189. Baking it Down - 10 Marketing Lessons from [Redacted]

Summary

Episode 189. Baking it Down - 10 Marketing Lessons from [Redacted]

Release Date: December 3, 2024
Podcast: Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪
Hosts: Heather and Corrie Miracle

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In Episode 189 of the Baking it Down podcast, hosts Heather and Corrie Miracle delve deep into the marketing strategies derived from their annual event, the Vendi Blendy—a cookie-based cyber sale held on Black Friday within their private Facebook group. This episode is a treasure trove of actionable insights for bakers aiming to enhance their online marketing efforts and boost sales. Below is a detailed summary capturing the key points, discussions, and conclusions of the episode.

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1. Introduction to Vendi Blendy

Heather introduces the Vendi Blendy, an annual event designed to drive sales through significant discounts and strategic marketing within their extensive Facebook group, which boasts approximately 47,000 members. The Vendi Blendy is a one-day event that emphasizes urgency and exclusivity, as the private group hosting the sale is deleted immediately after the event concludes.

Heather [02:05]: "The Vendiblendy is an annual cookie-based cyber sale on Black Friday and it's hosted in a private group. The fun of it is that that private group gets deleted the second after the vendiblendy."

2. Challenge of Low Post Reach on Facebook

A recurring issue discussed is the low reach of Facebook posts despite having a large group membership. Heather shares her frustration with Facebook Insights reporting low reach, attributing it to the platform's algorithm favoring certain content over others.

Heather [04:12]: "Your posts reach nobody. And it doesn't matter if you think you're being annoying, you are not."

3. Lesson 1: Start Marketing Early

One of the critical lessons highlighted is the importance of initiating marketing efforts well in advance of the event. Heather and Corrie stress that substantial lead-up time, sometimes spanning six months, is essential, especially when introducing new products or significant discounts.

Cory [05:21]: "We started marketing early. Because it's a new thing, you have to start marketing a little bit earlier because you have a lot of footwork to do."

4. Lesson 2: Leverage Warm Leads over Cold Outreach

The hosts emphasize the value of warm leads—previous customers or familiar contacts—over cold outreach. Engaging past clients and leveraging existing trust can lead to more consistent and reliable sales outcomes.

Heather [20:06]: "If they liked the way last year's vendiblendy went, they're going to come back this year."

5. Lesson 3: Implement a Consistent Posting Schedule and Content Buckets

Consistency in posting is paramount. Heather advocates for a structured posting schedule using "content buckets" to diversify the type of content shared, ensuring it appeals to different segments of the audience.

Heather [11:12]: "Number three posting schedule. Ramp up, ramp up according to the schedule."

6. Lesson 4: Utilize FOMO in Marketing Strategies

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a powerful tool in driving sales. By creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity, such as limited-time offers or limited-stock notifications, businesses can encourage prompt purchasing decisions.

Heather [25:55]: "FOMO really works well for cookie classes. So always say, like I told you, I was able to film my December class back in July because in January I said this class will fill up."

7. Lesson 5: Organize and Manage Your Business Efficiently

Efficient organization is critical for handling orders and maintaining smooth operations. Heather and Corrie discuss the use of forms and CRM systems to streamline order management and ensure no customer inquiries are lost.

Heather [42:14]: "If you email me, I'm going to still send you this form. If it doesn't go through this form, it's not going to happen."

8. Lesson 6: Create Energy and Hype Through Consistency and Enthusiasm

Maintaining energy and enthusiasm in marketing communications helps engage the audience and build excitement around events. Consistent and spirited interactions, especially during live sessions, can significantly enhance audience engagement.

Heather [35:33]: "If you don't have energy, we can't expect our audience to suddenly pick that up for us."

9. Lesson 7: Set Hard Boundaries to Maintain Professionalism

Setting clear boundaries with customers and vendors is essential to prevent burnout and maintain professional relationships. This includes enforcing deadlines and managing expectations effectively.

Cory [50:18]: "Don't let up on your cold audience outreach. That's how we don't make it the only focus."

10. Lesson 8: Diversify Income Sources and Utilize Multiple Marketing Channels

Heather and Corrie discuss the importance of diversifying income streams by exploring various marketing channels, such as Amazon storefronts and affiliate programs. This diversification helps stabilize income and reduce reliance on a single platform.

Cory [68:00]: "The Amazon storefront is fantastic. If you're teaching classes and people are like, where'd you get that piping bag?"

11. Lesson 9: Use Giveaways and Interactive Content

Running giveaways and interactive content like tagging friends can significantly increase engagement and attract new members to the group. These strategies not only boost visibility but also foster a sense of community.

Heather [33:21]: "We ran giveaways to build up that hype to get people pending."

12. Lesson 10: Maintain Strong Brand Recognition and Clear Messaging

Maintaining brand recognition through clear and consistent messaging helps customers remember and trust the business. Using relevant keywords in business names and optimizing social media profiles are essential strategies discussed.

Heather [60:57]: "Use the keyword. It helps with SEO as well, but it also helps with every post you make."

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Conclusion: Key Takeaways and Future Plans

In wrapping up the episode, Heather and Corrie reflect on the success of the Vendi Blendy, attributing it to meticulous planning, persistent marketing efforts, and the strategic use of various marketing techniques. They acknowledge the challenges posed by social media algorithms and emphasize the need for continuous adaptation and perseverance in marketing strategies.

Cory [65:57]: "The biggest thing and probably what most people signed up for. It's not the courses, it's the private cookie college group on Facebook."

Looking ahead to 2025, the hosts plan to focus on diversifying income sources, utilizing advanced marketing tactics, and enhancing their educational offerings through the Cookie College. They encourage listeners to take proactive steps in implementing these marketing lessons to achieve business growth and sustainability.

Heather [72:48]: "Don't let 2025 be your time where you say, maybe next year, maybe 2026 is it. So we have 365 days. If you do, that's a ton of hours. You can make a huge difference in your business."

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Notable Quotes:

• Heather [04:12]: "Your posts reach nobody. And it doesn't matter if you think you're being annoying, you are not."
• Cory [05:21]: "We started marketing early. Because it's a new thing, you have to start marketing a little bit earlier because you have a lot of footwork to do."
• Heather [25:55]: "FOMO really works well for cookie classes."
• Cory [68:00]: "The Amazon storefront is fantastic."
• Heather [60:57]: "Use the keyword. It helps with SEO as well, but it also helps with every post you make."

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This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for bakers and small business owners aiming to elevate their marketing strategies. By implementing these ten lessons, listeners can navigate the complexities of online marketing, overcome platform-specific challenges, and achieve sustained business growth.

Transcript

[Heather]

It is the podcast. It is Tuesday.

[Cory]

Have you recovered?

[Heather]

No, my sleep schedule is finally creeping back to a normal sleep schedule. I still have vendibulenty redacted PTSD and email. I went, is it crazy to have post something that has something to do with the vending blending?

[Cory]

Like we were seeing so much of you.

[Heather]

So the funny thing is when we delete everything and some people ask this, and I've always wondered it myself, what is Facebook saying? It reported to me after I deleted every blendy post. Hey, your reaches so low this month. Did you not make any posts?

[Cory]

It's because it's for one day. Oh, because I had to go and delete everything you've posted.

[Heather]

Yeah. So if anyone ever wonders, the Vendy Blendy truly abides by the event that shall not be named after the event. So we delete absolutely every piece of content that we can find that we've posted over the last six months regarding it. So how does Facebook. Does Facebook honor the insights, the reach that I had even if I deleted the post?

[Cory]

Yeah, that'd be so interesting.

[Heather]

Well, it didn't. It said to me because I have a creator profile.

[Cory]

Yeah, it almost looked like you hadn't posted in so long.

[Heather]

I lost all my group points.

[Cory]

The you if you've never admin to group before. If someone. If you delete someone's post, whether they broke a rule or they didn't break.

[Heather]

A rule, they was speaking about anyone.

[Cory]

Yeah. It actually keeps a running tab of the last 90 days. So the day after the vending blendy, I spent the morning going through and deleting Heather's post that she had done in the last six months. So she deleted the majority. But then, you know, new eyes, clear eyes, new morning.

[Heather]

It was my turn when I was. Yeah, it was my turn.

[Cory]

Heather has like actions against her, against Admins is like 90, 92.

[Heather]

Really. Let me see. I want to see real quick what I am. Let me click on my little face.

[Cory]

I know I was deleting everything Heather said. I was deleting any mentions of people who would ask about, like, is this person gonna be in the vending blendy? Because the rule of the vending blendy is it does not exist after 40.

[Heather]

Seconds from my post. So it was.

[Cory]

It was so entertaining. But this podcast, we actually wanted to bring you because what we can learn from the ven bling can be. You can put it in your own business.

[Heather]

Marketing. Right. So marketing at the end of the day can be applied in different facets, which is why I'VE always said I may not know how to bake cookies, but I can sell something. Because marketing is marketing through and through. Now there's different iterations of it. There is. And you'll see different applications as you niche down. Is it niche or niche? I like niche as you nai down. You're gonna find different applications for specificity. So Corey said, I want to take the vending bloody, deconstruct it and apply it to cookie businesses for the one last time you'll ever hear this word for the next 364 days. Yeah, at least next year.

[Cory]

I know we don't need to start so soon.

[Heather]

So if you guys are new here, this is the sugar cookie marketing podcast. It is representative of a group on Facebook called you'll never guess Sugar cookie marketing group. Really creative here on this side of things and we're able to take some of the issues or concepts or topics talked about in that group and apply them to cookie businesses through this podcast. But today we're going to focus on the Vendi Blendy. If you are living under a rock and you have not seen a post I made, the Vendiblendy is an annual cookie based cyber sale on Black Friday and it's hosted in a private group. And the fun of it is that that private group gets deleted the second after the vendee blendy.

[Cory]

So the whole thing, the whole Vendibulendi is just one day. But what you'll learn today is the lead up in the marketing for the vending blendy is so much more than one day. The success of your Vendi blendy, whether it's your pre sale, it's your Christmas DIY kits is predicated on the amount of lead up to that one day. So while the vending blendy was like oh my goodness, that was so fun. That was one day. For me and Heather, it's been the last six months and the biggest takeaway.

[Heather]

The biggest the one thing that the vending blendy reminds me of each year it's taught me to I never remember but it reminds me is and you'll see that this is the thread throughout this podcast is your posts reach nobody.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And it doesn't matter if you think you're being annoying, you are not. Because the hour before the vending blend of people are still saying I'm new here. What is this? I know and I know a lot of you people who are really dialed into this group and you're on the podcast and Wednesday Wednesday newsletter and you're following on Social media, you're like, how could you miss this? The algorithm is not showing your post to anybody.

[Cory]

Yeah, yeah.

[Heather]

And you have a page of 400 really awesome people. We have a group of 50,000 and I still cannot reach them. I know on average proposed, if the group is 47,000, my posts reach on average around 800 people.

[Cory]

Yeah. And you have to think group marketing right now is in its heyday. It's. It's the biggest form of marketing that's free right now, currently. So if you're using your Facebook page, the least reach out there and you think you're annoying, you're not, you're not.

[Heather]

You'Re not, you're not being annoying. Nobody is seeing it. So you're going to see that through these 10 points that we come up with, these marketing applications that you can snag and apply to your business. It's all predicated that nobody ever sees your post anytime at all. Yeah, I saw a post. I had a lot of delete the post because the way it was written. But somebody was like, you know, they were frustrated because they said I post all the time, that I bake cakes, and here's a message asking if I bake cakes. Yeah, they don't know. They're not seeing it. They're not seeing it because I've been talking about the vending blendy for six months and people aren't seeing. It's not their fault. It's the algorithm's fault. It's the competition for that ever coveted space on the newsfeed. So let's jump in one. Cory's point. We started marketing early.

[Cory]

Okay. So this was a weird year for the Vendee blendy because instead of just doing the 20% that we've done the past three years, we asked vendors to provide 25% off. So because it was a new thing that we were marketing for those who are considering bringing something new to your bakery and offering it because your audience has never heard of it, they're not sure about it, you're going to have to start marketing a little bit earlier because you have a lot of footwork to do.

[Heather]

So earlier. Corey, Corey. That was three months earlier. So it was a six month talking about the vending month, which is pretty annoying. But for you guys, earlier, well, I'll do it the week before. Now we're talking about the month before. And I know that people are like, well, I'll just do teasers. No, no, no, no, no. We're gonna have everything dialed in and we are going to Hound it the month before you think you should start. So if we were saying, well, I have a class this month, so I'm going to spend this month marketing, I would challenge you to spend this month and last month. Make it a, you know, Corey and I use six weeks. If you're new to classes, let's give it two months. Right. Because it's a new concept. And Corey saying the Vendee blender this year was new concept was 25% off. Now, we started marketing early. Remember this is a fourth year of the vending blend. This is also the first election year. Yeah. Of the vending blend. And that was the wildly unpredictable wrench into this marketing plan and why I was so thankful marketing started earlier. The application here is throughout your bakery business, you will have these points of interest that distract people from your content. Right. So election. The newsfeed was only about the election. That was almost meaning that during that promotional time, if we talked about Vendi Blendy, unless we said the Vendi Blendy voted for a candidate, it was not reaching anybody.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And people are very frustrated now that now the switch of that is all the media buyers, all these companies with really deep pockets weren't able to spend their ad spend because the election was taking up so much news fees. When the election ended, we thought a reprieve. No, no, no.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Those people can burn through.

[Cory]

It was an onslaught of even more people vying for the same space.

[Heather]

So a couple of things we did, we posted more frequently. But I also ran ads and again, I'm competing against deep pockets, but at least I'm competing a little bit. So starting marketing early when especially you're offering a new product, but even for the pop up that you run every year, there's times Cory and I get pretty sloppy because I can sell out of cookie classes. We've been doing them for four years now. The way I sell out of cookie classes is they tell people in January my December class is going to fill up and I already have it posted. But that FOMO really does help. If this is in first year of cookie classes for you, you're going to want to start marketing early. Otherwise I'll help you when you make that post thing. I couldn't fill seats. What should I do to cancel?

[Cory]

If you know, last year I actually was the one who got into cake pops. It was something I had never done before I got into them. I want to tell you, it took roughly six months to actually get consistent cake pop orders. But I had post about it last year. If I Posted about it last year and got no sales for one month and gave up. I can promise you that whole avenue would be gone.

[Heather]

It's a lot of talking to a wall and you're like, well, I guess people don't like it. No, no, no, they don't like it. They didn't see it. Yeah, you got to keep talking about it as and we'll get to energy in a second. As if it's the best product it's ever been.

[Cory]

I know and I know it's the marketing is kind of the chicken or the egg. Well, I don't want to make any cake pops. I don't have any orders. But how can people learn, you know, if you make cake pops, if you.

[Heather]

And that's where we have those taste testers. Find the local group, donate them, exchange for reviews. Number two, we. I always will preach this. Corey disagreed with me on this one.

[Cory]

No, I don't disagree. It was more of like internal marketing than it was.

[Heather]

This is external. This one could be applied.

[Cory]

You can do, you can go.

[Heather]

I told the vendors, we're going to force you to increase your value by offering a bigger discount, but we're going to help you decrease your cost. So I turned to the vendors. You got to give me 25%. But instead of $150 from registration, I'll take $50 from you. And sugar cookie marketing will match that for the door. Prices apply to a bakery business. A lot of people are like there's too much competition. There's too much of the same competition. So make it not the same by increasing your value. And that could be better ingredients, better pizza, Papa John's. Yes, I could do better packaging. You have an easier order form, you have more availability, you have better packaging. There's a lot of ways to increase value. But again, if I said, well, I have the best packaging in all the land but I make $0 profit. You have the worst packaging.

[Cory]

Oh, absolutely.

[Heather]

So if we want to increase our value to stand out, we still must do something to decrease our cost. And we can do that by either buying packaging in bulk by. There's ways to decrease your costs by increasing your value. But again it is one of the. One of the judge where there's the two weights on either side. We can't have the best ingredients and increase the cost of our ingredients. And we can have the best ingredients and decrease cost by doing bulk orders of that ingredient. So you know, very custom made packaging is expensive unless you buy a thousand of it.

[Cory]

Right.

[Heather]

But you buy a thousand of it now you have the best packaging. Yeah. So there's ways to do that to increase your value and decrease your cost. Again, we always want to shoot to that sweet 15% profit. We have to have profit. We can't be an unprofitable business and we certainly can't be a negative profit.

[Cory]

The great thing about the vending Bundy is you got 25% off on packaging.

[Heather]

That's another way to decrease your cost.

[Cory]

So that's why I say don't just think like in the next month, like I gotta buy all these Christmas cutters. Think within the next year. So like do you need to buy plain cookie backers? One that steps up your packaging. But it's not tied to just Christmas sales.

[Heather]

It's throughout the year. And I are in the 2025 focus of the cookie college is increasing money and decreasing effort.

[Cory]

Right.

[Heather]

So real. It'll be things like passive income. It'll be things like you said something. I just like floated one.

[Cory]

Oh, thanks.

[Heather]

Whatever. You should sign up and see what that is. Okay. Number three, posting schedule.

[Cory]

Here's what you were gonna say. Passive income. So like.

[Heather]

Oh no, here's what I was gonna say. Ways that you can decrease cost is getting a 3D printer. Yes. If your cost per cutter is $10 worth shipping last night for the cookie college. You know, I do have a bamboo carbon printer, but I bought the A1 on the black Friday sale. I think it ended last night.

[Cory]

I think everyone bought one.

[Heather]

I hate that somebody's like this about to end. What should I do? I said I didn't know it was about to end.

[Cory]

What should I do?

[Heather]

So I bought it and went, I'll set it up. It's the cheapest printer they have. It's $200. I'll set it up. And then getting these really cost effective. I did buy it in the vending building cookie design lab. Getting that real cost effective design software. We can decrease our cost by printing in house and also using these time saving apps. Yeah.

[Cory]

And what has become popular through these, I want to say within the last year is a lot of these cutter shops we love are now selling the STL files.

[Heather]

Even better. So you don't have to do the design work. You get the cutene of it.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And then you can just press.

[Cory]

Cutters are expensive and they've only gone up in price. Granted everything has. But like you're thinking one cutter is about. I was, I bought one yesterday. Seven bucks.

[Heather]

So imagine we had a customer.

[Cory]

Right? Yeah.

[Heather]

You're like, well I have to print this cutter $7. If you're not passing that on to the client, which I would. But a lot of people are like if you bake it into a cost, you still be able to pass it along. $7. If I can print that. And then bamboo software tells you what the cost per print is. We're looking around 30 cents. Yeah, 50 cents. That's going to save a lot. That's going to be my ability to increase value. I'm doing something so custom and decrease my cost.

[Cory]

So with the money that you save from the custom cutter is what you can put into the packaging that you saved on during the vending without touching our profits.

[Heather]

So that is the focus of Cookie College 2025. Number three posting schedule. Ramp up, ramp up according to the schedule. So you'll see. You know I always create a base layer and I tell you guys, my base layer is three posts per week and I build them out two months away because I can use Facebook planner to schedule two months out. So what I do is I build my base but that's not, that's if I'm busy and can't.

[Cory]

Yes.

[Heather]

But I need to actually be involved as we lead up closer to an event. So you'll see that the vendor blender, any blendy back in June was barely mentioned. And then when I was cleaning up my own post I was like wow, I hardly talked about. Yeah, August kind of clicked up. September is when I was starting to search for more vendors and obviously by, by the day of it had just. You're kind of, I think you made.

[Cory]

20 posts the day of just specific bendy blendy content. Right.

[Heather]

Because that is. We have a posting schedule. We have a posting schedule. That's the important part. So you're going to say well I post three times a week. Yeah, but do we have a campaign we're working towards again because this is an event. So your event could be cookie glass, it could be pop up, it could.

[Cory]

Be pre orders, could be markets, it could be that.

[Heather]

So as we start talking about it, I'm not going to wait till the week up to tell my audience I met a vendor market. Absolutely. I'm going to be talking about that. Hey guys, if you're in December is coming around the corner, put this on your calendar. I'd love to see you there. Then in November I'm going to be pretty heavy handed talking about it. And then in December leading up that week up, it'll probably be the only.

[Cory]

Thing you see it's sprinkling it in as you go, and like, if you think of a salt shaker, we're just sprinkling in. As we get closer, we're taking the top off of the salt shaker and that's all we're putting in.

[Heather]

That's all you're saying. And you're going to get salty about it. But here's the big caveat. Nobody will see those posts. We're hoping it's kind of the shotgun effect. If I, if I spray this out, maybe somebody will see it. Maybe somebody will see this one, Maybe somebody will see that one. And then Corey has this great point. Post it. Not just to Facebook, post it across social media. Because somebody who may be a heavy TikTok user may never get on Facebook. I see a lot of Gen Z deleting Facebook. Yeah, but they're all heading to TikTok. They're heading to whatever the Twitter competitor is, Bloomberg or something.

[Cory]

I love scrolling Instagram, my Instagram feedback. But my sisters, older and younger, love just digesting things through the stories. If I marketed just the way that I like things, I'm going to just get a few people.

[Heather]

That's where we'd go though. Yeah, I never watch stories, so I'm not going to post.

[Cory]

Yeah, so. But you're missing a whole subset of your audience who just digest things through the story. So you want to get them there. I know a lot of people are going to say, here's the thing, the caveat, the little asterisk. To this point, a lot of people say, well, I only get sales through Facebook, so I've only focused on Facebook. Okay, I get that. Here's the thing. If you're like, okay, well I have a market next week, so I'm gonna start posting to Instagram. It's not an overnight thing.

[Heather]

Corey said, this is a two part job you've just assigned yourself trying to build a platform and then sell your vendor market on it. And it's too much to do when you're really busy. So what does that mean? Three months ago, start ramping up your Instagram.

[Cory]

Right. Thinking about, I have a Galentine's Day cookie class I would like to sell out. You're gonna start posting the content, not.

[Heather]

Just for the class.

[Cory]

You're gonna start connecting with your audience there. You're going to start creating content for both the stories and the feed.

[Heather]

January is a really, really slow time for Cookie. It goes from the most hectic, fast paced, money making time to just a screeching halt where you almost feel like, I got to shut this Down. And what happens is you get kind of slow yourself and you stop posting. You stopped posting in December because you were busy baking. Yeah. January is that time to set the stage for Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day. And not even. Well, you want me to post Valentine's Day in January? Not necessarily, but I want you to post in January. I want you to start making Instagram posts in January.

[Cory]

Here's what I see most cookies do. October comes around, it starts picking up. Now, November, you got those Thanksgiving orders. They have stopped marketing because they're so busy.

[Heather]

They don't. That's a natural thought.

[Cory]

Now you're exhausted. Come January 1st, you're like, I need a break. You have just taken three months off of your business.

[Heather]

But now you come in, you're saying, guys, I'm back. I'll be back later. And it's just such a wild ride for your audience.

[Cory]

I feel bad for you because you're. You're tired.

[Heather]

You.

[Cory]

You haven't stopped working on your business, but you have stopped working on it. You've been working in it, and I've.

[Heather]

Been working in it. It's been my. I've been eating, breathing it. But in reality, your marketing is not. Your marketing is stagnant, stale, and quiet.

[Cory]

Yeah. And it's very hard to resuscitate something that has three months of taken off. Like that has been kind of.

[Heather]

It's hard to resuscitate something that's been kind of absent tea, but it's even extremely harder to something that you've taken a break from. When you get those January taking a break and burn out, that one's a rough one to come back from. And Cory and I always say, why announce that? Why not just create that base and then have it kind of sitting in the background there for you?

[Cory]

Yeah. Almost. Dare I say, take fewer orders in November and December so you don't feel the burnout. So you don't have to stop. Because you're going to want to take orders in February when it picks back up again. But now you're going to be like, I want the orders. Where are they? It's because you've taken off on your business because you're so burnt out, because you made the heyday of money in December. What if you took fewer orders, got less burnt out so you could continue your momentum in the new year?

[Heather]

I'm going to. I'm going to do hot take, hot take, curl toe, hot take. I think posting I'm taking a break is an ego stroke because you get all those people saying, giving you all the attention, begging you to come back. What's the point of that? My mechanic never posts that. You know, I never seen.

[Cory]

I'm sorry, guys.

[Heather]

I'm so sorry.

[Cory]

You're not, you're not wrong.

[Heather]

You're not wrong. I think I've never seen anything like it in the cookie world where you do these big announcements that you're shutting down or you're taking a break for two months. I know when in reality you don't need to announce that. You can still schedule out the post and tell people you're booked when they place an order. And then when you're ready to come back, you just start accepting the orders.

[Cory]

Big companies do this silently.

[Heather]

I've had a rough Christmas.

[Cory]

Big companies do this silently by raising their prices. It's their silent, I'm tired, I need a break. But I'm going to take your money.

[Heather]

My marketing and tell everyone I'm taking a giant break. And then I'll do the big announcement when I return to me both ego stroking type post. But you're like, but I need a break. I can take it. Take it quietly. But when you do I taking a break, people, you can't order from me. You have your audience saying, please, no, anything, but you. And when you get to do that, I'm back. They're like, yay, okay, but we've moved on. I do want to say when I.

[Cory]

See people that say they take breaks and not necessarily in baking, like any of these small businesses around here, someone will tag somebody in a comment section like, I'm looking for someone who, who can crochet this. But in my mind I remember they say they're tired, they're taking a break. I wanted. Sometimes I type, I think they're on a break. Like, I think they're broken.

[Heather]

That's what they wanted us to do. Declare that they are not taking orders, they're on a break.

[Cory]

But what's mind blowing to me is they'll come back in the comment section. No, I can take it. What? Oh, did you lie to me?

[Heather]

Could have done that without saying you took a break. Okay. Uncurly toast.

[Cory]

That's what I take there.

[Heather]

I don't think you need to announce these big breaks that everyone does.

[Cory]

I just because I've been through so many January business, bakery things. You don't announce it. Nobody's ordering.

[Heather]

Yeah. So you guys can take it. You guys can go yell at your radio if you want for cold lead versus warm lead. So a lot. What do we always say that the cheapest lead is one you already had. So before I even opened up vendor signups to new vendors, I went back to the last vendors.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And I said, hey, you guys trusted me last year. Can I get you to sign up this year?

[Cory]

Why?

[Heather]

I don't have to prove myself to them. If they liked the way last year's vending blendy went, they're going to come back this year. I did sweeten the deal and I said, listen, I'll lower your right and I'll give you a first a. But I prefer a warm lead rather than a cold lead. Cold lead is me having to explain what this made up event is and then trying to convince them warmly. It's people see, they follow us on social media for a while. They see how we market, they've been in the group and then I can say, hey, you like what you see? Do you want a part of that? We can remarket by reaching out to old past clients. And you guys can do that as well. And that's why CRM programs and I'm using a spreadsheet, they don't have to be so fancy. You can use a CRM program to hit up that person who ordered from you at Christmas last year. That person who ordered from you in slow February last year. You can say, hey, you guys still love Because I would love to bake for you. That's much better. And I think a lot of marketing, we focus on cold outreach and that's, hey, community group. I'm selling.

[Cory]

I know, yeah, cold. No one's ever heard of you. Not only are you having to introduce yourself, you're having to build value, you're having to differentiate yourself from other bakers. It's a lot for a post to do.

[Heather]

It's a lot. And then we're like, why don't we make any sales? Yeah, well, because they don't know you, they don't trust you.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

The person who's already come to your house, picked up their order, eaten it, loved it, gotten praise a lot and honor from their family. They're going to be the easiest sale for you because they already know it works.

[Cory]

Not saying, don't let up on your cold audience outreach.

[Heather]

That's how we don't make it the only focus. Don't be like, wow, they already know who I am. I don't need to worry about them. They already know who you are. They are going to be the cheapest lead.

[Cory]

Don't forget about them. Don't forget about the colon.

[Heather]

It's a.

[Cory]

It's a little. It's a little bit of both because you want new clients, but the ones who pad your funnel, your marketing funnel, the ones who order throughout the year are your past clients. So that's where you get those repeat orders. That's really helps you stack your year out. So you can be like, I'm not worried about Giant July because I have orders from people I already know.

[Heather]

Yeah. Get that funnel built out pretty long, and you'll be set. You. It will kind of soften the blow of these high upticks and low troughs of our year, because we just. We're just heading into the highest peak of this, and we're about to find.

[Cory]

The lowest trough of this.

[Heather]

So word of mouth marketing is still a really great form of marketing. And the way I was able to do that is that post that we make leading up to the vending buddy that says, bakers tag your favorite shop. You are word of mouth me saying, hey, shop, you don't know me.

[Cory]

Give me your money, and then offer a discount.

[Heather]

I think a lot of you guys really liked the Miller's wife. She had never even heard about us. So if you don't think you're being annoying, you're not. Nobody seeing it. One of you guys, a couple of you guys tagged her in that thread and she messaged me and she said, never even heard about this. I'm interested. So imagine that I had solicited her myself. I'm biased. I make money. If she loses money 25%, in fact, I make $50. And I'm telling her this is the thing she can't miss out on. Yeah, that isn't spam central. If that isn't an automatic delete or never open that, I don't know what is. Yeah, but when we use you guys to open that door, well, she already knew your names, you'd already bought from her, and you're like, hey, Miller's wife, you'd. You'd really like this. Then I'm here to be like, oh, you're interested because she came to me.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And then we can't. We can't miss out on. Absolutely. Just cold outreach. And this is the hardest one. So I know a lot of you guys, like, I love canvas. They were like, basically, you gotta put.

[Cory]

Your big boy panties out for cold outreach.

[Heather]

Cold outreach, rejection, no responses. That's the given. And cold outreach, it takes. You gotta put on. You gotta put on your big girl panties.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

You're probably not gonna make a ton of traction, but it's is still worth it. And stupid card. Right? Came from cold outreach. Yeah. So you can kind of see that we had to do all three remarketing. Going back to my old vendors was the best way to get signups this year. Yeah.

[Cory]

A great way to incorporate this into your business is if you're looking for either your first time or you're looking for a new venue for a cookie class. Asking your audience, hey, does anyone know a good place to host a cookie class? They're going to tag the business that they love, that they think it would be a good host. It makes that segue so much better. The amount of cold emails I get to my business business marketing account that I don't read every single day is insane.

[Heather]

You know what's wild now? They're AI written. So somebody's telling a script to AI. They're like, go through this podcast and write about the first, the most recent episode, then pitch them on me appearing on this podcast.

[Cory]

So.

[Heather]

So I'm like, it's like, hey, Heather, Corey, really like what you said about Fendi Blendy this week.

[Cory]

Yeah. That's how I know you're lying. Here's the one. I do not suggest this. I just thought it was creative. You have to think the world of. Of cold, cold audience marketing is insane.

[Heather]

Barren wasteland.

[Cory]

Yeah. What One person, a company who wanted us to reach our marketing company to like do white labeling surface services. Send me a penny on PayPal.

[Heather]

One little penny offensive. Offensive.

[Cory]

I was like, give me at least a Starbucks card. The penny on PayPal. He could write a note attached to it. PayPal sent me two additional prompts to different, different notifications being like, you still have that penny from so and so. I was like, I see what you did there.

[Heather]

Give me 100. So applied to your business, we have remarketing and that's using a CRM, reaching out to last year's clients. Word of mouth. That's really turning your clients into your best thing. And we have cold outreach. And the way you're not going to just find an email list and say, hey, would you like some Google? You're going to see those posts. I am looking for a baker. And you're going to pitch yourself. And that's going to be the hardest one. And you're going to say, well, a lot of of people are tagging themselves. That's what it is. It is the close your eyes and shoot blindly and hope it hits something. Yeah. Number five, fomo. Obviously. The Vendee Blendy's biggest marketing Strategy is the fear of missing out fomo and that is how the whole event works. Now I can tell you that you guys can apply this to your business in terms of a lot of ways. Resale. I'm running out, I'm almost booked for this month. Things like I only have three of these left, I have a pop up.

[Cory]

Happening, no holds, first come, first served.

[Heather]

So you can kind of create that fomo but you got to keep reminding people about it. So again, people always say, can we do the vending blendy twice a year now? Can we do the vending blending more than one day? Can we do it two days? No, because it all only exists on the fact it only barely exists. The minute that it becomes a multi year thing and we do it more than one day, it loses its luster.

[Cory]

A strategy you can use for FOMO is you have your warm audience has bought from you before you're going to release, lease your pre sales to them first, score a few orders. So when you go to your cold audience, you were like, you know, we had this many, now we're down to this. Okay, because you have used your marketing channels to benefit you, you can now create FOMO to your cold audience to score even more sales. That's why the VIP groups people release their pre sale options to the VIP group first so they can they get first dibs.

[Heather]

Because I don't want to we before, we are a gaining human, we are a loss averse human. We do not want to miss out. And FOMO taps in that lizard brain that's like if I don't buy this A1 mini tonight, I'll have to pay $25 more tomorrow. Yeah, I'm not going to lose out on that. I mean you should have seen my shaky fever pitch fingers going to bamboo.com logging in because for some reason you have to always log in to buy anything and then getting that A1 mini I don't need because I have a printer downstairs I haven't turned on in a week. But FOMO really works well for cookie classes. So always say, like I told you, I was able to film my December class back in July because in January I said this class will fill up. I would love you people, my now warm audience, to have first dibs on it. And the way you're going to have to do that is sign up today and then you can get that. So FOMO really, really, really does work.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And that is the fun of the vendiblendy is that, I mean I think there's some Great deals. And I think there was some fantastic.

[Cory]

The thing is, FOMO runs through everyone's marketing. This deal is expiring. The sale is over. The FOMO of the dollar spot in Target, if you're not there first, they never restock it. Yeah, like, I'm over there, like, every day. Like, I just have to see what's something new.

[Heather]

You don't want to miss out. You don't want to miss out and telling people, if you don't do this action, you'll miss out. We just can't. We really can't resist. Yeah, I can find my. I was on a website yesterday. I didn't need anything. I just didn't want to miss out. They sent me 50 emails that something was ended. Yeah. Okay. Six content buckets. You can see that. Leading up to the vendor blender, it was still the diverse marketing content that you come to love and know here in the sugar cookie marketing group, we talk about the podcast, we do the podcast poll, we do the countdown. But the week leading up to vending bleeding, I didn't even post a countdown. What countdown? The countdown to the Vendee Blendy. In fact. Yeah, I replaced it with just Vendi Blendy related content and make it makes the group seem a little lopsided. But that's intentional because we want to drive traffic. So Corey has a great example of that in business. Okay. If the vendor market. If we were producing 200 units for a vendor market, it better be the only thing coming out of our mouths. But then you'll see, like, really enjoyed the set. Unless it's a base layer post that you scheduled out, I don't think it has a place for it. Leading up to a big event that you need to move product on.

[Cory]

Your event has an expiration date. Sheila's order.

[Heather]

You could post that anytime.

[Cory]

And I know we get so excited because we put so much time and.

[Heather]

Effort into dog and Sheila.

[Cory]

Sheila. I don't know Sheila. I like Sheila.

[Heather]

So Sheila's already taken care of. She's happy. She's out the door. We need new foot traffic to this vendor event that is on December 5th.

[Cory]

Yeah. Because Sheila's order will be there to.

[Heather]

Post about all year long.

[Cory]

You know, it doesn't add anything to our little vendor market. Your vendor market has an expiration date. That's what your goal is. I know. We get excited because we spend so much time on these orders that you're like. Like, I just have to post it because I'm so proud of what I did. I'm Proud that you're proud. But be proud next week. Be proud after your vendor event has been done and gone.

[Heather]

So I know we have content bucket strategy. My favorite thing, if you're not doing content buckets, you're dazing views. Get into content buckets. There's a couple podcasts on it. Talk about it in the cookie college as well, but content buckets. We have content buckets for the overall yearly strategy. And that's, you know, Tuesdays of podcast Wednesdays, a Wednesday newsletter, the Countdown Wednesday wins, things like that. But we also created content buckets for this event specifically. And you'll see there was a lot of memes because some people like memes. You'll see that there was countdowns because some people like that fomo, that excitement. You'll see that there was features. Corey was doing review videos of the content of the products that people were sending her. And you can see that there was just general like, hey, guys, don't miss out on that 101. Here's how the vendor works. There's lives. So I had about five or six content buckets just for this event. And the reason why that's so valuable is because different people like different types of content. Some people are never watching reels.

[Cory]

No.

[Heather]

Some people think that my countdown posts were boring. Some people thought that the shot features weren't worth reading. But we don't want to. Oh, you don't like that, so you don't get to know about it. No, no. I'm going to find a way. I'm going to find something that you like and I'm going to hit it there.

[Cory]

That's why when I say, if you're going to make the sample for your pre sale, use the pants off of it. Taking one photo and letting that photo do the entire job of the campaign is a lot to ask of that little tiny.

[Heather]

It's also pretty boring.

[Cory]

It is boring.

[Heather]

You may say, well, I took one photo, I'm going to post about it multiple times. Right. That's what they said. No, no, no. We need more interesting content about that photo, that product, whatever it is. I mean, have one with your kid holding it. Corey likes to take her kid holding a cake pop.

[Cory]

Not so much as he's aged, but.

[Heather]

That we like seeing.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Faces. So you're like, well, I put it on a white backdrop. Okay, well, now put it with props. Yeah.

[Cory]

I like to really dissect DIY kits is an easy way to get it. A video of you packing the DIY kit, a video of the cookies on the baking sheets because you have so many endless. And it's like. Like it goes on for a sea of DIY kits.

[Heather]

A photo of it, unbox the photo of it boxed up. A photo of your kid decorating. Yeah. There's a lot of applications where we can still say it's still a DIY kit, but maybe this one's going to see that get their attention. And maybe this one's going to get their attention. Yeah, you professionally decorating that DIY kit shows them that possibly I could be this kid if I take this diy. There's a lot of content buckets that can push different products. So you can have your general. Your base content buckets, which absolutely. All year long. And then you can have content buckets about the specific event, and you can have them within a story, a reel, a live, a feed, post a share, you know, things like that to kind of keep it more diverse. And I say content buckets. It can. It can expand to your newsletter. It can expand to these other avenues of marketing. If you guys print off flyers, if you guys go to networking events, it's part of content buckets as well. A7 giveaways. Again, always steer. Just tread cautiously when you use that word. I think someone said for sale or sold was also now a new exam keyword. But running giveaways, we did that. I think we gave away an. We gave away a Bosch, and I think we gave a printer an A1 printer. And those were to build up that hype to get people pending. Why do giveaways work? Because, again, I think that concept of somebody's gotta win, why not me? Yeah, it's just easy to enter. Make it easy to enter. So. And all the vendor blenders, all the vendors that day doing the vendor blender had the option to offer a giveaway. And this was my big takeaway. I told them, and I tell them every year. So the vendors get into that group a week before, and I prep them. Yeah, I tell them, listen, make it easy. Make whatever it is to enter that door price easy. Some people are like, listen, once you remove your kidney, please replace your other kidney. And then you can enter to win my 30 and then get a tattoo.

[Cory]

Of my business on your right butt cheek.

[Heather]

Only a cheek tattoo is two injuries. So make your giveaways easy. So the giveaway we had, I think I said I'll just pick from. Oh, yeah. What I said is, if you're pending for the event. Yeah, I'll have Ruthanne, our grandmother, choose two letters, and whoever shows up first gets so super easy. All you had to do is something you were already doing.

[Cory]

I'm a big fan of not letting your samples go to the cookie graveyard. Listen, nobody cares if they're eating the Christmas Santa Claus in a November one. I always see it as two things. I can market my pre sales early and then I turn someone who's never maybe tasted of my cookies into a potential referral source. Even if they don't win. And they never buy from me. If they, if they get win the sample, eat it like it. I'll see them again in the comment section one day. So to make all those samples and then let them just press one, that's.

[Heather]

A great way to introduce yourself to an audience. Two, it's a great giveaway. Yeah. Three, it's not wasting products. You're not wasting costs.

[Cory]

I know.

[Heather]

And then for. I don't know, it's not going to waste. I just like the fact that it doesn't get thrown away. Yeah.

[Cory]

There's so much marketing you can do out of it. But I know some people are like, well, that's why if I love freezing cookies, like, if I'm like, I'm going to make this sample, I'm going to freeze it until I know I have my icing ready, then I'm going to make it. I'm never letting it just get sitting there for so long. And I know it does take pre planning, but we got freezers. We know how to freeze cookies. Let's use that, you know, see what we can and see if we can't waste and we can use it more for marketing.

[Heather]

Right. I love it. Energy and hype. This one's really hard to capture. It's very hard to do. A lot of companies try to say, how can I capture energy? How can I create Energy Week? You know, I asked a couple people, they're like, this is my first vendor event as the shopping side of things. I said, what do you think? And they were like, I wasn't going to join. But it just seems like everyone's so excited. Why wouldn't I? And the way you can do that is consistency. A lot of times people like start something and stop something. If we'd started after the first year, the fourth year wouldn't have been as easy to market because it would have been trying to reintroduce a whole concept. Energy and hype. You have to have the energy. Every time I went live, Corey said, act like this is the best thing you've ever talked about in your life. Life. If you don't have energy. We can't expect our audience to suddenly pick that up for us.

[Cory]

I made all the videos for welcome to the video in our next venue. If I. If I. I listened back to him. It's never good on the first take. So it'll be like, in our next venue. I'm like, wow, you're so sad.

[Heather]

If Corey's not excited, how can her audience be excited for her?

[Cory]

Yeah. So your energy, whether you're doing the Facebook Live. I know. Getting on the Facebook Live. I tried to do them and I'm like, I'm a deer in my head lights right now. You know, have a script written out. That's how I work. I really need, like a guideline as I'm going to keep that energy up so you're not lost in the sauce. Because you have one opportunity to get their attention and keep it. You're going to lose it if you're like, and we're doing DIY kits again this year.

[Heather]

I'm like, I don't want to do that.

[Cory]

Yeah. You don't seem excited about your diy.

[Heather]

Are you okay? Blink twice if you're being held hostage. Is your DIY good energy and hype? I tell Corey that this when you are too self conscious. If you're so worried what other people think, it's hard to show the energy and enthusiasm. When you look at children, right? They're always excited about everything because they don't care what you think about it. They want you to think that this leaf they found is the best leaf ever found in the land of the land. But when you get older and you start getting those insecurities and I'm not. I don't like how I look. I don't like how I sound. I see that a lot. I don't like how I am on camera. You're. You're just what you cannot get over. Will cost you money.

[Cory]

I know.

[Heather]

So at the end, I tell myself, this is my favorite face. That is what it is. When I look at the mirror, like.

[Cory]

This is the best it will be all day.

[Heather]

Corey had me go live. We drove to the mall. Obviously it is a tradition. She drove and she was like, I want you to go live on Tik Tok. Never done it before. And I'm like, well, what do I have to lose? They. They never heard me before. Let me be excited.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And even if I. My voice is annoying. It is what it is. My face is my face. I can put makeup on it. But at the end of the day, the excitement is on, on me. I can't be like, I hate looking at myself. Then don't look at yourself. Look beyond the camera. Look at the camera.

[Cory]

You do not have to rewatch your videos.

[Heather]

You do not. Unfortunately, TikTok didn't save. Of course that's delicious. But yeah, that energy and hype comes from you. If you don't believe it, if you're like, wow, I'm not excited about it, well then your audience won't be excited about it. If you're not going live, they don't care. If you're not posting funny content, if you're not being building up that energy, your audience won't do that for you. I think Nicole stole. I'm not sure if she deleted the live, she would create a lot of energy around these pre sales, but funny enough, people would hide in her bushes. And it wasn't sarcasm. She was saying, yeah, they really wanted to be first. That's because she has a lot of energy. When she teaches those classes, when she teaches those pre sale lives, she kind of does it like a QVC thing. Like, and we'll have this.

[Cory]

I know, yeah, yeah.

[Heather]

And she could be like, and we'll have this cookie. It'll be available to be at $2. Oh, we'll have this cookie. It's available for $2. Oh, guys, the numbers are coming in. We're almost sold out.

[Cory]

We have two left.

[Heather]

If you want to watch that, go watch qvc. Go watch something that does build up a lot of energy and see how that they capture that qvc.

[Cory]

Being excited about a jean skirt, I mean, that's gonna tell you how. Look at this jade skirt. Jean skirts have been around for a bazillion years.

[Heather]

Is it Billy Mays? But wait, there's more. Yeah, watch infomercials. They're a great way to be like. And then everything was really sad until they bought the chamois. I know, I know.

[Cory]

And you're gonna be like, oh, but guys, that's not who I am. Listen, do you think I say hello, dynamite buddy? Do you think that's who I am?

[Heather]

I can tell you it's not.

[Cory]

Hello, waiter at Olive Garden.

[Heather]

I would like some minimalist breadsticks.

[Cory]

But wait, there's more.

[Heather]

The salad and energy and hype organization and follow up. Now this is the backside of things. And I love it. When I go to delete all the posts at the last 30 minutes of the venue, I lift posting restrictions. So that means all end users, all appendees can post. They turn to Spend these by that point, but they can all post. And I love, I love the compliments. And just so you know, I read them all. This was late enough. Yeah. And they were like, this is so organized. This was so predictable. This was so easy to follow for a concept. That is kind of weird. Yeah. Yeah. This was very well organized. And I see it from the vendors, they always end up in my inbox and I said, wow. I was, that was a lot of content you sent at us. But it was all pretty organized.

[Cory]

I want to say if you're doing all the marketing for your pre sale, you've done it. You've created the hype, you've done the content buckets. You end up getting a ton of sales but you're disorganized. Nothing will put a bad taste in your mouth and you won't ever want to do it again like being disorganized. Heather lives this life of organization. I'm like on the cusp of her organization. I got better.

[Heather]

She's learning, gotten a lot better. She's using Google Calendar. There's hope. But yeah, staying really organized. So you can say, well, how should I do that? I pre write all the emails I send to the vendors and I keep it in a word doc that I share with them that they can always go back and reference that way. And the way I find that organization, just find what people keep asking about. If they're like, well, I don't know this well then there's a little gap right there. Fill that in with something that produces more organization and follow up. So you constantly follow up. I sent the vendors seven emails total. Right. And these are all scheduled out at different iterations. And I told them, here's the emails you will be getting, here's the email we're on currently and here's how you can read past emails. Now that's may say a little overkill, but they don't have a lot of questions for me. Yeah, the more I put, the more effort I put into organization and follow up. The more effort you put into organizing your orders and following up with it, the more likely you're going to see people. Not, not. There's no ghosting, there's no forgetting. There's no, well, I didn't know this. I didn't know where I was supposed to go and pick this up.

[Cory]

I want to say things you can do in 2025 is ditch Facebook messenger as the place where people orders. It's so you have so many message coming. It's like almost like on Instagram, everything goes into a message. For whatever reason you react to my stories. It's in my messages.

[Heather]

Yeah, I don't know you. Like I get. We co manage some pages. Yeah. Accidentally click meta AI and it's like, hello. That seems like a typo.

[Cory]

I'm like, so the ways that you can help yourself be more organized is try to create these things in your life in 2025 that are going to help you manage it. Your marketing can be amazing. But if you're missing sales because you're not organized, what's the point of the marketing part?

[Heather]

One thing that I did like that I did this year, some thing I didn't do any year, is when vendors needed to make adjustments, which is great. It's encouraged. That's how we got that hype and they upped the ante. I said don't email me. In fact, if you email me, I'm going to send you to this form. And if you try to email me, I'm going to still send you this form. If it doesn't go through this form, it's not going to happen. I had vendors and love them to death. They're in my other other spam folder. They're in our Instagram, they're in our the cookie College Instagram. They're trying to message my personal Instagram that I'm in use. And I'm still saying thank you so much. Clear this form. And I think a lot of times we're like, well, it's a lead. It's easy there. And if you listen. A couple of podcasts ago, Corey went around her own form, took a lead and it costs her more money. Yeah, again, we need organization. We need something. When they go through that form, it created a spreadsheet and I could go through and check those off.

[Cory]

I want to tell you, you're like, well, they're just messaging right now. I could take it.

[Heather]

Here's the thing.

[Cory]

They're going to thank you for the information that they're getting on your form as much as you're going to thank them for the information they get when they submit it. It's a win, win on both sides. And I know you're like, well, I was just talking. I had a lady, I don't. She's from a past client. She both. She texted me, she called me, she sent me a voice mail on Instagram. Not sure how she did that. And the one thing she didn't do was email or fill out the. Well, she tried to fill out the form. It was closed. She wants, she wants an order on Christmas Day. So I see what she was getting. So I said, I texted her back and I said, hey, yeah, listen, here's my thing. Don't text me back here. I said, do not text me back. I said, I'm going to need it an email. So I said, I want to take your order. I said, but if you text me, I will lose the information. If you email it, then we can make sure we can get going.

[Heather]

Yeah, great one. I won't call out the vendee who did it. When they go through the form and they submit the form and I use Jotform, it sends them a copy of what they submitted. Well, the entire time of promotion they had had typo in their own Webster.

[Cory]

Wow.

[Heather]

So I had met, you know, I had highlighted like, this website doesn't work, this website doesn't work. And finally someone's like, oh, there's a typo in it. Well, the vendor was like, well, I hope I didn't submit that. You did. You can go back and see what you told me to do. And with your bakery business you got, you're going to have clients that are just forgetful themselves. But you are able to say, hey, could you go look at your order form, your submission? It's going to save you.

[Cory]

Because at the end of the day, if Heather didn't have that evidence that it had been submitted and promoting the.

[Heather]

Wrong website, I would like my registration.

[Cory]

Absolutely.

[Heather]

And I'd have to be like, well, maybe I did type it wrong. But because they went through the form, they got a copy of them. So actually to prove to myself and I'm a typo queen, I said for sure. I didn't. Well, when I don't type this stuff out, I use the form to use Zapier to put it into the spreadsheet. So I was like, well, isn't me, but I could have fat fingered something, went back in zap. Hey, no sweat at all. Get that fixed for you. That is what you submitted for. Yeah.

[Cory]

I want to also say the iPhones. Heather doesn't know this iPhones, you can go and then change the words in a text message. You typo something, you can go back.

[Heather]

You can edit it after you sent it. Yeah, you kidding me?

[Cory]

No, I'm pretty sure because I sent something wrong today. Let me just double check because now you're saying that and go ahead, continue there.

[Heather]

We have to leave in five minutes.

[Cory]

Sure.

[Heather]

Okay. My cat is very sick so we're gonna run to the vet, drop him off and then we'll come back.

[Cory]

Maybe we'll come back for the podcast.

[Heather]

It's not done.

[Cory]

You can finish it on your own.

[Heather]

We don't know we'll come back.

[Cory]

Hear more.

[Heather]

We came back. If we don't, we're done. We are back. I am poorer and bloodier.

[Cory]

I don't know if I said that correctly. Has been haunting me ever since we went to the vet. Can you change? Google says yes.

[Heather]

Google says yes. Can you change the imessage text after it's been sent? Okay.

[Cory]

Why do I say yes? You can, but don't quote me on it.

[Heather]

I don't know what your iPhone users are doing anyways. The cat has an ear infection and an eye infection. I'm 300 lighter and my hand is.

[Cory]

But your heart is fuller. Full of love.

[Heather]

Cory's supposed to hold his paw and let one paw get out and it just dragged me so hard.

[Cory]

Unruly.

[Heather]

He's ancient.

[Cory]

I need it to cost you.

[Heather]

Both financially, but still not.

[Cory]

And physically. And you know what?

[Heather]

And now I have to pay Cory's lunch every day because it's a two man cat healing job and I'm a one man cat.

[Cory]

It's far away, man.

[Heather]

Yeah, we go to the vet. Sorry, just this vet is fine. I. Every business in this area is propped up by the sheer amount of people you can be a mediocre business in a high cost of living area because there's so many people and still stay afloat.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

But anyways, the vet come in, they're like, here's all the meds you need to give his eye. Five things. Throat, mouth. Yeah. And Corey's like, you're gonna do the first round. She's like, no. And course, like, I think you should listen.

[Cory]

If I'm paid 300, you're gonna need.

[Heather]

To do a show. Yeah. You heard the bouncer said you should give the cats some of his stuff.

[Cory]

I need to see you do it. I'm a visual learner. Just to say do this. I can't follow that.

[Heather]

No, it was very good. Thanks for asking. You're welcome. Thanks for forcing. Yeah.

[Cory]

All right.

[Heather]

We'll take our cat elsewhere.

[Cory]

It's almost to have good to have. No someone there with no skin in the game. No cat in the crate.

[Heather]

Yeah. Cuz you're like, I lose nothing. I can show my face.

[Cory]

You can tell me though.

[Heather]

Fortunately, Cor and I have the same face. So you're gonna be like, aren't you that me that maybe moving back onto our list. So we're almost done here. And then I'm gonna to run through this. My hand is bloody. So I am moving at a sort really, really, really strict boundaries. Is the last tip from the Vendi blendy. So, you know, again, like I said, everyone's messaging me in all different places. People are like, can I do this, that and the other. No. The answer is no. When you signed up, you knew what you signed up for. The sign up form, our intake form, just like your bakery form should be, kind of spells everything out.

[Cory]

I want to say part of what FOMO is, is hard boundaries, the fear of missing out. You have to have the missing out part.

[Heather]

Right. Can't have the fear without the missing.

[Cory]

When vendors were seeing the hype train, which we do love, they're like, can I sign up for the vendor blender in two days? That's happening. Two days. I'm so sorry. No.

[Heather]

Anytime we ever been that, hey, hard, hard stop rule, I always live to regret it.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

So we should probably learn that lesson again.

[Cory]

So if you're having a popup and you say no holds for anybody, and then someone shows up and you've put half of the stuff away for your best customer. I'm so sorry. That's defeating the purpose of this whole popup pop up. First come, first serve. If you know. So you have to have hard boundaries in your sales to create the fomo. If you're constantly, you're going to, you're going to be run ragged. And Heather knows because in the past year she's been run ragged, that every.

[Heather]

Year it gets better. It does. Efficiency. Because of the lessons learned.

[Cory]

Yeah. So you have to have your hard boundaries. No, you can't change this. We're there. You know, especially if you're doing custom orders. You know, some people, and I like that they have it written out in their terms and services that, that you know, there's no hard changes two weeks before the order because you, you've bought the cutters. The last thing it needs to be is someone had an idea farted out to you and then you're running around trying to get these cutters in the worst time to order anything. It's just not, it's not worth it. You're going to start hating your business because of it and your customers don't benefit. At the end of the day, they'll be fine with the designs they wanted. Five months ago. A promise. A promise, promise, promise.

[Heather]

Now things I like, like with the boundaries. And you can ask a couple of the Vendys. I'm really nice when I communicate them. Just really, just a little daisy popping from the ground. And that's why you, if you search the group and you look up cookie contract, they're written very jovially, they're written very approachably, but there's still rules and boundaries. Now when those boundaries are broken and I said to the people, listen, I know you think I'm a real nice person and I really am, but we gotta respect the rules. And here is the rule I need you to respect and I'll turn back into a daisy.

[Cory]

So here's, here's how you can a lot of times, and all of us suffer from this is you've made the order, we've agreed upon a time they're.

[Heather]

Supposed to be there.

[Cory]

2Pm, 2pm rolls around 2:33. We're starting to resent the customer and the business. And you know what? It's our fault. So I saw Heather silently because we man these accounts together, I think I.

[Heather]

Can always see who it is we have the others.

[Cory]

The Vendi Blendy needed the door prize announcements to happen at what, 9 o'clock. So at 901, 901, I'm seeing these. Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry, I'll do it right now. And I was like, Heather is enacting the boundaries that were there. Because here's the thing, if the vendees get the whole day of promotion, they're growing their business, they're growing their socials and all the pendies help them do that. To enter these door prizes, it really is not fair that they don't come and finish their end by actually giving away what they said they were going.

[Heather]

To give away, right? So all those seven emails I talked about sent over two months that says, hey, door prizes yet again. I said, and I hate to do this and I hate to do it every year, but there is a wall of shame that will be posted where we'll get. Well, I'll get people to hunt and find you. Yeah. And I said, I hate to do it. I really, really, really, really wouldn't like to do it. But I will, right? And then it gets to the point where like, okay, I'm doing it. Of course every vendor has a really great reason why they didn't follow the rules. But I'm like, hey, just get it posted now and then you can do that. So somebody had asked in the sugar cookie marketing group, everyone shows late to pickups. What do. And I said, it's the threat of violence that does a lot of heavy Lifting. And that's the. For every hour you're late, it's $10 charge. Right. And you say, and I really, really.

[Cory]

Don'T want to charge it, so please.

[Heather]

Show up on time. Then you got somebody showing late, and you're like, hey, just going to update your invoice to include the late fee. Thank you again so much. Hopefully to see you soon again. Just a quick reminder is $10 an hour. If you could get someone out here real quick, I. If you can get someone out here within the hour, I'll wave that first one. Right. So you give yourself the flexibility, and then they never show up. You charge. Okay. That is what it is. But you have to be able to have that very pleasant delivery of boundaries. I don't like so much that the boundaries are like, and if you don't, I'll find you and take your kidney. But we want to be like, hey, I don't want to do this. I'll have to do it, so please don't make me do it. And then you'll see that a lot of people, because you've warned them ahead of time that you will be less than a daisy, they'll kind of show.

[Cory]

Up because we are so preachy on taking payment upfront when they book. It's really hard to be like, I'll send you an additional weird invoice of $10.

[Heather]

Right? It is.

[Cory]

And most people fall. I actually someone. A company did this for me. I think it was a hair care product, and it was like a monthly subscription thing. And I canceled, but I canceled before the time was up. So it says you'll. If you sign up again, if you order again, you'll see the additional charge the next time you sign up. Here's the thing.

[Heather]

I would never sign up again.

[Cory]

Yeah, but if. Do you want it that bad?

[Heather]

I don't know.

[Cory]

Do you love that? Here's the thing. There has to be something.

[Heather]

There has to be something. Yeah. There has to be a bad guy in a situation where the boundaries are not honored. And if you're going out, me and.

[Cory]

Heather were spanked all the time. Me more so than Heather.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

I mean, to get the threat of.

[Heather]

Violence because of problems. You made sprinkle the head and attitude.

[Cory]

I was voted most moodiest.

[Heather]

You self nominated.

[Cory]

I know.

[Heather]

And then everyone agrees.

[Cory]

So here's the thing. It is hard to do. Here's what. Sometimes I can't always say, I'm going to charge $10. I say to myself, the customer service I was going to give give to them happened at 2:00.

[Heather]

It's 2:30.

[Cory]

So they're going to forfeit my customer service and find their box of cookies on a table outside my door.

[Heather]

There's a blend of like being rude with boundaries and being firm with boundaries. And then there, there's a sweet spot. And I see a lot of times people who are rude with boundaries took it personally. Yeah, firm with boundaries. And when you know, the venue's like, I'm so sorry. Like, hey, no problem at all. I just have to make sure this is a well oiled machine and I want to make sure you're part of this machine next year.

[Cory]

My biggest issue is with pre sale or DIY kit days because you have so many people coming. Usually with customs, I can nail it down. We nail it down.

[Heather]

A week out, huh? Cookie class kits. I mean cookie classes though I send that. I haven't sent my reminder email this week. I got bogged down with a sick animal. But saying, and every reminder email they get three it says, just so you know, if you don't show up right, you're not going to be able to.

[Cory]

I know.

[Heather]

So please show up, show up late.

[Cory]

Typically because of those three reminder emails beforehand, we don't have a lot of people coming back after and be like, can I get, can I get my money back? I missed it because they know, oh, wow, that was, that was me.

[Heather]

That was on me. And I think a lot of times it's my fault. So I'm just right. We've had people not show up to class and never reach back out again. And I think because they're like, why miss the class? They told me what happens. That is what it is.

[Cory]

So covering your bases so that when you do go hard on the boundaries.

[Heather]

It'S not like a, not me.

[Cory]

Yes.

[Heather]

And you didn't. And you. No, no, no. Like, hey guys, I just want to let you know that we've passed that hourly mark, so there's an additional $10 charge.

[Cory]

Here's the thing. I want difference from the vending from like a customer's order and this why maybe the $10 additional to your next order. The vendors are losing the opportunity. If they don't come through, they're losing the opportunity of having this again next year. So the threat of violence is there.

[Heather]

Right.

[Cory]

So you know, while it's not be like, oh, $10.

[Heather]

I would absolutely tell the $10 and wave it if you can get here in the next hour. That's what I said to the vendors leading up to it. I said, if you don't post by 9pm I'm just going to ban you for the rest of the event and all events free. But don't make me do that. Don't make me do that. And then, okay, we get to 9pm and send out an email. I said, you know, it's a respect thing. If you don't post now, it's a disrespect to me, but not only to me, to these people. We've all promised them the ability to win these reprises. Some people are staying up just.

[Cory]

I know.

[Heather]

And then they get in and I say, and you're like, please, you know, please, please let me come back next year. Absolutely. I just needed. I just need you to know that this has to get done now. You're invited back next year. And I think that's what I would do with a $10 late fee. Like, it's absolutely waived if you can get in the next hour. Thank you so much. It just the option to wave.

[Cory]

Here's the thing. Here's what I here.

[Heather]

Okay.

[Cory]

I challenge bit of both worlds.

[Heather]

Good.

[Cory]

Repeat offenders. Repeat offenders is. That's not your target audience anyways. It's not your client. There's somebody else's client who likes to deal with late people.

[Heather]

What if this. This would not even happen. But just spaghetti noodle wall. See if it sticks.

[Cory]

Okay.

[Heather]

Allow checkout. I may be late to my pickup, so I'll pay $10 to have an extra three hours to come pick up. Like, it would be hard to explain. I haven't thought all the way through yet. But if that was. If I'm a late person, would I want to buy back some of my time? Let's say. Let's say $5 to add three hours.

[Cory]

To like, I guess you would knowingly be bypassing it. So if you were late, no one's gonna check it because they think the best of themselves. They're gonna be on time.

[Heather]

Would be wild, though, to be like, I'm so late. Let me buy this. Like, you'd have to have that. If you don't pick up in the hour, you forfeit your order. Would you like to buy more time? Yeah, it's just a funny time.

[Cory]

Just a little cha cha.

[Heather]

Just a little cha. So what. Okay, now that was our list of 10. I'll send it out in the one Wednesday. Wednesday newsletter if my thumb starts working again. What's one marketing tactic you saw use that you liked?

[Cory]

Okay.

[Heather]

I'm telling you. Did this year that we shouldn't do next year.

[Cory]

This Specifically was good because it was a closed group.

[Heather]

This was pretty savvy, and I didn't catch it until it started happening. It was a vendor's marketing idea.

[Cory]

One of the vendors on their door price, was it sweet pink olive?

[Heather]

I think so.

[Cory]

I think it was sweet pink olive. She said, tag your favorite baking bestie in the comments for a chance to win the door price.

[Heather]

Here's the thing.

[Cory]

Because it's a closed group and that this updated within the last year, it sends a group invite to the person that they tagged even though they're not in the group. Since group marketing is in its heyday, that is a fantastic way to get people who didn't know about you into the group. Not everybody joined, which is totally fine.

[Heather]

A ton of people did, though. You know the side effect of it?

[Cory]

What?

[Heather]

When I went to go make sure the group was fully closed because the VA's virtual assistants had done it, there was 185 people in the group. Those invites don't expire. Yes. I had to go and remove the invite, but if they accept the invite, they booped into the group. So they keep booping in. Like I keep moving up. Yeah.

[Cory]

So I thought that was a great idea. If you have a closed VIP group running a giveaway within the group and having them tag their local best, what happens?

[Heather]

The bestie doesn't see the tag, but the bestie gets the group invite. The person who tagged.

[Cory]

Yes.

[Heather]

Now can click a quick button to.

[Cory]

Invite somebody, which is something that updated in the last last year or so.

[Heather]

It is new.

[Cory]

Yeah. And I didn't even think it was genius.

[Heather]

If I were you and I was going to take that and apply it, I would say in your VIP baking group or your local community group, tag somebody and you both win. That way they'll get the invite and then join the group and then you're not. And I hate that. Like, tag somebody and they don't win, but you just used them. Yeah, I know. So I would say give and get. If. If I see a giveaway and it's a give and get one, I'm more apt to bother somebody.

[Cory]

Here's something that you could do. Valentine's Day class, if you're doing it geared towards couples, tag your spouse or your boyfriend or your girlfriend and have them bring into the group. Odds are if they like cookies, it will bring that person. Like my husband would not know to buy me cookies because I've never said it. But if someone brought into the group and I'm like, oh, my goodness, I want to win this so bad, having them in the group, maybe they'd partake in it later this year for my birthday, for our anniversary.

[Heather]

Right. It's an interesting strategy. It was something I really like. What's something you won't do next year across boards? Well, tell me.

[Cory]

Let me think about that. Tell me what you liked, what strategy you saw that you liked this year.

[Heather]

The strategies that I saw and I liked. I thought. And you go to bed at this time. I thought the clear the shelves things were really strategic. So if you guys. And that's why I always say don't fall asleep during the Vendy Blendy. If you come back at night, then you can come and see what happens after hours. So we call it Vendy Blendy after hours. Obviously if you listen to the podcast, I talk about it here, but I never posted anywhere. Yeah, the vendors know about it after 10:30. I think Eugene Dough Sheeters is the one I was most impressed with. He had some dent and ding dough sheeters he just needed. The whole concept is called the clear the shelf.

[Cory]

It's the clearance shelf chopper.

[Heather]

And he said I these. I have three of these. They're 300. That is like 60%, 65% off of what the real ones they were denting. He used them at expos or whatever you were getting them as is. He sold them unless in two minutes.

[Cory]

Wow.

[Heather]

And I was just like genius. A big product, heavily discounted. He used a thing to its strategy and just to sell it in two minutes would be amazing.

[Cory]

I guess. One thing can I talk about like as a creator of the Vendy Blendy versus like what I've seen.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

So my one thing is I don't. You're going to have more unhappy people with the vendor blender numbers if they didn't market all year. So the vendors.

[Heather]

Who's a good one. Yeah.

[Cory]

The vendors who didn't market all year and wait for the Vendy Blendy have so much riding on the Vendy Blendy because you did not market all year.

[Heather]

What the Vendi Blendy was designed to be is icing on top of your marketing cake. What we often see is that folks who sign up are like, well, I'm just going to make some last minute sales. I haven't sold anything all year. That's not. You don't see what you're missing out on because you didn't see the companies who had been marketing all year adding this as an additional feature. They truly cleaned up. Yes, all vendors made sales, but vendors would have made more sales had they spent the whole year building an audience. And this was in a. This was a little perk instead this being the only thing anyone saw about you all year. You just really weren't able to capitalize on it.

[Cory]

So as a vendi blendy host, what I'm going to be more next year is a little bit more picky choosy. I want someone who is in their business like I'm going to be in your business. But I don't want to be the only person who's working for your business.

[Heather]

Because as hosts Corey can feel when the burden is put on us to make these people sales. Like this shouldn't be my job to market for you. It is our job to market the event. Yeah. It is not our job to be the only marketing you had all year.

[Cory]

Right.

[Heather]

And then you turn around and we need vendors to drive traffic to the event. If you didn't market at all, you're driving no traffic.

[Cory]

If you're not marketing yourself, you're definitely not marketing.

[Heather]

And you can't bring anybody to the event. So the event is you are to the detriment of it. You're just a cash grab.

[Cory]

Right.

[Heather]

When in reality if you listen if you market all year long and then you do these big discounts, these FOMO driven discounts and these niche groups you can really capitalize on it.

[Cory]

The thing about marketing is brand recognition. If I can say the word the cookery and you know exactly it's the mint green cutters. She partners with the Miller's wife. She's done a great job marketing and she'll reap the benefit of that because of the Fendi blendy. If I say a name and you don't know what I'm talking about then.

[Heather]

You have to do the whole introductory to market.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Like these people are. I don't know what they sell. I don't know what they do.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Another marketing tip I found that vendors who have very complex nomenclature like their names are complicated. And I don't know what you are name you have every time you said hello you have to be like here's my name. I know that doesn't make sense. Here's what I said. I know like if you sold a T shirt if you had a T shirt shop I would include shirt T shirt clothing something in the brand name.

[Cory]

Obviously. Because me and Heather named this sugar cookie marketing.

[Heather]

Yeah. Taking it from I I just gonna say what's the sugar cookie marketing group.

[Cory]

About Cookies and marketing marketing cookies. Yeah.

[Heather]

So you can Have. And you'll see when somebody asked me in the group, like, what should I name a business? And they're like three cows and one child Inc. Like, are we selling cows and a child? If not, I don't, I don't think I appreciate that it means something to you, but what does it mean to your audience? Typically, nothing. So I like saying cookies, bakery, sweet treats, stuff like that. Use the keyword. It helps with SEO as well, but it also helps with every post you make. Here's an interesting marketing thing. Like, so the vendors. At the end of the day, I'm a host, but I'm also a vendor as well.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

So I give the vendors an option to post as their pager as themselves.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Corey and I debated this so long. Should I. I was making the sales post. You can't switch. That's the thing. You can't switch back and forth. Whatever you start with is what you finish with. So Corey's like, should I post as Heather Miracle or should I post as the cookie college?

[Cory]

So Heather herself is a brand.

[Heather]

Right. I made all the posts. I'm running the event, all the giveaway. You're seeing so much from me. And initially morning of I had my post as myself. Scheduled them because I can schedule because I'm a host and I had to. But Cory and I emergency phone call. We said, let's switch it over to the cookie college. Because the cookie college, because I'm posting all the primes and all the how to and the in search of threads, the cookie college became its own entity. And I think within the name, you knew exactly what I was selling. Did I lose out on people just looking for Heather Miracles? She's posting a door prize.

[Cory]

Here's the thing. You have to realize Heather's branding because we are all our own personal brands. Heather's personal branding, she loves a good, funny joke. She loves a meme. But the cookie college is a little bit more serious. Serious bakers trying to grow their business. So is it. Is she lost a little bit in the sauce when she posts? Because we're expecting something funny from Heather. That's what she typically does. So that's why we said, you know what, let's not have Heather post it. Let's have the page post it. Because that's on a more serious note.

[Heather]

Okay, here's another strategy. Each vendor gets three posts and then they get the additional door prize. How to win. And then the door prize announcement just has to use this. So you potential five posts. Right. So really three and a half Marketing posts if you think about it. So we were like, what should that image look like? One of them has to be a video or live. So we got really two image posts. What should it look like? And Corey and I went back and forth on this. Initially. There's this thing. There's this. And I forget the buzzword when marketing is so ugly. It actually cuts through the noise.

[Cory]

It stands out because it's not branded.

[Heather]

Well, it's not branded well. So we had talked about that initially. Was just going to use pictures of Frank when he was 9. Not walking in circles. And Cory's like, that's a little too far. I still think it would have cut through some of the images. But we ended up going with. I went to the bank and I got a bunch of dollar bills and I spelled out words. I'm not sure if people could even see it. But it was so ugly.

[Cory]

It was.

[Heather]

It was so ugly intentionally.

[Cory]

It was.

[Heather]

But I think it drove point home. If you sign up for this, you'll make more money. That was the goal.

[Cory]

That's why in your baking business. And sometimes I do this. I'll have a really good stage photo of my DIY kits. Something that looks really good. Okay. Made all the sales. Maybe I'll find an extra box. I'll take one ugly photo on my camera in the yellow light of my cookie room and post that. It's not as perfected, but it seems like that's a deal right there. Whatever she's posted is a deal because it's not well scripted, it's not well crafted, it's not all edited. It's this. Move this off the shelf and go.

[Heather]

Yes, it was really interesting. The event never ceases to amaze me. And I'm the one putting it on and I'm learning stuff and saying, oh, I wish I didn't do that. I wish I did this different.

[Cory]

The big takeaway. And I'll close up the section here because I'm hungry. That me and Heather learned and we talked about at the beginning and we'll talk about it again. We gave ourselves extra time to market and it was so insanely hard to get reach each post. We were fighting for the views on every single post. Some things that would have gone up and been just amazing. Last year it barely got got any thoughts or sites or engagement this year. And that's because you're working against algorithms. As much as we wish it would be like plug and play. One plus one equals two. In this day and age when algorithms are constantly changing new Things are being added. New people are on the platform. You can't ever get too comfortable in your marketing. Even though this is a fourth year of the Vendi blendy, we couldn't sit on our laurels and be like, well, it's going to market itself. Now it's year number. It's not the case. We fought for every pendy. We fought for every comment. We fought for every engagement. We fought for every sale. So just think, that's a large scale. We had 47,000 people to market to. We got 8,000.

[Heather]

Ish.

[Cory]

A little over 8,000.

[Heather]

A lot of sense. And that costs a lot of money. And that 8,000 of 47,000 people. If that's not the big takeaway.

[Cory]

I know. So that wraps up the vending money. We'll never say the word ever.

[Heather]

Goodness. One text is about the vending bloody. But I'll say we'll say it one more time. When? On Black Friday. And this is another marketing point. Corey and I have this many channels, right? We have Facebook, we have Instagram, we have Tik Tok, we have the group on Facebook newsletter, the newsletter and the podcast, right? So, you know, Corey and I are like, who are we to teach people marketing and sales and to not exercise across those channels Marketing a sale. So we did an emergency lot and it wasn't planned. We did a podcast. It's already been deleted. It was deleted that night. I mean, but someone messaged from that and she said, wow, I tucked in my toes and you still hurt my feelings, probably because it's absolutely true Soul. Thanks, guys, for everything you do, even a swift kick in the rump. So I want to tell you what.

[Cory]

She'S talking about is we had the cookie college, which it's still around.

[Heather]

We get. We can delete it.

[Cory]

Everything got too much. Got deleted. The cookie college. This is a good segue. What she was saying is we had a heart to heart on this podcast that we dropped on Friday. And you know, me and Heather, we're pretty jovial. We like things on the upper vibes. But this podcast was truly is, you know, poop or get off the pot. At the end of the day, if you are the one who's sitting in your bakery and you're listening to these podcasts, you're in the group, you're reading the post, you're saving it for later. And you're in the same spot you were in 2023 and you're in the same spot now in 2024. What do you think? Do you think it's going to be different in 2025.

[Heather]

No. If unless action is taken, nothing ever changes.

[Cory]

It's so nice to save a post. See that and screenshot it.

[Heather]

Rule of thumb, if I save a post, I'll never, I'll never do it.

[Cory]

So what, what it was was put your money where your mouth is. No one's going to love your business more than you, I can promise you that. So if you don't even love it enough to en. Invest in it, what no one else is going to. I can just swear we've, we've tried it before. It does not work that way. So what the cookie college is is a group of courses made by us what we do for our clients every day. But we've broken it out in easy to digest video tutorials that can help you grow your business in 2025. That is just what it comes down to. There's so many things in there. If you're wanting to teach classes, we teach you how to teach a class. Class plus you get all the curriculum from 2023, 2024.

[Heather]

Now moving into 2025 already gotten it.

[Cory]

Out to teach cookie classes. We are big in different avenues. You know customs take a long time.

[Heather]

They are diversify your income sources.

[Cory]

So this 2025 year in the college we're going to focus on setting up.

[Heather]

An Amazon storefront, setting up Amazon affiliate again, printing your own cookie cutter. Because 2025 Corinth and my goal is easier money, more income sources in the easiest way possible and just to diversify that workflow because at the end of the day the more sales you make, the less time you have.

[Cory]

Right.

[Heather]

How can we buy back that time and still increase costs? And that's the strategy of business. Increase the production, decrease production time.

[Cory]

The one thing I love that I'm seeing cookiers doing is incorporating more video in their strategy. The problem is there's they're snoozers, they're easy to scroll by. So how can we include hooks in our videos to get people to stop and watch? How can we make these videos turn into profits? Whether it be brands partnering with you, which has been an awesome thing.

[Heather]

Cori's going to teach class on TikTok creator fun Instagram. What do they call it though? The creator fund for them.

[Cory]

There is a rewards program.

[Heather]

Rewards program Facebook. You're making money off of some videos. Yeah, she can tell you how to set that up. Again it does require the video to, to have certain amount of reach and then finding people if that's how you want to Diversify your income. Finding businesses to partner with to feature their products in exchange. So, for example, there was a Bosch giveaway before the Vendee event ever started. Yeah, Bosch donated that. And they donated that because they had an application process that said, hey, we're willing to donate a Bosch for a giveaway. Apply here. And I was like, well, I have a group of 47,000 and we're done. And that's how the setup. But then the execution is, you know, hey, I cold outreach and Right.

[Cory]

The Amazon storefront is fantastic. If you're teaching classes and people are like, where'd you get that piping bag? Having it in your Amazon storefront one it makes it easier for the people in class to get everything you have. Because honestly, every class we teach, they think if they have everything I use, they're going to be just like me.

[Heather]

Made me decorate cookies on Thanksgiving.

[Cory]

She did great.

[Heather]

I needed more stuff.

[Cory]

So here's the thing. Having that is a. Is a passive way to get income from something that you're already doing. So if that's something you're focused in, on in 2025, you're gonna love it. But you're gonna love everything we have. Caption course how to write compelling copy. What gets people to stop the scroll and buy it? That. That's what FOMO is, the fear of missing out. You have to build that fear. If photos are a big thing that you're like, it's holding you back. People buy with their eyes with online marketing. Unfortunately, if they could walk past Jimmy John and smell the free smells on the sign, maybe they'd buy. But they can't. They're. They're scrolling on their feeds. What's going to stop them and make them buy? So that's where is a huge course in there. Things to make you look more professional. There's a lot of fly by night bakers who just wake up in December, make a few sales, go back to sleep. What we want is to differentiate ourselves and to create brand loyalty, brand recognition and brand confidence. And you can do that through the custom domain. Setting up an email with a custom domain, it's not Corey Miracle loves dogsmail.com. you know, there's nothing that will rattle.

[Heather]

Your cage more than, yeah, when I have to email and it's [e-mail] I'm not getting whatever I just ordered.

[Cory]

Optimizing your Facebook page. We don't want people to have to look for where you're located. That's how you lose sales. So optimizing your Instagram Optimizing your Facebook page, utilizing those sources. That's what we go over in the college. The biggest thing and probably what most people signed up for. It's not the courses, it's the private cookie college group on Facebook. That's where we get a dive deep. People have hit hit the ground running since Friday.

[Heather]

Wow. They're gonna make this money.

[Cory]

They said, we will make this worth our time. So it's been fantastic to dive in deep with them. We went over group posting strategy in there, how you can stand out from.

[Heather]

The rest when it comes to my onboarding live. And someone's like, yeah, I signed up because I don't have a co worker. I work in my kitchen. I'm by myself, lonely. I have no one to talk shop with and I'm here to make friends.

[Cory]

I know it was. It's been fantastic so far. So if that. That's something you want to do, don't let 2025 be your time where you say, maybe next year, maybe 2026 is it.

[Heather]

Yeah. Like, I don't want the vending blendy. Sorry, I had to say it again to come around 2025 and you're like, this year I'll make a difference. Why not this right now? Yeah. We have 365 days. If you do, that's a ton of hours. You can make a huge difference in your business and half buddies doing it with you. Yeah.

[Cory]

So let's go to the podcast sponsors because without them this would not be here. We would not be chattering your ears off and talking about Frank.

[Heather]

First up up is a core backers compliment to them. They are now the backers co they ran 30% off but black but after hours had bumped it up to 30. And that's why I always say I'm late on the video. But AE core backers, the backers co if you are a new year, new me, new photography, this is where you're going to want to do. They're the backdrops that you see Corey takes all her photos on.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

I call it a kitchen model in a box because you can get that tile that is, you know, was it.

[Cory]

What's a new subway tile?

[Heather]

What's a new countertop? Mom and dad got quartz. Quartz countertop without the quartz price. Because it's just this backdrop where you can take these photos. Honestly say, I can tell when you're not using backdrops. I can tell when you're using your wood floor. Yeah. I can tell when you're using the countertop that came with your kitchen These are great ways. Again, buying with your eyes. Like Corey said, Jimmy John, this is always the thing. You see Jimmy John's sandwich in the photos. Yeah. That stage. It's stunning. It's so sure. But, you know, you couldn't even possibly eat that sandwich. But it's a photography that's going to say, listen, if you just come in and try this, it's going to taste like it looks. Yeah.

[Cory]

And I. I love the peanut gallery in the back.

[Heather]

I'll eat whatever.

[Cory]

I'm sure you would.

[Heather]

Here's the thing.

[Cory]

You're not going to buy whatever. If it looks dingy and dirty. You don't want to buy it.

[Heather]

Here's the thing. I'll eat whatever, but you have to choose between Subway, Jimmy John's Firehouse Subs. So how are those three guys going to get you to eat whatever? Yes. And that comes to the photography. Now 30% off is gone. That was a vending price, but you can get 20% off by using code Sugarcoat Cookie at checkout.

[Cory]

Yeah, yeah. Next up, Royal batch. It's the meringue powder I use. I love it. It whips up bright white because it has white food coloring in. It has vanilla extract so it tastes delicious right out the back. And corn syrup for a soft bite. You can get it for 10 off. Now using code Twins. She did not sell out, I don't think at the vending blank. I will say I bought at 12:02 in the morning. So I don't know.

[Heather]

You couldn't have bought at 12:2. Her discount code wasn't working.

[Cory]

When it started working. So it's. Honestly, it's the best meringue powder that I've used. I've tested them all over the years. It's the one I've always gone back to. I've used it exclusively for years. So if you want to test it out, she did have sample packs that you could buy. So if you want to test it out, you could buy those sample packs.

[Heather]

Oh, very nice.

[Cory]

I bought some sample packs of it for a cookie class. I thought it'd be great as a little free gift.

[Heather]

Really. We had just had a conversation about you in the group and someone's like, do you guys use the same ring powder for your classes that you do for Customs? And someone's like, corey doesn't. I've heard about it on the podcast.

[Cory]

Because I've run out. We are now using it until I get free gift purchase from somewhere else and use it. But it is fantastic. It is what I use for My customs. It's what I use for my Eddie orders, it's what I use for samples, and it's what I use for the DIY kits. Speaking of Addie, Eddie is a direct to food printer. The coolest thing I've ever seen this side of a printer in Target. But what he does is while he does look like a printer, he actually prints food coloring on the top of bake. So royal icing buttercream. People are doing it on M M's, which is so cool. Mentos, not to be confused with Mentos, people are doing out of chips. They're really pushing Eddie outside of what he was directly made for. And it's been the coolest thing because he'll grow with you. I love the company because it's not. Buy it. And then we never hear from them again.

[Heather]

Highly supported. They.

[Cory]

They are rolling out new updates all the time. What is that app that they were going to.

[Heather]

I think it's on the back burner again, so I'm not gonna talk about it. Okay.

[Cory]

Okay. But it was. We did bring Eddie to a wedding. Well, a wedding event. Yeah. Venue vendor event.

[Heather]

Vendor event. Yeah.

[Cory]

We were expecting there to be rides. There was not.

[Heather]

There was just vendors. But we were able to do print.

[Cory]

On demand, which is so cool. There's a. I call our local competitor. Her and her husband are sweet as pie. Treats and sweets for you.

[Heather]

Did it at this expo. Chocolate. Chocolate expo.

[Cory]

Yeah, they did.

[Heather]

Smart idea.

[Cory]

Yeah. It was Geni and they. They took all the tips that we wish we had. Like a box for us.

[Heather]

From us. Yeah. But you guys can check out Eddie Printer users group on Facebook. They're also on Instagram and they'll repost anything that people have made. Kind of an inspo thing. Yeah. A slight learning curve there. But I don't want people to let learning curves keep them from being efficient or offering a new product. To say a slight learning curve and never 3D print and to spend that tons of money. It's up to you. But I think if I can master. If Corey can do it. Yeah, you can do it too.

[Cory]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Heather]

Wrapping up. You do have a twin drip. Okay, we're doing this. If you guys want to listen to Corey's ticket. I look Corent, but that's the point of it. Ashley, our older sister, is involved in marketing for a much larger company and she's employed by them. And they were like. She takes all these courses on. And they said, get your face however it looks in front of a camera. In 2025, that is where the algorithm is favoring.

[Cory]

So this, this ugly mug right here is going day by day. It's 24.

[Heather]

This is Corey's idea. We're 36, right? We're 36. We didn't do a birthday gift last year. I don't know why. We got busy or something. So she was like, I want last year's budget and this year's budget combined. And we're going to do a twin advent birthday gift calendar. But it starts December one. Yeah. So we had all of November to source. Right. And then we had a. And we'll never do it again because you can't get a tiny quality gift in.

[Cory]

It was a lot harder than I thought. Heather's impossible to buy for. I'm pretty like happy with what I might do.

[Heather]

Leather cut keychain of my car.

[Cory]

I did, you know, because Heather's such a minimalist, I said the only thing she has is a lot of zippers and everything she owns. So you know, one thing we can put on that is keychain.

[Heather]

Second gift was a super goop travel spf which is great because I hate bringing big bottles of things.

[Cory]

You didn't. You haven't opened today?

[Heather]

No, I'll do that. I can tell you what Heather, she.

[Cory]

Did really, really good. First everything has a little.

[Heather]

Here's the problem. I was like this is kind of lame. Gifts and quiz. Like I'm gonna be recording them. Posting to what's the Tick Tock handle.

[Cory]

Tick tock is mixing bowl with cookie company.

[Heather]

So she's gonna make it record. I'm like these are even lamer if other people know. So I ran and I made like little tips on.

[Cory]

Yeah like little things I read off. So gift number one. Heather started off high. An anthropology mixing like bowl. So do you mix your dry ingredients? You can pour them into your actual very aesthetic bowl. Very cute. I used it yesterday. Next day, next day Heather. It was like this bee could make. It was a.

[Heather]

A candle I found on Etsy for bakers. Smells delectable scent was this Smells like this bacon bag. Hilarious today. Today was a diet Coke ornament.

[Cory]

It actually matched my tree. So I put down there.

[Heather]

Ah yeah. So we'll. Cory will be unboxing those. My requirements I don't post on social is to post them to the group chat. The family group chat.

[Cory]

Yeah. So I said I need to. I need to see. I wrapped Heather's little tiny gifts in.

[Heather]

Little 10 of Pip and mine are. I hate wrapping for some other reason. And you think you look at Me and you. Like, she's probably really good at wrapping.

[Cory]

Would I ever think it looks. I would think organized, but I think you would get a frustrated with it.

[Heather]

I hate it. I hate that sticker. I hate the tapes ticking to itself and then I need to.

[Cory]

I hate it.

[Heather]

I hate it. And every year I give myself a big pep talk. Now this year I went to Walmart. They have $1 stockings. Yeah. They're so thin you can almost see through. I know. You just shove the gifts in.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And I wrote it.

[Cory]

So if you guys want to be as surprised, I'm. I'm filming in real time.

[Heather]

Time. Real time.

[Cory]

You're getting. You're getting my. Heather said it's up and down. One thing I did like that Heather did was she's a break in case of a break in case of a lousy gift. And I'm like, I was really planning on one gift.

[Heather]

That's a breaking case.

[Cory]

It's a big box and I'm so like, want to break it out.

[Heather]

Could be lame and sound, but it's too lame. Just kind of make it a mediocre modern gift.

[Cory]

But thank you guys so much for making the 2024 video.

[Heather]

Can we just. Can we just plot the pendies? You guys did phenomenally. It's a chicken and the egg. I could have 82 Vendys selling to nobody and egg on my face. But you guys showed up. The energy you all brought. The vendors are in my inbox saying, I have never experienced something like this.

[Cory]

They said overwhelming. I mean, I was scrolling in the morning.

[Heather]

I.

[Cory]

Okay, so we went to bed roughly 2. You went to bed at 3, woke up at 6, woke up at like 6:20.

[Heather]

But I was like, I'm like, I.

[Cory]

Wonder how these posts have done over the last few hours. You guys, you guys. There was six and 708am Door prize post.

[Heather]

I had a locket at 1,500 in.

[Cory]

I mean, listen, we couldn't have done it without you. We would never want to do it without you.

[Heather]

Between the energy, you guys sourcing new vendors, you guys showing up and showing out supporting these vendors, it was just really great.

[Cory]

I was going through the in search of thread and you guys helping each other had to do that commentary.

[Heather]

Really phenomenal. You guys did a phenomenal job. And, and, and you were worth the 25% off that you got.

[Cory]

I know. So I'm next year. We're not, we're not putting the balls to the wall for the vendors. We're not going to ask them.

[Heather]

I say it in the day to day life, we're not going to make.

[Cory]

The vendors do anything insanely crazy next year.

[Heather]

But 25 off is a really sweet spot.

[Cory]

Yeah, I think it's a very good spot where you guys win and the vendors win. But wow. Could not have gone any better than it did.

[Heather]

I, I gotta say there's nothing, I was like, wow, I wish that never happened.

[Cory]

I am being nice. I might delete this later. Have to give you some, some solid street cred. Guys, I want to be honest, I don't have anything to do with the organization part because I'm not organized. Getting a compliment.

[Heather]

Everyone tune back in. Do back in.

[Cory]

If Heather ever said I don't feel it this year, it would be off. I could do it. The amount of emails, back and forth emails that have been going on for months and months and months behind the scenes, Heather's spreadsheets are mind blowingly detailed, comprehensive. Heather made the vendys.com website so we could easily access the deals and the discounts again.

[Heather]

In the marketing strategy, there is more organized you are. The fewer clicks to make sales, the more this all happens.

[Cory]

I want to say this past week Heather has stayed up so late and woken up so early to make this happen.

[Heather]

But then I got to give you credit. So there's one thing about being organized and this is what Corey and I said. Partnering sucks because you split stuff, right? You don't. Every dollar I make, half of it goes to the irs. The other half of it of what's left. But I said if I split everything 50% but we're able to earn 100% more, it's still a great investment. So while I'm super organized in the emails and strategies, well, there's still the fun, energetic marketing component that's missing. Every vendor had the option to send Corey stuff to review and there was a deadline and we did let them bend that. And Cory's like, I will record. I'll stay up late. I'll stay out all day recording these review videos for you guys to add that energy back into the event.

[Cory]

But I mean if we were not twins, we.

[Heather]

I said to my mom, I said, they took a normal person's brain and.

[Cory]

Put it in cute bodies.

[Heather]

I know we're just half and half. We have to be s. Congrats to you. Congrats to you. Everyone did great. I was very proud of it. Okay, we'll see you guys on the flip side. Well, not next week. I'll be out of town.

[Cory]

Oh, Heather will be out of town next week. Well deserved vacation.

[Heather]

We can always do at it sometime. We'll decide.