even going to say our website's changed.

[B]

No, we're just going to start changing it. Maybe we're going to start changing the rebrand, rebranded colors. I'm not sure if you're sticking with the same logo and you're just changing the colors or if it's going to be a complete name change, rebrand, everything like that.

[A]

The name change, the major. I'm changing my name. We did another podcast on it. We did it with Corey's name but now with their product offering your be. If you do a name and a product offering change. That's a bigger one.

[B]

That's a bigger one.

[A]

You'll have to make an announcement.

[B]

But if you're just.

[A]

It's doing brand refresh little hints, I would roll it out just the same. We said to Victoria just it starts appearing, it starts appearing your audience be like, oh nice. You can do like hey guys. Changing my colors. But we're not doing that and I'm not taking any orders unless you're getting married.

[B]

What's going to. And I don't even like the word alienate. What's going to take your old customers or replace them with new customers as you're upping your packaging, your prices up.

[A]

Prices will do that.

[B]

That is going to start filtering out the old people and start filtering in this new higher end clientele that you're trying to go for. So it's going to be a natural progression. Just like we said with the last one. No ginormous announcement because you might not take off right at the beginning.

[A]

And the wedding still said the occasional custom.

[B]

Yeah. So we still want those people to feel like they're going to be taken care of.

[A]

Agreed. So your content, your. Let's do 100. If we have 100% of your month laid out, eventually starting off you may do 50. 50. 50 wedding luxe stuff. 50. The old stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Then the next month we're going to do 60, 40 and then we're doing 70, 30 until really it's mostly what you Want to be selling.

[B]

Yeah. And unfortunately, when you take that bluey.

[A]

Cookie order, maybe you're not going to.

[B]

Post it, and that sucks. It was a lot of time.

[A]

There's a lot of work. It's a lot of ego in there. It feels good for people to think, that's the cutest bluey cookie I've ever seen. Unless bluey's getting married, we're not going to post it because that's not what we want to call today. So instead, what you're going to post is that wedding set you took all those really fancy photos of. You're going to continue posting that type of content. Your website. When I look at it, I shouldn't even see a bluey cookie. I should see those luxury colors. You know what we're talking about when we do it with that serif font that looks like fancy, and it's going to scream that this is going to be a wedding type baby. Yeah. And I think that's a great question. I think your head is in the right space. Obviously, you kind of answered it in your question question because I feel like you knew what we were going to say. And Victoria was like, girl, why don't you tell me that?

[B]

Right, right, right.

[A]

So again, we don't want the identity crisis. We don't want the whiplash. We're just going to slowly roll it out, and then we're going to start rejecting the orders that we don't want. In the event that you do want to take that custom because it's super easy and cute or you feel like it don't have to post about it, but you can make that.

[B]

Yeah. As wedding season is like landscaping season. You got your big seasons and you got your not so big seasons.

[A]

Oh, yeah. When it slows down, down, you might want.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You don't want to say, I. I'm open.

[B]

I'll take whatever.

[A]

Bluey cookies. Bring them away. Yeah.

[B]

So as you want to not do that giant announcement, because when you have a slow time, you're going to be able to take more of those customs. You just won't be posting those to your page.

[A]

We'll still play them. Yep, yep. I like it. Moving on, we have the Vendy Blendy talking about it. The VB it's November. November be 29th. Thank goodness. Not November 5th. Because we want to be.

[B]

I know, I know.

[A]

November 29th will still be. Oh, we're the Black Friday nightmare.

[B]

I know.

[A]

We are also capitalizing on that.

[B]

I was thinking, like, you know, every year I'm like, Are we good marketers? But every year we have to restart.

[A]

Advertising for the venue.

[B]

Oh, my goodness. I'm like, wow, I couldn't build off of what I've done.

[A]

Last year, I was talking to over the weekend, another person who sells, like, courses and stuff, stuff in the baking industry. And she was like, she has, like, the doors open and closed.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I was like. She was like, yeah, I think I want to do away with that because it is so confusing. But then you lose fomo. And I said, listen, marketing is a strategy, and some things you get at the cost of other things. And the Vendee Blendy's massive FOMO is a ton of work and marketing from scratch each year.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because people will be like, why do you keep removing us from the group? You could just keep adding people to it, but we're like, that's where the FOMO comes in. To be forcibly removed from a group is such a vibe.

[B]

I feel like. Like we're forcing ourselves to never stop marketing.

[A]

Like, are never. Do you ever really stop? Life's questions. Do you ever really stop?

[B]

When I die, I'll stop.

[A]

Here's my one. I was thinking about this. In life, life is marketing. Finding a. A spouse, you marketed yourself.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Finding a job, you marketed yourself. Finding a car, you let yourself get marketed to. Would you help that? Because you were picking.

[B]

When I needed to find my son a school, I'm like, let's dress to impress.

[A]

Getting your kids to do anything. Marketing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Hey, you guys, brush your teeth. And on the other end is this toy.

[B]

I know, I know. Marketing.

[A]

Tired of it, but it's forever. Yeah.

[B]

I'm like, do you want friends peel on your deodorant?

[A]

At the end of the day, it's all sales pitch in a packaging. However you want to do that. But the Vendy Blendy is November 29th. It is 24 hours.

[B]

It's 24 hours. The vendors that are participating.

[A]

My Vend Blendy. Back to me.

[B]

Listen. People are asking me, how long is the Vendy Blendy? When is four hours? When does it start?

[A]

It starts. Starts midnight. So, okay, it's November 28th. Our eyes are bleeding because it's Thanksgiving night and we're still awake for some reason. The clock ticks 11:59. Ding. Midnight. You hear the chime. The Vendee Blendy starts. It is November 29th, and at 12:01, you're in the group. Yes. Frantically buying for the next 24 hours. The group is wide open. It's an exciting place. There are Giveaways. Cory and I are working on some giveaways. Giveaways I think you guys are gonna like. There are giveaways all day long. There's prompts, there's help me find threads, there's I had this idea thread. There's demonstrations and product. And then 24 at the 23rd hour and 59th minute suddenly. Well, for the next, for that one last hour, you'll see me start to delete everything and then everyone. Then I'll it's just a free for all. And then I remove the group post. It's just a wild thing. But at that next midnight, 24 hours after that first midnight, the group shuts down.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In the next PIN post with all.

[B]

The discount codes comes down.

[A]

Oh, I'm sorry. The Google sheet share changes. I restrict it and you can't do those anymore. Everything disappears.

[B]

Disappears. But it is so much fun. The vendors have to offer 25% off or more.

[A]

Last year of 25% off last year.

[B]

Last year it was 20% off and they said you know what? Bet we'll offer 25% off or more right now. What's the number of vendees that we have?

[A]

54.

[B]

54.

[A]

54. And I have about. About five or six. I'm talking to five or six. I have some vendors from last year that have confirmed just never signed up according post.

[B]

Okay. Right now for pendy people, people who are pending in the group, we have 2. 402. Which I think was.

[A]

Wait, how much?

[B]

2402.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

A growth from last year.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So it is the season.

[A]

Okay. But you're also going to see us. It's October 1st. We're going to really ramp up promoting this. So my apologies.

[B]

I'll be sick of myself too.

[A]

Oh, nobody's seen her post anyways. Be annoying. Absolutely. Listen to ourselves. Listen to ourselves. So I'm gonn go through the vendors from the bottom to the top.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Or should we go from the top to the bottom? Yeah. Actually this is actually one of the vendors that has been one of the best vendors that we've ever had. And I'm always impressed that they keep coming back beyond it. The cookie college will be on sale on that day. Corey and I are going to be working on our discounts. Our our promos. It should be a blast. So we have the cookie college blue honeycutter coat, Bobby's cutters, the domestic cookie, more decor 41 smart cookies and crafts, love and flour, baking supplies, cup of cookies, mixer skirt, cookie cutters by Nori Acor backers the backers Go Sweet Bite app Ms. Cookie Packaging Sunshine Day Biz Sweeties Tasty Treats and Scribes the Bougie Baker Boutique Lollibies Custom Cutters Minted Prints Brighton Cutters Cookier Prints Dare to Bake Whipsy Busy Bakers Chew a Cookie Sweet Pink Olive Jojo Specialty Shop Sugarloaf Mountain Designs My Dope Mad Batter Cookie Co Salmon June's Bake Shop the Cookie the Dessert Depot Scribes By Cheryl's My2Cooks the Pink Piggy the Sugar Cookie Dealer Tasty Tin Roses Cookie Shop Cute Cookie Kits Karen Togy the Sweetest Tears Baker's Cutters and Prints Equinox Pastry Supply Sugar Dash Co. How sweet is that? Christine's Molds Co Sign Bags all you can cookie A custom cookie Cookie Design Lab Bees Baked Art Supplies PK Bakes Sugar on top and the Baking Beavers. I don't know why that is Baking Beavers.

[B]

I thought I almost said the Justin Bieber.

[A]

No, it's a baking beaver. It's just a beaver's second guess. So that is the Vendee Blendy. I'll be rolling out more content about it. I'll be doing a Facebook live. I'm going to add an event to the group so we can organize this. But you guys are about to be spammed with the potential for discounts. So you may be listening to this and say how much does it cost to buy nothing? You just buy everything at 25% off. That's your only cost. There are a lot of door prizes. No cost. They cannot make you buy something to have to enter. So they have to have a no cost entry. So funny. Went to this car show this weekend, right? And you know car shows, right? It's raining. Yeah, yeah. And this dude gets out of a. If you know the type S and type R. This dude gets out of a type R. I have a type F. And his wife comes up to me and she's like, well, where's Corey? What? And I said, I said I have. How do you know there's two of me? I never tell anybody that. Nobody at a car show would know me.

[B]

Do you look how you do right now?

[A]

I had a little bit of makeup on. Oh, okay. Yeah. At least I had a little bit different. But my hair was an absolute frizz buggy. It was very. It's been raining. It has only been raining. It rained. I washed the car the night before. It rained on it on the drive there. So whatever, right? And I said I. How in the world and she's like, I'm from the Sugar Cookie Marketing group and I won. She said, I won the Vendee Blendy. I got my dope last year.

[B]

She said, I won. That's hilarious.

[A]

She's like, I haven't baked a lot this year. She's like, but I'm pending. I said, I've never heard somebody say these words in the world. That army. And I was like, that was hilarious. And that was funny. So that Vendee Blendy. Search thevendies.com HTTP nos vendis.com thevendies.com if you want to see this list, however, I'll be posting it frequently and I'll be making announcements about each of these shops and what their top sellers are. Because I feel like I like to know what a top seller is.

[B]

If you like video content, Corey, they can send in stuff and I will show you.

[A]

Most of them did. And which ones have you covered already?

[B]

Today we did the backers company. They came out with a wine one. Yeah, it's gorgeous. We've done a domestic cookie has sent theirs.

[A]

Oh you had all that butter stuff which is cute. You have it on your phone right now.

[B]

Yeah, the one that's coming up.

[A]

Bougie Baker Boutique and that she lives actually down. She does drawn it at your house. Yeah.

[B]

So if you want to. I've done a few extra. Come to our Instagram page. I am posting it in the group so you can find it.

[A]

But the Instagram if you want to be spammed. What are you looking at?

[B]

Someone said Vendy Blendy special request best. It's an email.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Moist noise.

[A]

I'll read it and see if I can.

[B]

But if you want to our Instagram I'm posting those photo videos there. I'm posting the videos also on our Tick Tock and on our main page. So if you're like I want. I've heard this business name. I don't know what they kind of sell. I kind of unpackage it for you so we can kind of go over what they sell. If you want to stock up this year. What I would say prep now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

By saying like I know in, you know, Valentine's Day I want to offer, you know, a four inch cookie or something like that. You can prep on the packaging. You can buy the packaging at a discount.

[A]

Plan ahead. That's where this is gonna. I don't. You know, I love the foam and I love the compulsive spending. That's my M.O. but this is a lot. If you can strategy this because I don't want you to just waste your money. Yeah.

[B]

Because if you're like, you know, I'm gonna run out of piping bags. A lot of these shops offering offer piping bags. If you want to test them out now to see if you like them, buy a pack now.

[A]

Cookie cutter sets for Valentine's Day. Absolutely.

[B]

Packaging is great. If you know you're going to be a vendor in the summer, you can buy the baking T shirts now and be prepared and just have it at a discount.

[A]

Right. Whoever sent you that email did not send it to me. Disrespectful disrespect. Yeah.

[B]

It says, hi, Cory. I'm so sorry.

[A]

I'm so sorry. I just know you can afford it to me. Anyways, if you're interested in me becoming a vendor or want to learn more about it, I'm here to answer your little vendor questions. You can email me at. Hello. Oh, I'm so sorry, Heather SugarCookieMarketing.com this.

[B]

Is why it's for me. I have a new product I'm launching and I would love for it to be my spotlight for your review. That's all I'm saying.

[A]

Okay. Well, if you want to know what that product is and whoever sent it, email that to me.

[B]

How rude.

[A]

You can email me heather sugarcookiemarketing.com I also pinned the if you're a new vendor this year, I pinned that in the sugar cookie market group. All the information is there as well, including how much reach we have to market your product. Because I know a lot of people are like, this is great sales day for the vendors, but it's a huge marketing day. If I go back through Corey and my's numbers like our analytics, our biggest growth days are the vendor blender people signing up for a newsletter. It goes out, I think went by.

[B]

2,000 people following us on Instagram. You did a weird little Delicious.

[A]

Yeah, that was great. So that was our door prize prizes. So we had if you want to be entered and win a door prize, follow us on Instagram. So many people do. So we gotta make sure. We gotta pick our door price.

[B]

You guys have been great about pinging people and putting in their little ears about the vending blendy. Yeah, I really appreciate that.

[A]

Yeah, there's some. You guys have sent some really interesting people our way. Hopefully it works. So that is the venue blending. Very excited about it now too.

[B]

Oh, are you moving on to the next?

[A]

I was going to, but let's back.

[B]

Oh, wait, No, I was going to.

[A]

Move on to that box.

[B]

No, we got to go over to the Cookie College. Cookie College is a membership that we offer. In the Cookie College you get everything we offer. And the next cookie class kits is dropping this week.

[A]

So if you're wondering what our Vendy Blendy promo is, the Cookie College is $76 right now. But in the Vendy Bundy, we'll go back to our old grandfathered introductory 2021 pricing of 68. We only ever do it once a year. Yeah, it's only ever on the vending blendy. If you even signed up today because you wanted to teach like a class kit, they already have. I offer that discount if you're even a current member. I spam the current members at 76 and 8. Let's get you down to that discount so you could sign up today and then come November we could get you back into that discount so you get all the classes, all the kits. Corey just announced our November Thanksgiving class that drops on October this first week, which is.

[B]

It gives you a month to market.

[A]

The hour of victim. It almost gives you two months because Thanksgiving's so far away. The Halloween class dropped out on September 1st. It was a build your own skeleton class. This Thanksgiving class is adorable. Corey's already shown me the Christmas class. I did.

[B]

And listen, I did show the Cookie College the Christmas class. And from their pure reactions and comments.

[A]

It'S a great one because here's the thing. So this year, the first year of the cookie class kids was last year. So we did all the primary holidays this year to give people more options. We did the secondary holidays with the promise that we'd return back to the primary holiday holidays for the last three months to give people more elbow room to offer two different Christmas classes or two different Thanksgiving classes. So the offerings are really cute. You could almost, if you wanted to mix and match the class.

[B]

What I'm saying the Cookie College people do is they're teaching two different ones from the different years at different venues.

[A]

Very nice. So now you have more interesting content. The funny thing is Cory and I are lazy and cheap. So we'll be teaching last year's Halloween class. I liked it. That's absolutely fine. Have all the cutters and everything. So that is the Cookie College. You can check that out atthecookie college.com I'll post in the Wednesday Wednesday newsletter that goes out tomorrow at 8. I will post the Thanksgiving class picture. Oh, that'll be good.

[B]

The graphic or the actual photo?

[A]

The actual one from Your desk that you did the pre decoration. But you can see actually if you want to follow sugar cookie marketing underscore on Instagram, Corey does a walkthrough preview of those cookies I did with chef ordered chicken hands. I'm sorry, Chicken hands. If you're wondering what that is, I'm not lying. That's exactly.

[B]

There's cuz I got the cat mittens.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I had to do something nice.

[A]

Someone take Bezos. Take prime away from this woman right now.

[B]

And then for the Halloween I found two skeleton arms.

[A]

That was hilarious. You guys. Can't wait for Christmas because that'll be a good one too. There's a little reindeer.

[B]

It's the green.

[A]

Oh, that's hilarious. You guys can learn more about the cookie college or sign up for just the kit or the digital downloads. I'm actually, actually I have the digital download just ready to go.

[B]

Did you download this time?

[A]

It's very, very good. I don't know if Stephanie Simmons listens to the podcast, but she is local to us and in the cookie college. And she loves Eddie.

[B]

Yeah, they're Eddie. They are the Eddie queens and kings.

[A]

Yeah. Her and her husband work together, which is interesting that they don't. They are able to be together that long. Corey and Nate could never. She said. So Corey did a pyo. Yeah. Pumpkin face. It was using the Anna Clark metal pumpkin. Yeah.

[B]

And the royal icing. The scraping method.

[A]

Right. So super normal. And she was like, hey, I don't like doing pyos with the stencil. Could you guys make Eddie faces for that? So I was like, well, it's actually a great idea. So instead of just making the outlines. Yeah. I actually made the faces and I uploaded them all to the two dollar transfer class. Yeah. Last night. They're all the pumpkins face. So you can make a transfer if you wanted. And they have the 1 inch, the 0.75 and 0.5. But I'm also making those into just a whole Eddie print and then the pyo Eddie.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'll take some photos of that so you guys can see what that'll be.

[A]

The digital downloads. I know I'm like a day late and a dollar short, but I just need Cory to run a test on it, make sure everything's lined up correctly.

[B]

Yeah, we were discussing it over the phone.

[A]

You should have heard that. Was it 4 inches? I don't know. Can I get some? Let me go find a ruler. How much please? You know, I don't know. A half an inch. You're just. Are you holding up your fingers? I need you to get a ruler. So anyways, that digital downloads is also the transfer. So now you have a new pumpkin, a skull, and then you have eight. Eight pumpkin faces. That would be kind of a cute thing. One of the pumpkin faces is super, like, I made these, like, super unconventional, you guys. That's what I like.

[B]

I like that.

[A]

So that is the cookie college. And there's a lot to offer there. And then we'll be having some fun discounts. Okay. All right.

[B]

What?

[A]

We're doing an unboxing. Corey is going to narrate this. Heather Campbell Berkshire Kim Mim Sims. They went to. It's so nice. Heavy. They went to you. Me. Move your drink and stuff. I'm going to hold it.

[B]

Just.

[A]

You're still going to talk. They went to CookieCon and they created us a cookie con care package.

[B]

A goodie bag.

[A]

And it's so funny, I didn't text in that. We got it because I was like, I'm going to surprise Cory with it. But last time she was like, I'm so sorry. Did you get a package from us? And I said, you know, in hindsight, I should have. So Cory's going to narrate to us what's on this box. Heather Campbell Berkshire is a Disney trip planner and hosted the happy hour for ass. This is so sticky.

[B]

First out, of course, they gave two because they know how to deal with.

[A]

Do you know what this is?

[B]

This is a Freddy bear.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And he's wearing a butter backpack.

[A]

Do you know who his cousin is?

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

The Eddie bear.

[B]

Oh, the Eddie and Freddy bear.

[A]

So Primera at CookieCon. If you've heard the Freddy rumors, they had one at CookieCon. And I'm sure you saw these Facebook lives in the groups. That is adorable. So what they did is they created a machine that. That, you know, the other machine prints on cookies. This one floods cookies. It's. It's just. It's mindboggling these. If you did the pre order of Freddy, you got these Freddy bears, these stuffed animals. Yeah. So I was. So I said, did somebody order it? And Heather's like, I can't tell you, but I'm not saying. Let's see the card. Read it along.

[B]

It's very, very long. Twinsies. Art, thank you so much for helping us throw another successful Happy Hour at CookieCon. This was by far the best one yet. Cause you two weren't there.

[A]

Just kidding. Several people told us how much they.

[B]

Enjoyed it, and many stayed until the End. We also very much enjoyed our spa day gift. We did have to bribe them.

[A]

We love bribing. What can we say?

[B]

It was much needed for both of us and was a great way to catch a breather before diving further into the con. Hoping you can join us for the next one. Heather Campbell Brookshire.

[A]

Do you know why we paid for the spot I gift? Because they invited us out to Texas for the grand opening. And you're bun that doesn't like to get in planes and go. So I said, I'm so sorry. At least like, let us do your spa day so you guys can at least relax from having to talk to Corey. Next in the box. Okay. These.

[B]

Okay. We do not in northern Virginia have a BUC EE's. But when we went down to a cookie con a few years ago, we passed BUC EE's.

[A]

Of course, we had to go.

[B]

And they have things called beaver nuggets.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They are so stinking good. So we have peanut butter and caramel popcorn nuggies.

[A]

Kim and Heather are from Texas. I forget that sometimes. And that's the where Becky starts. Started. Yeah.

[B]

My favorite. These are the sea salted caramel nuggets.

[A]

Oh, geez. They are so good.

[B]

I only get them when they send.

[A]

Them up here, which is so stinking delicious.

[B]

Now we have a bag absolutely filled.

[A]

Of trades from people there. It's so filled, I don't even think.

[B]

I could go through it.

[A]

And honest to God, I don't know what I've ever seen in my life. They're conjoined right there. It's a is. It's so cute.

[B]

There's so many cards in here, so many trades. I can't wait to go through it.

[A]

But then you go through it and take a mass photo.

[B]

I could try.

[A]

Yeah. That is so.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I can't wait to eat you. I want to say you two ladies are insane. How do you say Kim. Kim demil Sims. But I call her Kim M. Sims. She opened a brick and mortar like a month ago in August.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And Beans and Brews. She has given us a play by play. She's a cookie college member as well and just goes live and is like, hey, guys. She produced her.

[B]

On this box, it says beans and Bruce.

[A]

That's hilarious. If you're in. Where do they live? Austin? I don't know. I think it's Austin.

[B]

Texas is.

[A]

Texas is a country. They live in the country of Texas. And if you go to Beans and Brews, I know they're teaching even classes there. They're Emotional support. Bakers to each other. Yes. Yeah. Esp. And if you want to meet them in person, go take one of the classes. Absolutely.

[B]

How fun. You won't meet nicer people on the planet.

[A]

Planet. You may actually recognize them from Food Channel.

[B]

Yes. Heather Campbell. Yeah.

[A]

Anyways, big thanks to them. Heather Campbell Berkshire is in a Disney trip planner. So if you want to plan, I mean, just the fact that this box is so cool, all you need to know is your dreams will come true with this lady.

[B]

Next up, sponsors. Without them, this podcast would not be here weekly. We might be grateful for that, but our sponsors starting off with the backers company featured them as at the Vendy. They will be at the Vendy Blendy, but you can. If you don't want to wait for them to sell out, you can snag and bag whatever you want. They just came out with this red wine one. It's a deep red color. It's gorgeous. Like, especially for Christmas, Valentine's Day coming up. And they have this evergreen super mat. It is so pretty. And it's great for Christmas as well. I. I posted two photos of me using them. I forced myself to bake something that would comp supplement those because they were so pretty. So you guys could see the backers co used to be called a core backers. They're going through a rebranding. If you want to score, they have a 20 off for our group. The code is sugar cookie, not plural. And you can get 20 off now. So what I suggest is if you have one that's on your need list, get that now at 20 off. If you have something that's on your want list, get that for the Vendi Blendy because they'll be having 30% off that day.

[A]

Right? Right. Last. Not even. Last. Not even. Least. Okay, Eddie. He is a direct to food printer, I think. Did we talk about him in last week's podcast for like corporate orders?

[B]

Like we've talked about them.

[A]

Yeah, we have talked about them. They have been with the podcast for a while and for good reason. That machine is incredible. It is a direct to food printer. You print on food. Crazy printing food. You do it, Eddie. There. Not cheap though. $3,000. So if you've been a good little Santa's helper, maybe that would be your wish list.

[B]

Yeah, you could have a bunch of family members go in on it. Be great.

[A]

I'd say if you really liked my. If at any time in the last 365 days you ate my cookie. I come to you today asking for donations from Eddie. But the Eddy Printers users group on Facebook is where you're going to find all the information. I've always said to Corey, it is wild to me that Primera, the company that makes Eddie, offers that group because so few, few products offer support groups.

[B]

You like buying and then you're on your own.

[A]

Yeah, you're really true. I know all your issues, they're your problem. Like, no offense to Bamboo Printers, I really like them. But the, it's like the Bamboo Printers group. It's run by other people and they're kind of. Yeah, this Primera is out in the comment section helping you. They, they go out of their way to really make sure that people enjoy their products. I know people are like. But there's, there's so many complaints. No, no, no. What you're seeing is a confirmation bias. The only people who complain are the people who need help. Yeah, right. The people busy printing money with it. They don't need your help and they don't need a comment.

[B]

You might say $3,000 out of my budget. But listen, they have a refer program I do like.

[A]

I think it brings almost a grand off.

[B]

Yeah, that could definitely be something that your little elves could help you do.

[A]

And why I'd love to say buy directly from Primera. You could buy a used Eddie, not refurbished from a third party. And they'll still give you the one hour, one hour training session tutorial thing. As we see that people get tired of baking and exit, they often and, you know, sell their Eddie at a huge discount as well. Discounted Eddie, definitely.

[B]

Great. I was able to print someone's grandmother last week on a dozen.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Martha, you're delicious.

[B]

You're delicious. Last but not least, if you like the way my cookies look, the way my cookies flood my little ASMR videos, the meringue powder that I use that has been just a game changer for me is called, called Royal Batch. And it's by a company called Bakety Bake. The reason why I love it is because it whips up a bright white. I made a batch this morning.

[A]

Love it.

[B]

I love making my icing colors in the morning, coming in, decorating at night, because when I come home, they're all ready to go. The, the worst part about the whole cookie decorating is mixing the icing.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And decorating, I've heard. And making the dough the whole party.

[A]

It's all right to people and having to talk. Yeah. The only part I like is the money.

[B]

But Royal Batch already has three main ingredients in it. That most people have to add to. To it. It already has a white food coloring, so it whips up bright white, which saves you a step. It already has corn syrup in there, so it gives it a softer bite. And it has vanilla extract, which I absolutely love the taste of vanilla. Delish.

[A]

Cor and I went to that creme brulee restaurant and there were so many vanilla bean dots. What are these dots? I knew they were vanilla bean, but what are the dots?

[B]

It's vanilla bean seeds inside.

[A]

That's a seed. I decimated the population. Does.

[B]

Does that seed grow a vanilla? I don't think so.

[A]

So those tiny speckles, like when you.

[B]

Open a vanilla bean pod and scrape it.

[A]

I know. That's what comes.

[B]

That's what's babies. I don't know if it's. They were so tiny for that speckly.

[A]

But they're delectable.

[B]

They were all in that creme brulee. They were swimming in there. Delish. Delish. Anyways, you can get Royal batch at a 10 off discount. And word on the street, she will be at the Vendee Blendy for 25 off. But if you want to score it now before she sells out, you can use code twin wins. Twins.

[A]

10 off.

[B]

10 off right now.

[A]

So thank you to those sponsors. You're great. You're wonderful. You're beautiful. You're very demure. Yeah. Very cutesy. Very cutesy. Moving on. Am I missing it? Your twin? I feel like I'm missing something. My twin turtles was running into a cookie.

[B]

A sugar cookie twin truck.

[A]

Yeah, that. Would it be odd? It's so correct. Here's another twin choice. If you want. If you want to be pressured in this bending. Ruthanne, our grandmother, she is high maintenance. Pillows like that lady will burn through pillows trying to find the perfect one. And I got a sign. Walking shoes. Oh, yeah, the walking shoes thing is ridiculous. But she. She just. She buys a pair of shoes and immediately returns them before she even takes them out. However, with the pillows. If your neck hurts while you sleep, you'll. You'll pay. Whatever my neck does hurt, I'm going to have you try out this fella. She says, hey, can I ask for your help? I said, yeah, what do you need? And she's like, do you promise? I said, sure. And she's like, are you sure? And I said, are we bearing a dead body? Like, what is it, woman spit out? And she's like, I can't put my pillow cover.

[B]

Like the.

[A]

I can't get it over this pillow And I was like, oh. Not to say I'm an expert pillow shover in her, but I can. But it was this funky pillow. It was so wild.

[B]

She just goes for the weird ones.

[A]

She was like, listen, I. Unfortunately she's on a YouTube premium plan. There's no ads. She's just burning through YouTube. She's like, I found this doctor, he recommended this pill on Amazon. I bought it. It's changed my life. Changed my life. It's so funky shaped though. I don't know how to put the pillowcase back on.

[B]

Is it got an armhole in it?

[A]

No. It's just as weird though. I'm gonna have you try it because I actually ended up buying it.

[B]

It has four things that shoot up on your face.

[A]

It's very close to that. But I know what you're talking about. It's not from TikTok. Okay. This is from YouTube. But it's sold on Amazon. It is very interesting. 35 sounds good. Oh, that's not bad. It's worth a taste test of pillows. And I hate consumerism and, you know, burning through products. But with a pill, you almost have to find one that works me if.

[B]

You do not know me. And Heather's brains are so full of knowledge. Our heads are huge. But what happens with our pillows is these giant noggins will just wear a little hole. The cotton, the little feathers push to the side.

[A]

The gel can only gel so hard and it just causes neck pain. Yeah. Cuz nothing is worse than when you turn right too fast and then you just get a shooting pain.

[B]

I. The reason why I toss and turn at night is because my neck hurts. So I have to go to one side of the pillow.

[A]

I'm not sure. I'll have you try this out. I actually made mine. Mom and Ashley try it out on Sunday and they were gonna get it.

[B]

Because Amazon has a good return policy.

[A]

You're not gonna return a pillow because.

[B]

Amazon has a good return policy.

[A]

It's always like, am I. Sometimes I think, am I getting something? Somebody returns.

[B]

I want to tell you, I got a book from Amazon.

[A]

You ordered a book book down your account for.

[B]

There was something sticky all over it.

[A]

What was the book?

[B]

It was a kid's book. Someone ordered a set. I had no idea what the book was.

[A]

You were gonna do some research. Yeah. I was like, there's literally some.

[B]

Something sticky all over the place. Disgusting. It was sticking to everything.

[A]

My personal health would be a world cover in stuff that's slightly sticky, but it stays in your hands. That would Be my health. Well you can't really technically see it. I hate. And there's no chance of washing your hands in the next two hours. It would.

[B]

You'd almost have to lick your fingers that.

[A]

And when you make that little nail catches on something your fingernails and then it feels like that feeling of your pants like. Oh a snag. Hate it. A snag that would be. What is your personal health?

[B]

My personal health. I even thinking about it right now in the freezer when the freezer gets too freezy and it builds up ice on the side when something touches that.

[A]

I hate that sound.

[B]

It.

[A]

My teeth feel like is it chalkboardy sound to you?

[B]

It's not. Chalkboard's fine.

[A]

This is worse.

[B]

This almost my teeth want to fall out of their little spots. Like it it just the way it goes through every single tooth and I don't know why it's affecting my teeth.

[A]

Like when a coke can touches that ice wall.

[B]

Yeah but like sometimes. Yeah. If I put a plastic thing in there and it catches the side.

[A]

Put styrofoam in there and watch the world end.

[B]

Yeah. Even me thinking about that right now.

[A]

It's just we all have our. We're all in our little own hells man. I went to Walmart. Was going to get a body wash. Some. Some body wash leaked on the body wash that I was grabbing sticky. And then you have that weird slip. Yeah.

[B]

What are you going to do? Go to the back to Walmart to wash your hands. It's a 52 mile drive.

[A]

I ran the whole way. Get this off of my hands. Is that the podcast? Did you have a twin trust other than the things you did, Corey, Do.

[B]

I have a twin trust? What have I done lately? What have I gotten?

[A]

You went to the Mio Cafe.

[B]

The one.

[A]

Oh yeah. I thought this was so cute.

[B]

We don't have anyone where near us but I took my son to my favorite sushi restaurant which is about 40 minutes away.

[A]

But you went to Ashburn Frakura. The family was mad you had to drive past us to get there but.

[B]

It was already late in the day. So my son is obsessed with cats and I was like now he's the actually fun to hang out with.

[A]

That is so great.

[B]

Yeah. He was not before.

[A]

He has changed a lot. He has changed a lot. Easier to talk to. Yeah.

[B]

So then I was like you know what he would. He loves cats. So I found this cat cafe that's about an hour away. You could just book online and then go in there. We were about an Hour early. But they had 17 adoptable cats from a rescue.

[A]

17. 17. Before you guys know, the cat cafe can't actually serve food. You have to, like, order food.

[B]

1. There was no food. The word cafe shouldn't have been on there.

[A]

Cat cafes are not what you think they're really adopted. Adoption portal. She was like, we have some.

[B]

They had a mini fridge with like canned Cokes in there. But you weren't allowed to actually take it in where the cats were. But you would have to have drank it with her watching you in the front, dude.

[A]

That's how wild.

[B]

I could not do that. So I said, you know, we'll skip the diet Coke.

[A]

How much did you have to pay.

[B]

To sit there for two people was $38.

[A]

Oh, my goodness. To sit in a pound.

[B]

To sit in a pound. All proceeds went to the rescue. You. The treats. You got five in a bag. I want to tell you, I can buy that.

[A]

Fifteen cats.

[B]

No, the treats were extra. You know, a bag of Friskies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Probably is five dollars.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You got four of them. Four and four and a little.

[A]

Little or what?

[B]

Four little treatles that are two calories each. Yeah.

[A]

A pill, a cat pillow treat. You got four of those for how?

[B]

$2.99.

[A]

Yeah, I'd rather just go to the pound where they encourage you to bring treats.

[B]

So here's the thing. The cats can choose to sit with you. They had many rules. You couldn't mess with a sleeping cat. You can't pick up the cats. If the cat chooses to sit on you. That's the only time it's acceptable for a cat to sit on you. You can pet any cat. They have laser pointers. They have little things you can play with older cats. Off limits.

[A]

Was it fun?

[B]

Cat that goes to the bathroom cannot follow him into the room.

[A]

Archer really enjoyed it.

[B]

We found two very, very cats they had inside of.

[A]

They're going to save cat. That's fine.

[B]

I know they've been trained to come to that treatle sounding where you shake it. They. All the cats woke up for that. As soon as we ran out of trees, all the cats dispersed.

[A]

Well, hey, you know what? I would do the same.

[B]

But then there was books of, like, past, like cats. But she came in and out.

[A]

Is there WI fi? Could you work on your computer? There's no WI fi.

[B]

There was not even good. I don't know. I said, you know, Archer, if they did have good WI fi, I could see you coming and working.

[A]

Ashley said said, It's Georgetown University in dc. Yeah, they have a cat cafe next to those because they were like, yeah, you can't eat here, but you can sit and work with a cat in your door because you can't have a cat.

[B]

Yeah, but yeah, no, they did have chairs. It was oddly.

[A]

$10 to 7 at the end of the day. It was very, very clean for 17 cats.

[B]

Being in a room that was better than I thought. I thought it was going to just be covered in hair.

[A]

Are the cats not fighting with each other?

[B]

Some of them were. She said if they get really bad, they go into a foster home and they're no longer allowed in there.

[A]

This is only the best of the best. Did anybody walk in while you were there?

[B]

One family with. They. They brought new treatles in and the cats re awoke for them.

[A]

We lost all of our cat pull. They all left. This is a wild. It was crazy. It was crazy. It was.

[B]

My son loved it. I don't think I could go there.

[A]

I was just like we could go every week.

[B]

I said, well, whatever month I was.

[A]

Saying this might be a decent place. If you're not buying a cat for your kid, like as a pet, this would be a good thing. They're trying to get you to adult too.

[B]

So she actually came in for the majority of time talking my ear off. Each cat's history.

[A]

I'm sorry. This is my worst nightmare.

[B]

Susie was from Kuwait.

[A]

We have this. There's somebody here that's getting Kuwait cats and bring them here for it must.

[B]

Be the one that supplies that because that's what they were from.

[A]

We went through.

[B]

The one was blind in one eye.

[A]

We went. I love a maze animal. I would love to bring bring them back to the testing lifestyle.

[B]

Chip, oldest 15 years old.

[A]

Love me an old cat.

[B]

Socks. Youngest 4 months old.

[A]

Give me something old.

[B]

Yeah, so I thought that was pretty interesting.

[A]

There's none near us.

[B]

They're all in like Loud county and.

[A]

D.C. where did you go? Oh, Sterling.

[B]

Yes, Sterling. Way, way over yonder. Yeah, there was a lot of money.

[A]

I should recall it stolen.

[B]

Oh no, too many.

[A]

That is crazy. That's the podcast kids. See you. See you next week.