181. Baking it Down - Correlation and Causation

Summary

Episode 181: Correlation and Causation Release Date: October 8, 2024

Hosts: Heather and Corrie Miracle
Podcast: Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

---

Introduction

In Episode 181 of Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing, hosts Heather and Corrie Miracle delve into the critical topic of Correlation and Causation in marketing. Drawing from their extensive experience within the Sugar Cookie Marketing Facebook group, which boasts over 47,000 bakers, they explore how misinterpreting data can lead to flawed business decisions.

Understanding Correlation vs. Causation

Heather introduces the concept with a relatable analogy:

"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." (04:12)

This sets the stage for understanding how marketers often confuse correlation (a relationship between two variables) with causation (one variable directly affecting another).

Common Misinterpretations in Marketing

The hosts discuss numerous scenarios where bakers might incorrectly attribute cause and effect, leading to misguided strategies:

• Social Media Engagement:
  Heather cites an instance where a YouTube short containing an error (misnaming a seahorse as a starfish) garnered significant engagement. The immediate assumption was that introducing errors boosts engagement, without considering other factors. (03:31)

"In marketing, we get so busy, we're also not just a marketing agency, we are bakers. It's easy to be like, okay, well, the correlation causation, I'm gonna just say, that's yes." (04:00)

• Staged vs. Unstaged Photography:
  They explore how an unstaged photo showing behind-the-scenes chaos (like icing everywhere) can increase reach by tapping into relatability, rather than the aesthetic appeal of staged photos. However, attributing the increased reach solely to the lack of staging without repeated testing can be misleading. (07:31)

"When you see really staged and crisp deliberate photography, we know we're being sold to, right? So if you're watching a Mercedes commercial... we're a little bit more defensive." (08:06)

Real-World Examples and Case Studies

Several real-life examples illustrate the pitfalls of confusing correlation with causation:

• Market Performance vs. External Factors:
  A poor performance at a craft fair due to incessant rain was mistakenly attributed to the ineffectiveness of markets in general. Instead, the actual cause was the weather, an external factor unrelated to the market strategy itself. (13:08)

• Pricing Strategies:
  Heather and Corrie discuss how raising prices in a rural area versus an urban one can have different impacts due to varying cost-of-living standards. A blanket statement like "I can't raise my prices because no one will pay" overlooks the nuanced factors that influence purchasing power. (31:56)

"If you charge your $10 may be right on par with New York's $20. And that's okay because the ratios are the same." (37:01)

Strategies to Avoid Mistakes

To prevent falling into the correlation-causation trap, the hosts offer actionable strategies:

• Consistent Testing:
  Emphasizing the importance of running multiple tests to verify hypotheses before making significant business changes.

"You have to do the test over and over again." (16:19)

• Comprehensive Data Analysis:
  Considering all possible variables and external factors that might influence the observed outcomes.

"Always look at the full picture... factor in economic shifts." (19:18)

• Avoiding Confirmation Bias:
  Heather advises asking questions in ways that elicit unbiased responses, ensuring a balanced perspective.

"Ask the opposite question... it gives you more of a perspective." (39:38)

Handling Feedback and Data

The hosts highlight the challenges of interpreting feedback from small sample sizes versus broader audiences:

• Minority Feedback:
  Corrie shares an example where only a few out of ten class attendees requested more advanced sessions, yet the baker decided to discontinue beginner classes based on this minority feedback. Heather counters that majority preferences should guide such decisions.

"You're putting 100% of the decision on 30% of the opinion." (22:37)

Audience Q&A Highlights

Listeners submitted questions, and Heather and Corrie provide insightful answers:

• Effective Newsletters:
  Stephanie from California inquires about crafting newsletters that go beyond mere sales pitches. Corrie recommends consistent scheduling and providing valuable, relevant content that indirectly promotes products.

"The more consistent your newsletter schedule is... how you word that question is going to warrant the replies they want." (42:14)

• Marketing to Corporate Clients:
  Tucson-based Danielle seeks advice on targeting corporate clients for holiday orders. The hosts suggest creating dedicated landing pages, optimizing ad strategies post-election month, and leveraging networking events over direct advertising to maximize budget efficiency.

"Optimize for conversions... run an ad and suggest to do it after November 5th." (55:30)

Final Takeaways

Heather and Corrie reinforce the importance of:

1. Comprehensive Analysis: Always consider all potential factors influencing your marketing outcomes.
2. Consistent Testing: Validate your assumptions through repeated experiments.
3. Avoiding Bias: Strive for objective insights by framing questions that elicit diverse perspectives.
4. Strategic Decision-Making: Base business decisions on robust data rather than isolated incidents or limited feedback.

"Proceed slowly into the change here and always question like, okay, here's what I'm changing. Is this having the effect that I want?" (38:52)

Conclusion

Episode 181 serves as a crucial reminder for bakery business owners to critically evaluate their marketing strategies. By distinguishing between correlation and causation, bakers can make informed decisions that genuinely drive business growth, rather than relying on misleading data interpretations.

---

Note: Timestamps correspond to the moments in the transcript where the quotes were mentioned.

Transcript

[A]

It is the podcast on a Tuesday and Corey got her ear pierced. I did. What is that piercing called?

[B]

I don't. So I thought they all had different names. Apparently Helix is everything from the top to the.

[A]

Okay, I'm gonna just point at part of my ear. Okay, I want you to tell me. Loeb. Helix.

[B]

Helix, tragias, conch. I have no idea. Do you have this one inner lobe? No, that's the conch one. Yeah. A little higher. I don't know.

[A]

What if I did. Right here.

[B]

I think it's a conch.

[A]

Oh, wow. I don't know.

[B]

Helix is what most of them are. I learned yesterday. Yeah.

[A]

So it's an interesting business model. Okay. Typically when you want to get your ears pierced, it's a little tweenagers go to Claire's and another tweenager permanently alters your body.

[B]

I went to Claire's many a time.

[A]

And it's wild because you are like, huh, this doesn't feel right. This girl who's selling me an NSYNC keychain is also using a tool. Then you get a little. And they're like, you need to go to tattoo parlors.

[B]

Yeah, but tattoo parlors. Even I have so many tattoos and I still feel uncool enough to watch. I think you always have to prove it. Yeah. And then you come in, you're like, I just want a little tiny piercing. They're like, you don't want a full sleeve tattoo.

[A]

Get out of here. Yeah, I just want to get my. I just want to get my little pierced.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So then this company comes in. Rowan. Rowan.

[B]

R O W A N Franchise.

[A]

Rowan and it Franchise. And the differentiator. And I think it's a stellar business model. Is a nurse does the piercing. But it's a very cute, well branded, clean aesthetic.

[B]

It's inviting. She said kids and moms love to come. So while a mom wouldn't want to bring her seven year old to like this kind of dirty, grungy tattoo shop. And they're not dirty grungy. I get it. But they are, like, a little overwhelming.

[A]

They are overwhelming, that's for sure.

[B]

Yeah. You could go into this brightly lit Rowan place, have a nurse do your tattoo.

[A]

Tattoo. Have a nurse do your little Helix.

[B]

Ear piercing or your lube.

[A]

And have you been able to sleep?

[B]

Oh, no, absolutely not.

[A]

No.

[B]

I actually touched it this morning and I. I thought I'd die and went.

[A]

Nothing is more painful.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Than an ear piercing and needing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Moving on. Tell us about this podcast.

[B]

This podcast is Actually a spin off from a group that's on Facebook. That's how we originally started. And one day I came together, I said, you know what? I really like listening to podcasts. And while I'm baking, I would love to be able to grow my business while I bake. So we, we said, let's make a podcast.

[A]

We didn't think anyone and still none of you are, but the podcast is actually drawn from problems and issues we see brought up in the group. So this is current issue issues, current issue issues. And we discuss them here on this. Yeah.

[B]

So either their market tips or tricks, there are issues people are having.

[A]

Dare I say marketing nuggets.

[B]

Nugget in no house.

[A]

Maybe even no house. Maybe if we get lucky, there's a no house trends that we see.

[B]

We're able to get a lot of information from the 47,000 bakers in the group. So we like to bring that to just one topic a week so you can learn. Know something, if you're gonna listen to this five years from now, when you finally catch up, the trend is probably over.

[A]

It's still probably applicable, but not in the hot button topic way it was. So podcast topic today is called the Devil is in the Data. And this is correlation and causation. So if you've never heard of that phrase, a great example of it is my, it was raining outside and my cat threw up. Thus, my cat throws up every time it rains. That's incorrect. It happened to be raining and the cat threw up. Is there any correlation between the two? Did one cause the other? So in marketing, we typically try something and our brains automatically think, well, there's a new rule here. Let me find out what it is.

[B]

I love doing that.

[A]

Right? Because. So let's say Corey posts a. Oh, you know, as a great example, I mentioned on the podcast, a couple of weeks ago, I uploaded a YouTube short where you accidentally called a seahorse a starfish. And all the comments. It got engagement because people were correcting that error. So my initial thought is now we must introduce errors to get engagement. The test there, though, is the more you run that test, you can actually decide you can prove through multiple test runs whether that is true or not. Yeah, in marketing, we get so busy, we're also not just a marketing agency, we are bakers. That it's easy to be like, okay, well, the correlation causation, I'm gonna just say, that's yes. And that's gonna change the trajectory of my marketing forever.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But when in reality, it was actually a knee Jerk reaction to a one time accidental thing. Not saying that they couldn't be right. I'm saying we're not giving it enough tests.

[B]

The big thing being the knee jerk reaction we see a lot of times in the baking group, like one one off customer will do something that's totally like irrational. And I'll see the baker being like, okay, so I'm going to have to redo my entire business plan for this one off issue.

[A]

Right. And that's what I want to talk about today. There's this quote I really liked. I took a statistics class last year and two years ago, statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. That that concept being like, what they conceal is actually the mean potatoes we want. Cory. And I said, it's so funny. You can tell a client you saw a 500. That sounds amazing. But it was a 500% increase because last month we had. We were in the negative. You were in the negative 500%. A 500% increase, while it sounds phenomenal, brings you back to 0% wild in marketing that we deal with percentages that are so crazy. If you ever pull up your Facebook analytics, specifically on a mobile device which only defaults to the last 30 days, the percentages are based on the prior 30 days, not the year prior. It's the 30 days prior. So what happens when we move into these super bowl months for cook years is everything will increase. You'll see percentage of reach, percentage of sales. Everything starts increasing over last month.

[B]

Yeah. But you'll also see over the increase, you're going to be like, well, I posted this one thing and increase just the time in general that we're approaching.

[A]

But the error might be, the attribution error is that the increase was for that content and not the time. So somebody had asked me, they said, I want to sign up for your cookie class, kids, because we dropped the Thanksgiving one. She said, will this class help me sell more tickets? And I said, listen, I'd love to tell you yes, but I'm going to tell you. The real reason you'll sell more tickets in the holiday season is because people look for cookie classes during the holidays. I said, this will assist, but I can't. Well, I can say, yes, it'll increase it. We got to know what the attribution is that it will increase it when it's easier and then it will help you when times are hard. So back to the statistics are like bikinis, what they're hiding, you know, Facebook and be like, yeah, Corey saw 330% increase with that last post she made. But what they're not revealing is like over that post, she didn't post for the last month.

[B]

So everything was a win.

[A]

When we onboarded, when we onboard clients, we only say your first month is going to look phenomenal because you're going from nothing to something.

[B]

But then your second month is going to look not phenomenal, not nearly as.

[A]

Far as you're going from something to something. And then as we really dial it in, your percentage gains are going to look very minimal because we're so consistent in them. But they may say like, oh, this is an example of causation. Correlation is firing marketing companies increases my reach because when I sign on the new one, I see these huge percentage gains. It's because you're going from nothing to something. Right. So it's always important to look at the full picture. So we have some scenarios where we kind of see that causation and correlation get lost and people make big changes to things that they haven't actually tested. So let's just run through some of those. I posted an unstaged photo and my reach on Facebook actually increased. Thus stage photography is not ideal for me.

[B]

I've seen this. I have seen this posted. I see where your mind's at, I see where your head's at. Numbers aren't wrong.

[A]

And also it's a fun. You're saying I work less, I have to spend less on props and stage photography and I make more, I get more of these.

[B]

Throw out those backers and them props.

[A]

I need no dslr. Now this is Corey brings up and actually I'm going to move this one to the top because I think it is the most important when we see really staged and crisp deliberate photography, we know we're being sold to, right? So if you're watching a Mercedes commercial, you see that the Mercedes is driving. We don't live near mountains.

[B]

It doesn't even have a road.

[A]

It's driving. It doesn't even have like, it doesn't even have tags because I would throw off the aesthetic of the vehicle. We know when we see a photo that is staged that we're conditioned to whatever's coming next is going to try to sell me on the product here, right? When people are sold to, we're a little bit more defensive because we're like, okay, convince me that I want this.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When you do behind the scenes, like, let's say Corey had a great example. Let's say you do an unstaged photo of your icing bag popping everywhere.

[B]

And you got icing everywhere. It's all over you, the ceiling.

[A]

Instead of tapping the part of the brain that says, this is going to be sold to me, you're tapping a part of the brain that's relatable. We all make mistakes. That's funny. So what happens is you could see an increase in reach, not because stage photography doesn't work, but rather you channeled a different part of your audience.

[B]

Yeah. And it lowers their defenses. If I don't see that I'm being sold to, I'm much more apt to comment on it because I don't feel like, oh, if I comment on this, they might be like, you want to buy a watch?

[A]

Consider this. If I said, hey, buy the next cookie class kit that drops, which will be the Christmas email drop in the first week of November. Now, let's say I asked this question. What do you guys think the December class design should look like? Which one do you think will get more engaged?

[B]

Oh, the one where you're asking my opinion and you're not asking me to.

[A]

Buy anything because it's very different. One is a pitch where you're like, I'm parting with money. The other one is an opinion piece, but the content is the same. We're talking about the class kits.

[B]

Now, the next topic under the same thing Heather has. Sometimes people will post something for sale that's not staged, but it is for sale. And so you might be like, well, I didn't post a picture of my piping bag exploded, but I did post a picture of these extra DIY kits.

[A]

And they sold out.

[B]

And it wasn't staged. That can elicit this fear of fomo. Like, if you have anything left over, like you had needed to sell 10 DIY kits, you sold eight. You have two left over that you're packing right now. So you make a post, hey, I have these two extra DIY kits I'm packing up. Does anybody want them?

[A]

And but you're like, but the end stage thing is what move it. And that's a correlation. Causation was the end stage the factor here. And I'm not saying it can't be, but I'm saying the test would need to be run multiple times back to our first. Because Corey is dying to move us to another topic, we're going to go back to that first topic and said and ask this question. Did you post the photo regardless of the on stage or on stage? Did you post it when the algorithm wasn't fighting with A lot of stuff. So if you listen to our podcast last week or number 180, we talk about, we're heading up to a political month, not even a political year. Next month is is politics.

[B]

I think someone said it was like 30, 29 days away.

[A]

It's really close. The amount of ad spend politicians run is something we couldn't even fathom competing with. If I posted a staged photo on election day, which is November 5th. Right. And I post an unstaged photo November 6th, the reasons they perform so differently will be because on November 5th your feed will be flooded with voted stickers.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That whole like virtue signaling, like, you better go out and vote.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

On November 6th, the unstaged content didn't have to compete with nearly as much politically related hot button content.

[B]

So your feed is much more free.

[A]

But your brain is going to be like, but look at the reach was so great in NC Twitter, the truth test would be posting the same photo on both days and then seeing that's redundant to your audience. Right. So we see that. We give and take with this, but it's always important to return to the North Star of what was the causes, what was the multiple factors that could have changed the reach. Here another one. Did the copy that was attached to the unstaged photo incite more comments and engagement? So we don't live in a vacuum. It wasn't just a photo with no other factors.

[B]

No, no, no. Copy it.

[A]

All right, so let's say Corey posts a beautiful stage photo and said, timmy, thank you for turning to. This is great. I'm also listening to what the twins say about good copy. Then let's say she posted an unstaged photo and it said, guys, here's a cookie cutter. I have no idea what this shape is. Any guesses?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That copy, just by the nature of one's a question, one's a statement, will generate different levels of engagement. But if you say what it was, the photo and you don't attribute any of the reach to the copy, well, you're flying partially blind.

[B]

Right. And you can talk yourself and be like, it's the unstage photo.

[A]

That's what it is, then then every photo you post is going to be on stage. What's going to happen? Because I don't believe that unstage photography is better than stage photography. I think it needs to be a content bucket.

[B]

Yeah, sure.

[A]

The unstaged photo, you're going to come back and you're going to say, why is my reach plateaued? Why has it flatlined or you can.

[B]

Say, why is my sales flatlined?

[A]

And maybe your engagement's high, but your sales are fine. So you gotta see the whole picture here. Speaking of pictures, the staged and unstaged picture. Moving on. Here's an example of something we see where the correlation causation is muddled and then it forces this marketing biblical rule you come up with. I sold nothing at a market, but when I flash sold the unsold products on my page, I did sell a ton. Thus markets are not for me. That's back to where Corey says, using that fomo, I sold nothing because I sold nothing at this market. You guys get a. I'd actually think that's the reason why more product sold. Yeah.

[B]

Cause I feel like you didn't sell anything at the market. But this stuff, you gotta get rid of it. You're trying to get it a new home tonight. If I get it now, I'm probably getting a little deal.

[A]

Right? That really I love a deal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The Ross TJ Maxx, they're positioned for people like me who are like, I'm getting something because somebody else didn't realize what they missed out on. Another one is markets are subject to weather related events. But the computer is pretty protected in a comfortable room with ambient light.

[B]

We have, our phones are attached to us 24 7.

[A]

So you can say, well, the market performed poorly. But what were the factors in the market that caused the performance to be lackluster? Was it the marketing of the market?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Was it the weather of the market that day? There's a big, big quilt like craft event, craft fair. Yeah, it was that. We had 11 day stretches of rain. It rained that entire event. Now somebody could say is a vendor's first time at the Aqua Juan Craft fair and they said, wow, that didn't work. I sold no product, thus I'm not going back. But they don't factor in. It had rained so much.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They have made an incorrect causation and correlation. The cause is no one sold. For me, it's correlated to markets rather than to weather.

[B]

At the end of the day, whatever you feel like.

[A]

No, it was the weather.

[B]

What weather?

[A]

You're a liar. That's fine.

[B]

Keep that one to yourself though. Because when you come into the sugar cookie marketing group and you say markets don't work, period.

[A]

That's the thing is because you're saying based off of my experience, and I'm not going to tell you that it rained 11 days straight in the Northern Virginia area markets don't work. So you shouldn't do a market either. That is creating. I mean, you're walking around in an essential comment.

[B]

I mean, you're talking other people out of money because you didn't make money that one day. But there's so many existential factors that went in. Did I use that word correctly?

[A]

Existential? I don't know. I like it, though.

[B]

Existential factors that were very XY and stenchy.

[A]

There's a lot of sensualism going on there. But that's a great point. Is. Okay, so then, okay, well, maybe it didn't work for me the first time. How many times do I have to go back? Here's the thing. Here's the wild part. As we move the calendar year, that's also going to affect how markets form. Is that how the market is marketed affects how the content. It's so funny. In a group called Manassas Talks, which is poorly managed, right? There is a farmer's market in Manassas. There is. They refuse to have any social media property for that market. It is a single lady and she makes a post about it. Someone posted that the market was closing because of lack of attendance. The lady who makes a post, it's a big market. Someone's like, there's no way. This is.

[B]

Yeah, I know.

[A]

The lady who makes a market. She writes this giant rant saying only market, official marketing comes from me. And everyone's like, we don't even know it comes from you. But it created so much contrast. Someone's like, I didn't know there's a market and now I know there's a market. So now I'm gonna go. So she can say. Well, she could say, marketing coming still from my personal profile causes more people to come to the market. When in reality it was the controversy of that post because everyone was arguing, yeah, that caused that post to reach more. That caused more people to come to the market. Again, just looking at that full picture. So how do you solve this problem? How do you solve this? You just gotta do the test over and over again.

[B]

I will say if you're. If you've gone to this holiday extravaganza, as they like to call them, holiday market.

[A]

Last year was your first year.

[B]

Last year was your first year. This is your second year. Now you have two comparison years.

[A]

You have two data points.

[B]

Okay, but then, so, oh, no, this is my first year. How do you know you can go pull the people who have been there who have keep coming back. That's a good point. This person, this is their seventh year coming back. That that is some good data right there. Just to know they're coming back for the seventh year.

[A]

But you're factoring it in that each data point takes a year to produce. So let's say I teach cookie classes one a month all year. That means I've taught 12 by the end of the year. Well, you know, I should only teach classes, you know, because the way that our calendar year moves as bakers the last three months are always the best performers. So you could say, okay, well I know I shouldn't teach classes in January because December performs better. That's a fine thing. And then. But next year you'll teach 12 more classes and you'll see if that is starting to get a trending data. And the more the data, the more data points we have, the better decision making we can have. But we can never really make it decision off of one time because Corey can say, well, I'm never going to do a wedding event again. Yeah.

[B]

Because it was horrendous.

[A]

What she's never going to do is a wedding event through that person that whatever you call that business again, because it was portly market.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Not to say that that can't also be a bias as well. Maybe it was the person that was marketing it had an offer. Absolutely. Moving on to another one we see I posted last minute and I made so many more sales when I don't have a longer marketing runtime. Thus I'm not going to market in advance anymore. Now Corey likes this one because you, when you market last minute, when you say, guys, listen, I'm. Oh, I forgot to post this. I'm opening my doors for a Halloween DIY kit the week, the three days before Halloween and all these people come to order is you actually shifted from your ideal market of people who place sales pre planners.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you've targeted a completely different market of last minute people who know every other baker shut down.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you're their only option. Yes. That can infer to you that I don't need marketing runtimes because I sold so many last minute sales. In reality, you can make a decision. I really like selling to last minute people. But understand that the decision was because you were last minute. You found a whole different audience.

[B]

I want to say when we sold DIY kits during COVID it was Halloween shut down. Trick or treating off. You couldn't do it. The reason why we sold so many DIY kits wasn't because it was Halloween. It was because it Covid shut it down.

[A]

Right. Which is a wild factor. A Lot of people, a lot of people entered in the baking space during COVID because we had to stay at home. Yeah. Money was kind of questionable, so we needed side hobbies and the interest rates made trying new projects a lot more affordable. There's a lot more people spending money as well because they couldn't spend it anywhere. Yeah. So we live in this little bubble and then suddenly see four years removed. People are like, my sales are down. Were your sales artificially inflated now? Are they down in relation to, are.

[B]

They now just normal though?

[A]

Right. Are your sales normal? So I see a lot of people quit around this time, especially, you know, two years out and I'm seeing it again at four years. People are probably saying, well, I'm quitting because nobody's buying from me. Have you factored in economic shifts here as well? So just things to keep in mind that the picture is a lot broader. But when we get so narrow minded and funneled, we can kind of look for those confirmation biases that we should close because of. Look at all these reasons.

[B]

The problem is a lot of bakers entered the space during COVID so they didn't have any pre data to Covid. They just had the amazing business they had during COVID So now they're like, it's declined since then.

[A]

Every year it got worse. Yeah.

[B]

So you have nothing before COVID to compare it to. But you, when this was like a splurge of there was a lot of money to be spent, a lot of things were closed down, people wanted something to do, they were having a lot of parties at home that you, your bakery business was doing so much better. But now you're like, oh, it's declined every year. It's been the worst four years. You know, every year I've lost money.

[A]

An ideal approach to this and I'm going to tell you why it turns out to actually be a double edged sword. An ideal approach is like, well, if I can't force a data point because I can only gather a data point every year, I exist. But I need to make a decision today. Let me pull a group of bakers when you say hey bakers. Because every, every Tuesday I type a podcast bowl. When you say, hey bakers, have you noticed your sales have gone down? You pull in a confirmation bias of other bakers who have noticed that their sales have gone down.

[B]

I was waiting for someone else to say it, but what you didn't really.

[A]

Pull is the people whose sales have gone up. Now let's say you go to, let's say you Ask the opposite question. Bakers who have increased their sales. What did you do? You're going to only get comments from people whose sales have increased. And here's what they did. But we often look for confirmation on what we already believe to be true, which is always dangerous. Right? Yeah. We need to almost look at the counterpoint constantly. But so you even say, well, I'm going to listen to what the twins. I'm going to gather more data points from other bakers. What we don't factor in is the areas where these bakers are from, you know, as weather events. You can see that crazy weather events are going to very much affect the bakers in these affected areas. So their data points are going to look a lot different in the next 10 years. They're going to look at 20, 24 and say, that was one of my lowest sale years. They're going to have to say, and that was because of this giant hurricane that upended so many people. Right. So again, even the mass amount of data to be factored through a filter, that we're all in different areas. Moving on. This is Corey's I have a beginner cookie class. Three of the ten attendees said that they wish my classes were more advanced before they sign up again. Thus, I'll no longer be teaching beginner classes.

[B]

When you have. When you pull such a small audience.

[A]

You'Re going to be like, the majority.

[B]

Of the people want something I'm not offering, so I'm going to have to start offering it.

[A]

Except for that's not the majority. That's a minority. I know the loudest people. Three people. The loud. The only people who actually stated they would come back was still the minority of the class who signed up for the beginning of class. So if we do it off of math, you should always. You should still be teaching beginner classes because 70% of your class audience actually wanted beginner classes. What they voiced that by signing up right now. The three kind of loud mouth. Every class you teach will have somebody who has an opinion. Those three said, well, we'll only come back if it's more advanced. You're making a. You're putting 100% of the decision on 30% of the opinion.

[B]

I know, but right then, in that moment, you're like, it makes sense they would come back. They said they'd come back. I want to tell you the amount of people who said we'd come back and that people who have come back.

[A]

We had a client, he said, if I sold everything someone recommended I'd have a Million products and no sales. Because he's like, everyone likes to have an opinion, but not everyone wants to buy when I do the thing that they said they'd spend money if I did it.

[B]

We see a lot of people offering these beginner classes. And if you're part of the cookie class, kids, it's beginner friendly. That's what it's targeted to. Because the master amount of your audience is going to be people who've never picked up a piping bag before in their life. As you teach these classes, people will come to the classes. We once had someone who, she came six times, loved her. She would probably be the person that'd be like, I would like an advanced class. If we just were like, okay, well, now we have to offer advanced classes. She's come to six. We've run out of things. We have now alienated the biggest part of our audience to focus on the smallest part. The classes, then so much more harder to fill.

[A]

They're harder to fill. They're harder to create. They are more expensive to create. So then we say, okay, let's go. Cory and I have taught classes every year for four years. We have a lot of data points. Do we try to focus on marketing more advanced classes? No, we always market beginner classes. And when they sell out, it's further confirmation that that's kind of where we want to channel it. Because the more advanced classes, even if I could fill the seats, they're going to cost me more money.

[B]

And at the day, you could fill more seats. If you've never taught a beginner, if you've never taught an intermediate class and no one around you is teaching an intermediate class, you probably will fill those seats.

[A]

That is a nice niche. You may have to raise your prices, though.

[B]

The problem is if you're like, well, I filled all the seats. People want intermediate classes now you have to think, is anyone offering that now?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

No.

[A]

There's a lot of factors to consider before we say, I'm only ever selling intermediate classes. And the way you can do that. And there's absolutely no problem with testing something. Oh, absolutely right. And that's why I love to put on, hey, if we can't get more, if we can't surpass the threshold of 4, this class gets canceled and you're fully refunded. Like, I love giving myself those out. But you're gonna have to test it. So you can say, well, Corey and Heather, why don't you test intermediate classes? Because beginner classes also fit the way we want to work we want to make this as easy as possible, both for us. If that isolates the intermediate audience, I'm sure they can find somebody who's willing to teach them.

[B]

If you're signing up for the cookie class kits, we want you to have the best leg to stand on, to.

[A]

Be successful, the best shot at filling. Yeah.

[B]

And that's going to be a beginner class. Could we offer intermediate classes? Absolutely. At the end of the day, we know while it's not showy, I can't show off my, my floral details. You're going to get more seats, you're going to get more money.

[A]

When it's easier to do, it's just easier to do. And when things are harder to do, that typically means they take more time and time is more money. Right. Okay. So I'm not saying always be the easiest, I'm not saying always do the easiest sets, but when you decide to make those, make sure that the decision is to benefit you, but also to make your life easier.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The twins said to set up a Google business profile, but when I did, I didn't show up when searched. So I'm not going to set up a profile. I see this one a lot because I'm like, well, I tried it, it didn't work. Okay. To show up in a Maps listing is actually extremely competitive.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it takes a lot of SEO.

[B]

Theory and it is hard and it takes time. It takes. I wish you could do something.

[A]

If you could just set something up and then make sales from it, everybody would be setting it up and making sales from it. So incorrect. The SEO takes time. Maps SEO still has a strategy behind it. It is a search engine. If you can search on it, it's a search engine and it can be optimized. Just because there was no immediate results does not mean it isn't still a valuable long term investment. I always see people like, I set up the map, they're like, I set up my Google business profile, I'm not showing up. And I said, when did you set up? And they're like five days ago. And I'm like, oh my goodness. Like you should be thinking upwards of 6 months to 12 months to even show up. But if you pull the plug because in the first five days you didn't make a sale, well, then you've lost on the sales you'd make if the investment were 12 months.

[B]

I see that a lot when it comes to marketing on Instagram.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

A lot of people will say, well, I never get any business from there. So then I'LL go sneakily over the pro. They haven't posted in six months because.

[A]

You haven't gotten correlation causation.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's so. Okay, well, I want to get business on Instagram. What do I do? Well, you start consistently posting. But I didn't get any business. You're making that call too soon. You haven't gathered enough data points. You may end up with the answer that Instagram just isn't for your eyes.

[B]

Yeah, for sure.

[A]

But you also may end up with the answer that Instagram is a huge lead resource for you.

[B]

At the end of the day, I see people, client, potential clients follow me on Instagram and maybe vet me on Facebook. But sometimes they go through that Instagram funnel and then maybe get to my Facebook page and I get an email. I could be like, it's only Facebook that they're finding me on.

[A]

Right. Because, you know, I tell Corey, like, we're always like, how should we. How can we run these groups more effectively? And then, and then I'll say, like, well, when I go to a group that I'm not managing, here's what I do, here's what I hope for when I post. Here's what I wish the admin would do and apply that. So our customer journey may not be ours, but it will be one that if we open it up, maybe some of our clients will find themselves there. Then you say, well, girls, I don't have enough time to do that. And that's another factor to consider. You but say out loud, instagram doesn't work. Not because it doesn't work, but because I choose for it not to work because I just don't have the time. And that's completely fine. What you can't do is go tell somebody, don't get on Instagram. It doesn't work.

[B]

That's what I see. I don't get any sales from Instagram, so not on there. Okay, well, let's go see what you've done.

[A]

Right. Oh, you've done nothing and you got nothing. How applicable. That's really good. I posted, I hosted my first pop up. Seeing that P over there. And it jumped over to the. I hosted my first pop up and no one showed. My area does not support that strategy. Corey says, how did you market? Is it an area problem or is it a marketing campaign problem? So some people will be like, well, I hosted a pop up. It kind of the. If they build it, that if you build it, they will come strategy. That never works. That's the funniest thing that whole movie is built on that phrase because it was in a baseball field or something.

[B]

It's it. Yeah.

[A]

If you build it, they will come would be delicious if that's how it worked. But it doesn't work like that because if you build it, market it for a long time, reach your target audience, price it correctly, add enough value proposition perhaps, maybe if they're not busy, they'll come and give you money.

[B]

The thing is, you could say I did a pop up, it didn't work for me. Pop ups don't work. Did you do the pop up at Tuesday at 10am where most people were at work?

[A]

Did you host the pop up on election day?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you did, then it was an election thing. Like what, what are these other factors? Now how are you going to determine that your area does and does not support pop ups? You're going to have to repeat them. You're going to have to. And I always tell Corey like when I do any like problem solving type things. Okay. When we took that Eddie to the wedding, yeah. I said we need to attempt to fix one problem at a time. Because if we make a bunch of changes and the problem solved, we won't.

[B]

Know where to attribute the skincare thing.

[A]

Like if you want to see if.

[B]

Skincare works, you can't try four new products and be like none of it worked.

[A]

So I've never changed. You have to change one factor in your skincare routine. Did that have the effects that you want? Of course. You have to be patient. Right? I know skin works. Then you say, I did like the results of that or I didn't. If I came in, I said I have this one pimple. So I'm going to append my YouTube.

[B]

If I.

[A]

If you're in my lineup and it has over there, you're all five of you are gone. New products. You'll never touch my shelf again. So what you gotta do is you gotta move one thing at a time. So let's say I hosted a pop up at 10am on Tuesday. Next month I'm gonna host a pop up on Tuesday, but I'm gonna host it at 5pm if we say, well, I'm gonna do it Thursday at 6, we've moved to two things. Yeah, we didn't. Now we don't know if it was the Tuesday that was a problem or the time that was was a problem.

[B]

We also can add an educated guest to these. Like you. You don't have to be like, okay, now next month I'll Try Wednesday at 2 like you can say, we're coming into the busy season where people are looking for gifts for hostess when they go to the parties. You're going to be able to say, if I post this at Saturday, you know, the weekend before Thanksgiving, I probably will do better than posting it randomly in October on a Tuesday at 2:00pm.

[A]

Yeah, it's so funny. In our cookie classes, you know, the cookie class kids actually make a new piping practice sheet for everyone. But Cory and I don't even use those. We use these ones from four years ago that we laminated. So I'll hand them out to everybody and I'll tell Corey, I say, everyone, eyes on Cory. I'm going to have her demonstrate how to pipe a single line. For some odd reason, Corey will always pipe in the white space above the line. And I'm like. But I'm telling them, pipe on the line. And I'm like, well, maybe Corey's doing it so they can see it better with the contrast of the dark piping. And when I look around the room, everyone pipes in that white space above it.

[B]

They are following the leader.

[A]

I could say, the class is stupid. These are idiots. They're not listening. No, just a teacher. I told Corey to demonstrate it. And wherever Cory's gonna pipe is where they're going to follow. So instead of saying, well, the people in the classes don't listen. Instead I could say, well, the leadership is not piping wherever they want. I guarantee you, if he teaches that next class pipe. Right on. That's right. That's right. So again, you've got to look at the entire picture before you make these proclamations that will forever change the direction of your business. We're almost done with these. Here's the last one. No one pays that much in my area, thus my pricing must drop.

[B]

I see this most often.

[A]

This one's a dangerous one because so many things go into pricing that it's easy to pull the skincare routine solution and just scrap it all and lower your prices is when in reality you should move everything but pricing until the last ditch effort to salvage sales.

[B]

I see a lot of people will be like, I up my pricing. My sales went down, I had to lower it back.

[A]

What time of year did you up your pricing? A great time of year to up pricing and see sales is around the holidays because people still want that.

[B]

Regardless, upping your pricing and still having your old audience used to pay the lower price. You're going to have this period of.

[A]

That'S where you're gonna be like, you're gonna drop off the cheaper audience, and then you gotta cultivate the more expensive audience.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I was telling Corey this. I was off yesterday, so I was driving in, like, really small town America, really. And I saw this restaurant and it said global cuisine. Cuisine, right? And I was like, that right there makes me not wanna go because it means you do everything, so nothing must be great, right? So I said, great. If the global cuisine day was Thai food and it was adjacent to Thai food Friday restaurant. Yeah, Thai food Friday. But the next restaurant over was Thai food only.

[B]

Every day I'll be going to the.

[A]

Thai restaurant because I know specifically that they're very good at this. Versus I'm trying everything and nothing's working. And I'm not sure what. I bet if that restaurant niched down its offerings, it would be much more appealing to me because I'm like, you know, whatever you're making right now, it feels like you just bought some cilantro. Now everything's cilantro based, so no one pays that much in the area. My pricing was dropped. Does your value proposition support your prices? That's right. Start first. Does my packaging warrant this price? Does my customer service warrant this price? I was telling Corey the other day I would pay more if it meant I got better service.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

People are like, but would you buy more if you had to spend less? No, I would pay for customer service.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I would pay to get my questions answered.

[B]

I ordered a little handheld steamer off Amazon. There was many to choose from.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I didn't choose the lowest. I thought it would fall apart.

[A]

Chose mid man.

[B]

When it came, it felt like. But I thought because it's a little bit more expensive, it's going to be a better product.

[A]

Have you ever read I'm not a wino? I actually don't. I would love for me to pour.

[B]

Heather never knows what to order.

[A]

Never know because I never like anyone. I'm sure it's something with my taste buds. However, they do these psychological studies test on wine because it's so relative. Does that bottle that cost $2,000 taste better than the bottle that cost $20? Your brain will say, yes, the 2000 bottle, $2,000 bottle does taste better. So what they tested, they had this restaurant, volunteer services. They took the most expensive bot. The most expensive wine and price it the cheapest. Nobody bought because we're not buying because of the wine. We're buying because of the price. And the price warrants an experience. Okay, Right. So now we talk about our cookies. Is everything around the cookies supporting the price.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. Because then people are like, well, I want the best. Or I maybe say, I want my audience to be right middle of the road. I don't want to be the most expensive, but I don't want to be the cheapest. But the thought of being the cheapest and securing sales that way is a very dangerous thought. Because just look at the wine example. They said most people at that wine restaurant, it didn't matter what the wine was. They showed up, they ordered whatever's in the middle.

[B]

Middle price.

[A]

Because we don't know. We're not all familiar, but we just know that probably the middle price is probably decent enough without breaking my bag. Right. So you can say, does your value proposition sport prices, increase packaging, increase, ease of ordering, increase customer service, increase quality of ingredients. Those can all be big factors in driving a price and warranting the client pay that.

[B]

The blanket statement you don't want to do is, I tried. I just up my pricing. Nothing changed. But my pricing one didn't make said too expensive.

[A]

And now in my area doesn't support that, then. Well, Heather, what if I raise my prices and nobody buys? Okay, you can. I can always tell people you can lower your price by running discounts and promos. Right. So we can definitely still move product, but we'll need time. We'll need our audience to condition themselves. We'll need to be able to find that new target audience that spends a little more before we can make a giant decision. Because you're able to always take out, like, okay, let's say I had two people standing here, and I said, here's this cook. It's $5. If I told you it's $2, would you want to buy it more? They're all going to say, yes, but if I told them it's $2, but you'll never be able to reach me, so you can't buy it, would they still buy it? No. They'll say, well, I'll buy the $5 one. If I can't even get to the $2 one, why would I want it? So you see all these things that correlate into the cause and effect of that.

[B]

There are different places where, you know, you have a smaller town, you won't be able to charge as much as someone in New York City. That's totally unreal. Understandable. But the blanket statement that you can't raise your prices, no one's going to pay it, isn't necessarily valuable because there's a lot of tests that goes into it. You can eventually Price yourself out of an audience.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And sometimes that opens the door to a new audience or it closes the door to every audience.

[A]

So you gotta just really factor that in you and somebody in New York City. If you live in rural America and you're taking pricing advice from somebody in New York City, you better only be taking percentage because they're indirect costs. Just turning on a light is so much more expensive for them than it is going to be for you. Their cost of living is extremely high. Sometimes I'm floored by these tiny apartment closets that are. 3,000. Yeah, 3,000amonth in Northern Virginia. Rents you out a single family home. 3,000amonth in rural America. Rent you out a duplex or a triplex, you could get a lot more. So you can say, well, you know, I can't charge that much because my area doesn't support it. Your ratio, your percentage may actually be equivalent to them considering their cost of living. In their indirect cost, you may actually be charging the same amount in the percentage of your concept. Right. Does that make sense?

[B]

Yeah, it does to me.

[A]

You say it back to me so it sounds better for other people.

[B]

Let me see if I can say for that. What you charge your $10 may be right on par with New York's $20. And that's okay because the ratios are the same. It might not look the same via.

[A]

The money, but the cost of living factors, you're still able to buy the same amount of food and pay the same amount of bills, even though you're also. Your bills are so wildly different. So you can still take pricing advice, but take it off of. What is the percentage? What is your percentage profit? What is your percentage in direct cost? That's going to be much wiser than, oh, they're charging 180 for a dozen. I'm going to tell my rural community I'm charging 1 80.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then you're going to get a rural community. It says absolutely right.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Because your percentage profit would be ridiculously high. Right. Because your cost of living is so low, you'd be just rolling in cash. It's something to factor in. So again, the big takeaway of this is look at the entire picture, test it multiple times, then make a. Was it tepid? Is that a word?

[B]

I like it. Let's go ahead. That means like lukewarm, like lukewarm water.

[A]

Like, proceed slowly into the change here and always question like, okay, here's what I'm changing. Is this having the effect that I want? Is the effect actually being caused by the change and not external factors. And how many more times can I repeat this and get a real confirmed decision?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yes.

[A]

So yeah, whole picture do use these groups as a resource and then understand how you word that question is going to warrant the replies they want. That's why I always lock threads and say op. You posted this in a way to get people worked up because it's to.

[B]

You wanted people to side with you and you're getting people to side with you, but that's not going to help you in the long run.

[A]

Someone said whatever belief you have, ask it in the opposite way. So like you know my. What was the example? Something dealing with relationships. Oh, they were saying like my boyfriend doesn't clean up and I'm not sure if we should be together anymore. He said now ask, ask. Come back to this because Reddit is anonymous. Ask it as if you were the boyfriend. My girlfriend nags me constantly and I can't seem to get her off my back. Oh yeah. He's like, whatever the comments there is going to be more valuable to you because they're actually not biased towards you at all. They're biased towards your boyfriend and give you more of a perspective.

[B]

But if you ask everything in bias towards yourself, you're going to get that answer that you know that you're gonna.

[A]

Get that you wanted. Which is the most invalid. It's the most valueless answer because it's actually just what you want.

[B]

I like my valueless questions and answers.

[A]

Yeah, Keith, like how could you do it in the sugar cookie marketing group? So, so let's say pop up didn't work for me because of here's the factors I think, right. So you're gonna get a lot of people say, yeah, pop ups didn't work for me. You could say what strategies have you.

[B]

Used to make pop ups work for you?

[A]

And then you're gonna get everyone who had strategies that really worked for you. So always ask in that way. And it's unfortunate because you're about to hurt your own feelings.

[B]

I know.

[A]

And it's so much easier. That's why it didn't work. But yeah, keep that open minded. So we have some fan mail, fan mail and some text. It says happy hey twins, Happy Tuesday. An emoji where he's blowing out a.

[B]

Oh, I like it.

[A]

I was hoping I could pick your marketing brains for a bit. The context is a bit long. I think I read this last week. You're crazy. When I open the emails, I file them away into a label and then it says I should. Okay, let me see this.

[B]

My bad.

[A]

Okay. Hi, ladies. Stephanie from California here again. Smiley face. You were talking about newsletters in the last episode I listened to, and I'm wondering if you suggest sending in a newsletter. It can't just be, but for me, here's my availability. I may have asked you this before, but memory ain't what it used to be. Is this what 32 feels like? Let me read that one more time. You were talking about newsletters in the last episode I listened to, and I'm wondering what you suggest sending in a newsletter. It can't just be buy from me. There's a typo there. She said, but for me, buy from me. Here's my availability. So she's saying I want to send a newsletter. I'm not sure what content to say here, but I need them to buy from me. I just don't want to say that. That.

[B]

Okay, so there's different strategies for your newsletter. The number one strategy is being consistent regardless if you need sales or you don't need sales to always end up in the inbox around the same time.

[A]

Each week, each month, whatever reason, again, goes back to the podcast topic of the week. The consistent. More consistent your newsletter schedule is, the more decision you can make on the type of content people are resonating.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

A great example, I always say a great guide to the content your end user will want to read is the content you're opening as an end user. So I bought these, like melatonin gummies, right? Yeah. So all this company sells is melatonin gummies. So what kind of content are you going to send?

[B]

Sleep.

[A]

Helpful sleep tips. Tips. Yeah. But within that, they're always selling. And sometimes the newsletter will just be about, like a product, a melatonin flavor they dropped. But most of the content is about ways to improve sleep. And one of those ways is taking this gummy.

[B]

Okay, so if we want to turn that into bakery, okay, you are having these Halloween paint your own cookies that you are trying to move. What is a great way to celebrate the festival that's happening right down the road? And you want to continue the fun at home. Here's a festival, here's the times, here's the location, here's the cost to park. Also, here's a fun way to continue the fun at home with the.

[A]

These pyos and I are testing concept. Right. Video content is a flavor of the algorithmic month.

[B]

It really, truly is.

[A]

Okay, so Corey has this local community group. So, okay, we have videos Flavor the algorithmic month. A community group. The goal of the community group is to grow the group. How can we integrate videos to grow the group? Okay, well, Cory's like, well, what does it mean?

[B]

Can I say, instead of growing the group, it's growing the community within the group.

[A]

Okay, great. So she's growing community. She's growing. Comments, reactions within this group. She's growing. It's a very specific area in a very populated North Virginia. So this is not only is it not a county, it is not a city. It is a unincorporated community within all of those.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's as small as you can get before you become a street. Yeah, I guess you could go to neighborhood, but that was too little. So we said, okay, what do we do here? Well, instead of saying, join the community, be community. Be like each other.

[B]

Yeah, Jorge.

[A]

I think if we do video content about restaurants only existing within this very tight community, we can see an increase in engagement, which is what your goal is. Right. So we've been trying that. We've done it for three weeks. Engagement has increased. We're going to continue it before we make the decision that this was actually a good move. But all indicators are pointing that this content creates community within this group.

[B]

Also, do you see how we tie that back into the podcast topic we've tested over three weeks? If we went off my first video, there was hardly any views.

[A]

We would not be doing a single video.

[B]

We wouldn't be doing them.

[A]

The second video did really well. The second video people said, could you go to this other restaurant? And that's where we went. It did even better. So now in back to your question. What do people want to read? What would be value added? And then how can you tack on your sales and Cory saying, maybe go to a pumpkin patch and tell everybody. One thing we introduced in Corey's community videos is I'll go to the bathroom and show women what the bathrooms look like.

[B]

I like as a chick to know.

[A]

Where I'm gonna sit in the bathroom to see whether the bathrooms are clean or not. So you can say, okay, who's my target audience? Moms in their 30s with toddlers. What does a mom in her 30 with a toddler need to know about a pumpkin patch? Is there food? Are there baby changing tables? Are there toddler accommodations? Because you don't want to put them in the jumping thing with a giant.

[B]

It's just a porty potty situation.

[A]

I would like to know myself not having a dawdler, so that is how I'd approach it. And then I would say your content, it's going to be very differentiated because you're going to say, do you have a tolerant. This is the pumpkin patch for you. And here's the five reasons why. And after that, if you. If the kids get tired out, here's a pyo they can do at home.

[B]

I know I like to get deals sent to me in my inbox. So if you give me first dibs to something, even if it's not a dip discount or anything, I love a first dib. First right of refusal. It's my favorite. I love to be in the know.

[A]

Who doesn't?

[B]

Yeah. So that's something. You can also dropping these DIY kits next week to the rest of my audience. You get it here first.

[A]

A great one because you're doing them a song.

[B]

Yeah. So while you're providing information that they want to know, you're also giving them exclusive content that would be more apt to lead to sales. I. While I do love discounts, I don't always say run to the discount.

[A]

No. But it is a great tool when it's factored in correctly. When your price is all supported.

[B]

Yeah. So if you have a class coming up and you want to offer a 10, $10 off coupon for that and you're priced right, it might not even affect your bottom line at the end of the day. That would be a great way to incorporate while also building up your open rates and things like that.

[A]

Another one. This is actually well timed. Hi. I've recently discovered the website and the podcast and I love them both. I have a question about the Vendee Blendy, which I'm really excited to participate in for the first time. I'll talk about what the vending blend.

[B]

Is in a second.

[A]

I am in Canada and I'm wondering if you could somehow indicate which companies are participating are from Canada. Shipping from the US can be crazy for us. Thank you so much. Alison Allison. Thank you for that segue. That segue. Because I this year at the time these vendors signed up, I asked where do you sell, where do you ship, do you offer free shipping and at what threshold and where do you not ship? So I will have all that information for you. If you ship only to the 49 to the 48 states, if you do international shipping, if you do Canada and United States. But Canada has a higher fee if you're in Canada.

[B]

If they're based out of Canada, I want to say Canadians, you have a ton of vendors this year.

[A]

Every year Canada gets a little more.

[B]

It Does.

[A]

I'm jealous. So. And then we have some vendors that are actually resellers for people over.

[B]

Yeah. That you can maybe save on shipping because they resell over there.

[A]

Both very nice. So the Vendi Blendy is way too soon. I was driving yesterday.

[B]

I know it feels very approaching to me for some reason. You think it's like five years away.

[A]

I had the revelation, the existential crisis yesterday. I told Cory. She makes me go on these walks on Tuesdays. I said I'll be putting up the Christmas tree in three weeks. Because I told Ruthanne I like to put it up on November 1st so the cat can enjoy it. Just like to see their little bodies.

[B]

I like to get as much run time for the lights. And the effort. Right. It's a lot of effort. It is a lot.

[A]

Who put up the Christmas tree the day before Christmas? You'd have to pay. Do you hate yourself? You would have to pay me to do that and then take it down the next day. I appreciate that you can just have that much patience.

[B]

Mine goes up November 1st comes down maybe the first week of Jan.

[A]

Mine comes down the hour after Christmas starts thinking about it. I need to move on to the next holiday. Okay. So the Vendee blendy is actually November 29th. We are on October 8th. So we have less than two months.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We have. Let me see how many vendors we have.

[B]

We have so many approaching. You want to talk about what the Vendee Blendy is?

[A]

Yeah. Oh, we had a vendor. Oh, I'm sorry. I have two lists now because we have the new vendors. Let me put that on here. Could you tell us why I pull this up?

[B]

So what the Vendee Blendy is. It's. Is this our third or fourth year? Third. I think it's a fourth. Is it the.

[A]

I don't remember.

[B]

We'll have to go back to your notes. It's either the third annual or the fourth annual and it's a 24 hour sale. What we do is bring some of your favorite vendors. We're talking baking related clothes cutters, STL files, scribes, anything that's bakery business related. We bring them into a group called Vendy Blendy by Sugar Cookie Marketing Group. You can join the group. We'll all pen till November 29th. At 12.01am on November 29th, me and Heather click that join all button as many times as we can and you get to get into the group group. Pinned at the top is the discount codes you'll need to shop these vendors shops. You can Shop till you drop. It's for 24 hours. My one thing is, nothing's guaranteed to not sell out. So there's no verdict checks. But you can shop throughout the entire day, that day. So we bring you the vendors at a 25% off discount. You get to shop these vendors at their 25% off discount. Plus during the day, vendors are allowed to do giveaways.

[A]

Should we tell them what the. One of the big giveaways is?

[B]

Is it a hundred percent certain?

[A]

She said yes.

[B]

Do you need to say, are we 100% certain?

[A]

Well, it's because. Okay, here's the thing. If you went to CookieCon and you went to the Vanderhall, there was a machine called the Kaleidoscope that allowed you to use an app on your phone and pick out any color in the color rainbow. I don't know how this thing works. Yeah, I've seen the video. The app then talks to this machine. If you've ever been to Home Depot and you needed a custom paint color, you'd take this white. Can you say, here's a color I want? And then they'd open the can they stick in this machine, and the machine spits out the exact thing.

[B]

Color ratio. Yeah.

[A]

Then the machine shakes it. This. Is that for royal icing.

[B]

I know.

[A]

So the way the machine looked. And it is in beta. So she's got her prototype at. At this.

[B]

Because I had so many questions, like, how do you load the colors in there? Yeah, yeah. There are tons of questions.

[A]

Is it telling you which two colors to load it with?

[B]

How do you know if you're running out? Is it like a printer?

[A]

It looked like it had the gel food. So how do you. How are you?

[B]

Is it just primary color? There's so many questions.

[A]

So she. She was like. I mean, everyone was taking all these videos, and she pulls up this very specific color. She actually had this cookie on the table. I'm just watching.

[B]

She had so many cookies on the.

[A]

Table that were so specific. Specifically so specific. Then she tells the machine she wants this color. It spits out the exact thing into a white royal icing. She hand mixes it, stirs it together, pops out this.

[B]

Really matched it perfectly.

[A]

So I told her, would you like to be the big door prize? She was like, yeah. She's like, but it will not ship until next year, 2025. So I said, no worries. The winners, I will make sure they completely understand that before they enter to win again. Purchase necessary.

[B]

Stinking. Neat.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

I want to win.

[A]

I would like to win a Mount I'm a bacon. I want. I'm going to ask her for all the marketing content. Yeah, absolutely. I'll choose myself. Just kidding. I'm not allowed to enter. Cory's not allowed to enter either. But that will be the door prize.

[B]

That is so cool.

[A]

So you can enter to win that. These door prizes, they'll be going on throughout the day. There's the big door prizes set up by the Vendee Blending which includes this kaleidoscope machine. But each vendor is allowed to offer door prizes as well. And those vendors give some great door prizes. Yeah.

[B]

So how many pendies do we have at this moment in the group? So you will all pen till November 29th. What you just automatically you want to go do it right now? One, because it help us get more vendors. But two, you won't forget when the big day comes.

[A]

I'll start this week making the announcement as vendor and what their recommended bestsellers. I don't know. Let a bestseller I do, you know, guide me. Yeah. 2,592 people are pending. That's up hundreds. It is. It is because Bakeity Bake signed up at 25 off, which I've never seen her run. Never. I've seen 20 off. She did the Vendee Blendy.

[B]

I will have to put her at the top just because she sells out.

[A]

She sells out and I need to get some.

[B]

So I'll have to put it at the top of my list.

[A]

Right. So she actually signed up. That drove a lot of people there. We have a lot of great vendors. So Canada. That is a great question. I will have all the shipping information ready for you to go to that day. If you're like, well girls, like some people are like, I'm teaching classes classes that day. That is a word document. Just download it and save it and shop whenever. Again, be cognizant of things selling out. You may have to. Someone said, oh, I have a whole class today but I want to enter the big door prizes. I'll have that schedule posted to win that Kaleidoscope machine. And depending on how the how many vendors sign up, we could absolutely. Maybe add something else. We'll see. We will see. Last marketing question. Okay, this is a vendor question. Hi, this is Danielle from Tuscan Arizona. Although it is still so hot here.

[B]

Tuscan or Tucson?

[A]

Oh, Tucson.

[B]

They're screaming. Yeah.

[A]

Oh my goodness. Sorry. Arizona.

[B]

Tuscan.

[A]

Tuscan. I had Tuscan chicken the other night but I want to say Tucson when I pulled it up. How hot do you think it is there in Tuscany 105 Tuscany 102 Tuscan yelling at cheese Tuscan Arizona Anyways Tuscan Arizona Although it is still so hot here I'm already thinking about holiday orders for corporate direct clients. I would love any tips for focusing Facebook or Instagram ads for selling Eddie printed cookies or DIY kits for company holiday parties again to corporate clients. Is there a certain demographic I should target? Is it too early to start ads? So admin assists assistants of these companies can see me and place orders now for December. A big thanks in advance. My little cookie business wouldn't have made it this far without you both.

[B]

Tuscan Tuscany.

[A]

You're so sweet. Tucson here's the thing.

[B]

If you are trying to now market towards corporate area kind of clients you need to start switching your content to not so much Tommy, thanks for turning to but more for we can take on right now is when all corporate people are deciding what their budgets are for the holiday season.

[A]

I don't know that they're deciding what they want to buy. No it's the budget budgets and who they're sending to. So you want to run a Facebook ad now here's my thing because Corey's saying your content needs to be specific towards corporate clients. So you're going to say well I can't post about Tommy turning to you could create a landing page on your website. That's corporate. Corporate corporate. I love talking about Tommy. I really do.

[B]

Like not commingling.

[A]

We can have the ad push people to that and to an order form on that. Now I wouldn't send I wouldn't set up an ad and just have it go to your Facebook page where you're thanking Tommy for turning to right that.

[B]

That'S a confused messaging system and it seems like when you're posting your little calendar of availability and it says like booked booked limited availability. I would as a corporate person be like like I don't think they can take it.

[A]

So we're second week of October. If you were to start running an ad for this you wouldn't want to wait till the week before Christmas because there's no way you can accommodate I would start this next week creating that landing page and creating the advertisement maybe.

[B]

Even collecting emails would be great.

[A]

That'd be great. Then I'd probably boot up the ad maybe the fourth week of October. Yeah kind of close. It's a rough one because corporate has such large scale orders so you need them in advance but you don't want to be too advanced. You're just blasting money now there's ways to market to corporate clients for free, and that's going to networking events.

[B]

It is, it is.

[A]

Maybe I would try some of that.

[B]

If this is your first really corporate targeted, it would be a great way to water where you can grow, like locally versus trying to.

[A]

You're seeing Corey and I kind of to not run to the Facebook ad as the ultimate solution because we're in a political month. So October is kind of shot for ads.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Then it's costing money. Right. And we're in an auction system. So while you set your budget, what you get out of that budget isn't always the same. Right.

[B]

And unfortunately, when it's corporate clients, me and Heather can't ship anywhere. So we're very much. Whatever's in this area is what we can do. If you're like shipping nationwide, that's a little bit different. We always have the mentality we can't ship. So whatever our budget is, it's for right here, right now. It's really hard to say corporate admin assistants who choose where the money goes during Christmas.

[A]

It's.

[B]

You have a broad audience that you're targeting, which can eat up a budget really fast. Zip codes are good if you know where zip codes are. That's why Heather, I do think that's a good idea to maybe hit the ground running at a networking event. Make that $20 breakfast go a little farther.

[A]

$20 breakfast versus, you know, $100 in ads that may not see result.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You can always have an ad running in the background too. This. That's gonna be very applicable to today's podcast where try a bunch of things and see which one's pulling the numbers you want.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's a great question, though. And I think your head is in the right space. In a weird year that networking cuts through all the algorithmic because we're just.

[B]

Looking at people talking. Hello, I made my stuff.

[A]

So we don't have to worry about who's running an ad, what day of the month it is, what day of the week it is leading up to this election.

[B]

But you can run an ad, suggest to do it after November 5th and have it close. If you want your bang for the buck, make it go for the landing page so they don't have to swim through your Tommy and Timmy posts.

[A]

I was reading a thread on meta ads on Reddit. Right. So it's anonymous again. And some guy was like, I have my ad. And these aren't boosted ads. These are ads made in Ads Manager that allow you to set Directives, parameters. He said, my goal was I created a ad that got messages. And he's like, all I'm getting is useless leads with nobody that can fit my budget. And someone's like, what you told Meta was make people message me. And Meta Facebook will get people to message you. Absolutely. What you need to say is, I need to optimize for conversions. And Meta is going to say, well, I'm going to show this to people who are likely to buy. At the end of the day, it's going to spend your money and it's going to do what you told it to do, and it's not going to apologize. So the platform is like, if you want to send people to a landing page, that because you're optimized for conversions, we're going to. Because we know so much about our users, we're going to show this ad to people who are likely to buy because they bought before from our ads. It's that crazy to think that this platform knows so much about our buying tendencies. But it does.

[B]

Listen, I'll say, like, new scrubber thing for my bathroom and I'll get an ad for it, right?

[A]

Because. So my dad. My parents are remodeling their kitchen. So my mom's looking at all these lighting fixtures. My dad runs downstairs and he says, says, that lighting picture you showed me from Ballard, here it is on my phone. How did they do that? But you're sharing an IP address. Mom's gone to the website. Cookies were put onto her thing. The pixel fired. Dad's on the same IP address with his cell phone. So it's showing. He thinks it's magic.

[B]

So what? Heather's basically saying, if you want an Eddie for Christmas and you want your spouse to buy it, start looking up now.

[A]

Ask primary to have a Pixel runner.

[B]

You're welcome. You're welcome.

[A]

Right. So again, kind of test that. Optimize for conversions. And sending to a landing page. It has a form.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you want to get technical. Otherwise, go to a networking event. Say, hey, guys, I'm doing this.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It'd be cool if you could. Sometimes networking events show you who's a registered member, where you get, like, the little list. Yes. And you can just print those cookies and say, who here's from the painting company? And they'd raise their hand.

[B]

That's a great way to cut through, you know, the whole rigamaro of social media and the hoops. They make you jump. You do have to plan a little bit ahead.

[A]

Agree.

[B]

And tell me about the cookie college.

[A]

The cookie college is great, right? So the cookie college is everything that we talk about in the podcast and I was talking to somebody about this this past weekend. There are three types of marketing assists. Right. Done with you, done for you and do it yourself. Right. The cookie college is done with you. So done for you. We'd be charging a ton of money. Yes, do it yourself. You're on YouTube by yourself and they're.

[B]

Spending a lot of time, a lot of time.

[A]

Done with you is us taking the concepts that we see work and telling you, with our help, how to do it yourself. So instead of me moving the mouse around, you're moving the mouse around, but I'm telling you where to click because.

[B]

I'm a visual learner. This is a visual learning based membership. So you'll find that their video that goes with each, each topic. So you want to set up a Google business profile. Heather's visually showing you how to do that. You can tell me, like, do this. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know where it is to do that. But I like to be able to see it. So you can actually plug in, get onto Podia, which is where this membership is hosted and you can go step by baby step. Heather's holding our hands as we go through them. But there's so many endless ways to grow your business and it's. You don't have to do them all. You have to say what is really important to you. Now I would like more corporate orders. Okay, well, we're going to make your email signature look really good.

[A]

We're going to get a custom email.

[B]

Custom email so it doesn't look like coriamerical gmail.com. you know, we're going to do copy that speaks in trustworthy and credentials versus thank you, Timmy. Tommy.

[A]

We're going to learn copy formulas so you without the twins can write this yourself in a way that, that compels people to buy.

[B]

So there's so many different things that the cookie college offers. The courses, the video courses and the topics are just one. Another one is when me and Heather started this whole thing, I said the cookie college gets everything. I don't want to nickel and dime them. If you want to pay for the cookie college, you get everything we ever plan to offer and have offered.

[A]

Yeah, you know, I used to sign up for these courses like for SEO when he was really big on that and they'd be like, they would just change the name of the course so I'd have to buy the Same thing, but newer. Instead of just giving, like I paid for your lifetime membership. They'd say a lifetime membership, but never add anything back to it. So it was a lifetime membership of one thing paid for already, but we didn't. I hate that because I feel like. And they were like, I'm offering a new product, a lifetime membership, but it's different than your product, so you'll have to buy it again. And I'm like, well, I just bought it from you. Now I have to buy it again. I know that.

[B]

I don't like it.

[A]

All we said is the best thing we can do for the people who sign up for this is add so much value continually that people don't like to leave.

[B]

So we lose money on you signing up.

[A]

Yeah. But you stick with us and it all works out. So the Cookie College does get everything. We actually have five memberships, five recurring memberships. It's the two dollar transfers which you're going to see. I've added a lot of pumpkin.

[B]

You'll never know how much it costs. $2.

[A]

Yeah. Do you know the transfer glove is $3 $2. The digital downloads are just $10. And Corey actually just sent me. I'm running. Or he did.

[B]

Very, very cute.

[A]

It is a Eddie Pumpkin print for a pyo. And if you aren't offering pys, it's the whole face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can mix and match it. And I'll add those this week. Then we have the Baker's Business Basics. Those are our 12 foundational courses. They don't change. My goal is for you to only be in there a month. At the end of that course, it's a discount code to jump up to the Cookie College. Now skipping over the cookie class kits. Everything you need to teach a cookie class that's also included in the college. Someone said, how can I get last year's classes the cheapest? Sign up for the cookie college. It's $76 a month. As soon as you sign up, download everything and then go to your membership and click cancel.

[B]

That means two years of classes only in the Cookie College. So we didn't know how to do this. The cookie class kits archives at the end of the year. But I said there was so much work that we put into that it would be really sad to let that just go the way of the dodo. So what we said is, let's give it to the Cookie College Knowledge Forever. So they have all of 2023 classes plus all of 2024 classes. So it gives you twice as much Content to work with twice as much. And I want to say the cookie class kids is involved. And I can say that because I'm making most of the stuff.

[A]

Cory and I sat down on Saturday and we came up with this 2025. Don't.

[B]

Don't tell them yet until I said.

[A]

I didn't tell it. But Cory and I sat down and we nailed down what we want. 2025.

[B]

We have every single amount month planned out.

[A]

I think you're gonna really like it. You can have each design kind of planned out.

[B]

Pretty precursory, but very not set in stone till I send it.

[A]

Oh, they're butto.

[B]

Listen. They love to hold my feet.

[A]

They love. They do. So these memberships constantly grow. You get more stuff. You get out of actually doing a drink water challenge. Some people drink so much water. I am not. I'm not really.

[B]

I need to get caught up on my challenge of the water.

[A]

Just like I was like, let me take a sip of water.

[B]

I really missed the walking challenge. I liked good.

[A]

I know. But I keep it. I don' walking you crazy walkers. So the cookie college also gets a private Facebook group which turns out to be a very invaluable resource.

[B]

If you're like, you know what? I don't have $76 to spare, but I do want to teach classes. You can just sign up for the cookie class kits. If you sign up now, you get every class that has dropped to this point.

[A]

In 2024.

[B]

In 2024. And that's because we didn't know how to price them out separately. So you win, we lose. Not great.

[A]

You can buy the 2023 classes separately. It just saves you a lot more money just to do.

[B]

Yeah. Yes.

[A]

It's like you don't even know our pricing structure sometimes.

[B]

Listen, that's. So it just makes sense to join the college that I don't even need to invest.

[A]

There's no financial boon to buying the classes individually. There are payment plans, but still comes out to be more expensive.

[B]

Listen, the way we did this was popcorn pricing you to the college.

[A]

Even I'm like, if you sign up for anything else, you're leaving money on the table. So that will also. We also be in. In the cookie college. I mean, sorry. We'll be in the vending. We will be in the cookie college as well. We'll be in the Vendy blendy. And you and I have to nail.

[B]

We do.

[A]

We do.

[B]

We are going to chips and sauce.

[A]

There's going to be a lot of content about the Vendy Blendy coming your way. You will have all the resources. I will be doing Facebook lives if.

[B]

You want to already get a little taste test. I'm dropping those Instagram reels right now.

[A]

Very. They're very instructive. Thank you.

[B]

Very instructive.

[A]

Has we gave gave the Vendies an option if they wanted to send a product Corey to make a video about. If you're a visual person yourself, they're sending them to her and she's turning them to videos and telling you which shop it is. They are shops in the Vendee Blendy so you don't need to buy from them now. They all have to offer 25 a ton of them. Probably over half the vendors are above the 25%.

[B]

I know, I know. I cannot wait. Cannot.

[A]

If you want to be a Vendee, if you want to sell, you can email [e-mail] and I'll get you.

[B]

You. I'll get you the information that you need.

[A]

It's a great marketing. Yeah, it's like a marketing investment. Yeah. You 25% but 25% and used to like grow your business and still sell. Not a bad.

[B]

Let's maneuver on over to our sponsors.

[A]

AE Core backers rebranded to the backers company. They are also in the Vendee Blendy and she understands how it works because she comes in at 30%. She does. That woman. I was like you only had to do 25%. Like 30%. The backers go. Ae core backers, they always sell out of their fan favorites. That would be the strategy. They are a podcast sponsor. But my strategy for you with them is keep that one eye open until midnight Eastern standard time. Grab your backers then go back to bed.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Maybe grab some bakegity bake too because that's the stuff that sells out. Grab the things that you want, go back to bed and return later in the day. That's. That's what I'm going to tell the vendors to do as well because they got to sleep. Probably also have life. So I'm like the 80 quart backers. You can use code Twins at checkout right now to save 20. Sugar cookie. What's wrong? Idiot? Sugar cookie. Not plural.

[B]

Not plural.

[A]

Does it have to be caps?

[B]

I always do caps.

[A]

I don't know but ask me Capital Sugar cookie at checkout gets you 20% off.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Any time of the year. At the Vendi Blendy there'll be a different coat. It'll give you 30% if you're me, I hate missing out on things because if she sells out, then it takes her a while to restock.

[B]

Right?

[A]

I know. So you could buy the 20% off the one you want? Yes, the ones you wish you had. I would save those for the Vendibundy at 30.

[B]

Someone had made a comment. I actually made the video, her vendibundi promo video. And someone said, hey, do you think you can make a little like beginners package? Like what you should buy if you're a beginner? And she said she was going to do it. I'd keep keep an eye out for that.

[A]

Oh, that's great. Anyways, if you want to go check them out, you can still go to ACOR backers.com it'll redirect you to the website called the backers co. So they're a sponsor. Thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you so much. Sorry Heather messed up your promo.

[A]

Pay full price. She's not gonna care anyway. You can pay for price.

[B]

As Heather was referring to the digital download she's giving you. Eddie Prince. What does that mean? Eddie Princess Eddie is a direct to food food printer. It is the coolest thing since sliced bread. If you went to cookie con.

[A]

The coolest thing since sliced breading.

[B]

Sliced bread. If you saw my cookie con, they were in the vendor hall, printing, printing like crazy. It's direct to food printer, so you're not using anything like wafer paper. It prints directly on royal icing. I actually saw the coolest thing. I was surfing. You know, sometimes I'm on the Instagrams.

[A]

Just looking at what people are doing on your phone. No way.

[B]

Yeah, I know. Someone had made a cakesicle.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

They made it with white chocolate and used Eddie to print these gorgeous florals on them. I said, that is gorgeous. And I was like, how did she do it? So I went through the comments and someone's like, did you use that?

[A]

Actually, I used Daddy Eddie's genius.

[B]

So that is actually chocolate. So he's not just limited to royal icing, but I am a royal icing cookier, so I use him often with.

[A]

Corey has a chips and salsa craving for lunch today. She has already submitted her request. We will be going. But you can print on chips. You can print on chips on cheese squares.

[B]

I saw a hamburger bun, a bun of hamburgers. People are printing on marshmallows if you want to do, you know, especially because.

[A]

We'Re getting into the fall hot cocoa thing.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Man, talk about a custom printed marshmallow in a hot cocoa bomb set sold to corporate clients. In a custom printed.

[B]

If you're thinking about getting into your corporate business girly cookie or I would head charge it with your boyfriend Eddie. He really makes it. So these corporate clients, you could really mass produce for them at quality and quantity. They need. I've in the past before Eddie had to turn away corporate clients because they needed too many things that I couldn't hand pipe in that short amount of time. Eddie would have made it possible though.

[A]

Eddie I talked about. Oh yeah. So we got this pumpkin cutter from Ann Clark and pink.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

4 inches. Yes. Anyways, somebody had a great idea. Her name is Stephanie. She's in the college. She was like I don't like using stencils to make the pyos. Can you make the outline of a pumpkin face that people can just print? So that is the digital download. I know it turned very cute.

[B]

Heather did a funny, very cute face.

[A]

I had a bunch of cutest face.

[B]

Well, I only got one.

[A]

Yeah, I just wanted one. Oh good about it. I'm giving them like ten faces.

[B]

Oh nice.

[A]

It was very, very cute face faces are actually the $2 transfer club transfers as well. So cute.

[B]

If you did a little pumpkin like.

[A]

If you wanted to make a little pumpkin set, have them in 1 inch, 0.75 and 0.5 inches.

[B]

The great thing about Eddie is a lot of shops now are selling STLs plus the Eddie.

[A]

A lot of the vendies are adding the Eddie files which I think is great. In the past I'm like what is this? So you'd say I'm going to buy a cookie cutter STL from the shop, 25% off. Then you're going to print the cookie cutter. Then you're going to flood the cookie. But you can be like I don't even have to decorate. I can go buy or if it's included the Eddy print that. So it's like a colorful print and print on the same cookie from the cutter that they designed.

[B]

I know, it's very cool. You can check out the Eddy Printers users group. If you want to see how people are using Eddie, check them out on Instagram. Look, they're constantly posting what people are and people are tagging them all the time.

[A]

An automation to repost.

[B]

There is an automation that says thank.

[A]

You for not the repost. Because it's. They're thanking you every time you say.

[B]

It'S thank you every time. So check them out. Last but not least, bakey bake.

[A]

So I mentioned this. She was. She is a meringue powder. It's bakedy bake royal batches of meringue powder. I think that's all I sell on the website.

[B]

I think they had a shirt, but.

[A]

Yeah, a shirt, Right. So Bakedy bakes meringue powder called royal batch will be in the Vendee blendy. And this will be the first time I've ever seen it. 25% off. Off. I'm telling Courtney. Bulk up girl.

[B]

Brace yourself.

[A]

Get some. Get some of this inventory in there. However, I do predict that that one will sell out because I've never seen the 25% off.

[B]

So if you wanted to get it right now just to be guaranteed that you have it.

[A]

Not a bad idea.

[B]

Yeah. Use code twins will save you 10%.

[A]

There's that code twins that I accidentally use for ACOR backers, which was sugar cookie. This one is code twins. You get 10% off.

[B]

But if you want to secure the bag now and then come the venue. Blendy means mean. You will fight to the death.

[A]

My theory thoughts on this? Typically, you need maring powder to make the royal icing, right? Yeah. So you could buy the 1 pound bag if it could float you to the Venny bunny and then snag the five pounds. Yeah. That bigger discount. Absolutely. That is my thought. Okay.

[B]

Do you have a twin trust?

[A]

Do you have a twin dress?

[B]

I do this week. Hey, I'm trying to get my life in order.

[A]

Okay. I am proud of this. I think this is solid twin. I don't much go as far as, say, post the link in the group.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Because I love this level of organization that I think it warrants its own post and then reference this podcast.

[B]

Heather is. If you're wondering who's organized between me and Heather, it is not. I. Heather's very organized. She has everything at a fingertips. I don't.

[A]

Here's the motivation that I'm organizing. I think you're tapping into it. And this is my big factor. Do you know when you have a task and there's a little voice sitting on your shoulder that says you're gonna.

[B]

Dance, I'm able to quiet this.

[A]

You're able to quiet this. But when you have enough of them saying, you forgot this, you gotta do this. When I address those voices and do the task that I'm putting off, it allows me to relax so much more.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That is the only reason I'm organized, because I hate the sound of those little voices.

[B]

If you're unlike Heather, though, and you have let those little voices pile up and they're overwhelming. I found this thing. It Was got Target and ad. I love targeted ads.

[A]

Like target means ad blocker.

[B]

Never heard of that. Please, please take my money on something. It's called Knockbox. N O K box.

[A]

N okay. Is it in Tucson? Tuscan, Arizona.

[B]

Tuscan, Arizona.

[A]

Why is it called that? I have no idea.

[B]

I thought it was like Fort Knox, but it's not spelled anywhere close to that.

[A]

Huh. Keep going on.

[B]

So the knock box is a. It is a way to get your life in order, but in a less overwhelming way. If you told me get everything important and put in a box, I would could put that off for the next five years of my life. This has an instructional pamphlet that tells you what to do as you're going. So it'll be like step one, collect the keys in your house and put them in this specific bag in this box. That's the way I need to be talked to. I need a step by step someone to hold my hand through the process because it can be overwhelming. At one point, before I started this, trying to get organized, I had three different file holding boxes and each box had my taxes from a bazillionaire years.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You know you don't need every single paper you've ever had.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

You don't. If you don't have the cell phone anymore, odds are you don't need the insurance.

[A]

You don't thing they sent you. Likes to keep old insurance policies even though the new one's finished. I'm like, you no longer even own that car.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Anyways, here's. I looked it up. N o k box.com thenoxbox.com okay. Her father died in 2021 and he lived in New York by himself. Her and her siblings go up there and they say like there's no concept of what he did have and didn't have. She said that at one point she goes there and someone's like, well, I think he has a boat at this marina in New Jersey. So that's why she came up with this concept because her and her brother sat at the table for hours guessing passwords. Then we just had to find the physical stuff we hunted in the camper in Florida. His friend said, just find Susie at the campground she knows. Yeah, we had to look for the boat in New Jersey. Ask Bob. We think he owns half of it. We found a golf cart and a snowfield via trailer too, but no keys. After realizing the mound on the table is only growing by the day, we headed to the local office to set up a box for all the keys, paperwork and Important documents that we kept finding. We created a system for what we collected. Checklists. And our first knock box was born. That's too not good to share with the world. How neat.

[B]

So if you want to. I said if I. I told Heather, if I ever passed away, God forbid, my husband will be up the creep of the panel. He doesn't pay any of the bills. He doesn't know anything of the passwords. The man would just be swimming sorrow.

[A]

Here's knock. Next of kin. It's an acronym. Your next organization for your next of kin box. Yeah.

[B]

So you're actually thinking about the people you leave behind with these boxes. You know, if I died, Nate would need my birth certificate to put everything into his name. So he was like, why would I need your birth certificate? You would need it so many more times than you would even imagine. But you wouldn't know until I died and you couldn't find it.

[A]

They have this whole. And this. Their website has a whole page for corporate clients.

[B]

Yeah, they have a bunch of everything.

[A]

Corporate landing pages like we talked about. When you go to the Knox box Knockbox corporate page, it says, give Knoxbox to your client and they give you a deal. Email partnership. So again, that's kind of what. Going back to that question about ads. You'd send your corporate advertisement to this landing page because what you wouldn't want to do is send them to your shop. You want to send them to your store.

[B]

They don't need a personal knockbox.

[A]

Yeah. And on this one, just like we said, it has the form. So it's right here, so you don't have to add another.

[B]

Yeah. So I thought it was great if you want to get. If you want to get organized. But it's overwhelming to think about it this step by step. Hold your hand through it has been a very nice way to not feel so overwhelmed. But not feel like I have zero direction. I think I paid 49.

[A]

It's also what you're paying for is the prompts that help you go collect the stuff. The prompts are what you're paying for.

[B]

It's the you could have a file option. How did you pay for this 49?

[A]

Oh, the original Knox.

[B]

Okay, I'm sorry. 129. My bad.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah, my bad, my bad.

[A]

There's a fireproof one for 139.

[B]

I didn't get the fireproof one. So if there's a fire, you can.

[A]

Get two fireproof bags to put them in.

[B]

Oh, maybe I could.

[A]

You can add it after. It seems and in case you go missing person sheet digital download. Oh, the second property digital. Oh, this is very smart.

[B]

I thought it was very nice.

[A]

Yeah. And that was your set of labels, huh? This is very cool.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You can get 20 knot box lights for 800. Like you get it in your box corporate one. Oh, that makes sense.

[B]

I thought it was very cool. If you want to get organized, if you want to have it organized after you move on from this earth and leave something better for you.

[A]

I mean, talk about your next of kin truly making their lives easier. I know.

[B]

So I was like to my husband.

[A]

I said, where's your car title?

[B]

I need to put it in the knock box.

[A]

It's asking me his mom's house where he 1.

[B]

He didn't even know where his car title was. His birth certificate is with his mom. I said, listen, I ain't gonna try to go to your mom.

[A]

I feel like the voices are getting quieter in your head.

[B]

I feel adultish.

[A]

Yes. I feel like this is a solid twin trust.

[B]

And I forgot where I put my birth certificate, my divorce decree and my marriage license. Corey, they're somewhere together.

[A]

You have to get that real id. Come mayor, you can't find a place, then they gotta find a place. Just get it done done before everyone comes and does it.

[B]

The DMV said I have to go in by November 22nd.

[A]

Oh yeah. When you do there, you can just.

[B]

I didn't have my other birth certificate get like this birth certificate, so I got that yesterday. Now I can do it all.

[A]

You bring your birth certificate and your Social Security card and your current ID before it expires and you'll be set.

[B]

And I got all that to the dmv, correct?

[A]

Yeah. You can actually make an online appointment. I went to one Lawton. I will. There's a lady that sits on the side. She just runs through it. So.

[B]

See, now I really take your picture though. Okay, so you're telling me to shower. Got it.

[A]

Otherwise 10 years.

[B]

Listen, if I go missing, you're going to need to look for what I.

[A]

Look like right now. Okay, Listen, I'm going to wash my face. This is what she looks like.

[B]

She has one really red ear. She got pierced recently.

[A]

It was going to be my twenties. Oh yeah. You know, this is a weird twenties. I actually went. I love going to gas stations. The convenience.

[B]

You got this protein ball because everyone.

[A]

Who tried to go runs and grab. If you ever go to. If you're a gas station connoisseur and here's the thing, protocol. You fill up with gas, you move your car to parking spot. We don't leave our cars at the gas pump. We're gonna free those bad boys.

[B]

Very demure.

[A]

We're going to go in. We're going to take time. So if you go to the typical gas station, you have the chip section, then you have the salty snack section.

[B]

Then you have the candy socket, then.

[A]

You have the candy section. It's divided by chocolates and it's divided by tangs. Right. And of. I like to get a little bit of both. We have our soda fountains. That's going to be a guarantee for me. I'm going to get something from a soda fountain that tastes better. Props to the better ice cubes. I think sheets might have it. Anyways. Then there's this abandoned section. It's usually next to the donuts. Oh yeah, the donuts. Great. Right across from the motor oil. Got it. You know where the headache pill. Cuz it's really desperate. Okay. This section has protein bars which I usually sleep on because I'm not, you know, protein bar. It's always expensive and it never tastes good. But I was like o, I don't want candy. Yeah, I did want a Diet Coke but I needed a little snacky to little snacky.

[B]

Something for the Diet Coke to rest on.

[A]

But I didn't want to fight with a crunchy protein bar spilling over my car. I thought Nature Valley they're called. Yeah. Nature Valley is called these. They're called circs C I R C. And it's these little. Cuz they're circles. Yeah. I think that's where they got their name. Cirque Crazy Protein. It's these little. Oh yeah. Protein bites. So circ the Caesar capitalized to look like O's. Cir Bites. And they have so many different flavors. Actually there's actually a lot more flavors than they had on Amazon. I did buy them on Amazon. Cir Bites. Oh, Instacart has them for only $22.

[B]

22. I don't like Instacart though.

[A]

I don't either. 10 grams of protein. That's hard to come by in a little tiny ball.

[B]

It is.

[A]

But I got the. The honey nut ones.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

They have a peanut butter chocolate chip and they have chocolate. I'm actually seeing that they also have like a raspberry or something. A lemon blueberry. They're called Energy Bites. They're just enough and the package is resealable. Which protein bars can't even touch.

[B]

I know.

[A]

So I was like, well, this is pretty neat. I got them from a sheet that got just a single pack right. I was eating in my drive home because it was like an hour away from me. I was like, wow, that's exactly what I wanted. I'm not nauseous, but I'm not stuffed.

[B]

And I don't feel like that crash.

[A]

Of, you know, yes, it's too much and you're in a car. I do not like sticky things in my hands. These are super easy to pop in. Then I decided I was like, you know what? 10 grams of protein in a pack of these five little circles.

[B]

I'm sure you have to eat five.

[A]

Of them to get. Yeah, it's per serving. So I ordered them from Amazon. They arrived when everyone was sitting at the table upstairs. And my aunt's oh, she's like, what are these? And I said, I'm gonna open. There's five of us here. Everybody try one. And my aunt was like, these are so good. So I sent her a box. So then Corey's like, like felt nauseous day ran through for some reason. No, she didn't bring it, my child. But I'm. I said, here, try these little things. It's not going to ruin your lunch, but it's going to inquire like, wow, these are great.

[B]

I know. They were. They were not overly sweet.

[A]

They're not.

[B]

But they're sweet enough. They're sweetened with honey. So you get a natural.

[A]

Is like the big thing is it reseals.

[B]

I love that. I always feel forced to finish or a waster. Yeah. Cuz you're tossing or you leave it out and it gets all gross. Was very good. I will be ordering them during my Amazon for that.

[A]

You can get them on Amazon. They have the three flavors, C I R C. And the website is cir.com called Energy Bites.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

Very nice. Let me see if there's a discount code. Oh, subscribe and save. I'm not a subscriber. I'm not either. They have chocolate brownie, honey peanuts.

[B]

Oh, chocolate brownie.

[A]

You like that?

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I don't know if you buy it.

[B]

I would not like the lemon blue.

[A]

That was a new one. Lemon blueberry and then peanut chocolate. Is it?

[B]

I'm not a peanut girl as much.

[A]

I'm not either. It is $29.

[B]

I did like the honey one. I think you were a very safe bet with that.

[A]

I don't. Not bad. So that was my tw.

[B]

All right, guys, that wraps us up. Fair friends and fair weather.

[A]

Good weather.