192. Baking it Down - Workin' Burkin

Summary

Episode 192: Baking it Down - Workin' Burkin
Release Date: December 31, 2024
Hosts: Heather and Corrie Miracle

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Introduction: The Final Podcast?

00:00 – 00:48

Heather and Corrie Miracle kick off the episode with playful banter, teasing the notion that this might be their final podcast. They emphasize the podcast’s roots as a spin-off from the Sugar Cookie Marketing Facebook group, highlighting their commitment to identifying and discussing prevailing trends within the baking community.

The "Working Birkin" Trend: A Metaphor for Market Segmentation

01:05 – 05:11

The hosts delve into a fascinating TikTok trend where Walmart introduced a counterfeit version of the iconic Birkin bag, dubbed the "Working Birkin." Heather explains, “There is a brand of high-end purses called Birkins. So if you've seen any celebrity, they've been walking around with a Birkin” (02:19). The conversation shifts to how this trend mirrors the baking industry’s dynamics between established, premium bakeries and emerging, more affordable ones.

Understanding Market Segments and Pricing Strategies

05:11 – 16:50

Heather and Corrie draw parallels between luxury brands and bakeries, stressing the importance of maintaining distinct market segments. Heather notes, “To compete with Walmart, Hermes completely appends the marketing strategy that's positioned it where it is. Really high-quality products that are hard to get” (28:58). They discuss how established bakers might feel threatened by lower-priced competitors but assert that both can coexist by serving different customer bases.

Corrie adds, “The invisible hand of the market always even it out” (15:23), emphasizing that quality and perceived value will naturally sustain premium businesses despite the presence of cheaper alternatives. They caution against lowering prices to match underpriced competitors, highlighting the risks of reduced profits and compromised quality.

Navigating Competition and Market Saturation

16:50 – 38:14

The conversation progresses to handling competition and the often-cited notion of market saturation. Heather challenges the idea of saturation by comparing it to the abundance of gas stations, each serving different customer needs without directly competing (38:14). They argue that in the baking industry, there’s always room for new entrants without undermining existing businesses.

Corrie advises against engaging in negative marketing against competitors, stating, “Would you rather tell your audience why the other bakers shouldn't be charging as little as they do or would you rather book your January out?” (18:30). Both hosts advocate for focusing on self-improvement and differentiation rather than deriding competitors, suggesting that enhancing one’s own skills and offerings is a more productive strategy.

Focus on Self-Improvement and Differentiation

38:14 – 57:04

Heather and Corrie emphasize the importance of internal growth over external competition. They discuss how investing time in learning new skills, such as advanced cookie decorating or diversifying product offerings, can set a bakery apart. Corrie shares her experience with red light therapy for hair care, humorously tying it back to personal and professional growth (76:27).

Heather adds, “If you find something you can control, make your photography better, making your florals better” (36:58), highlighting actionable steps bakers can take to enhance their businesses. They stress that perceived value, built through quality and uniqueness, is crucial for attracting and retaining customers.

Listener Q&A: Shifting Business Focus

58:08 – 61:44

In the Q&A segment, Heather addresses a listener named Heather from New Orleans who is considering discontinuing custom cake orders to focus solely on sugar cookies. Heather advises, “If you're like, I have to make more money or I can't keep doing this” (27:38), recommending a strategic approach:

1. Update Online Presence: Remove references to cakes from websites and social media.
2. Cross-Sell Alternatives: Instead of outright rejecting cake inquiries, offer sugar cookies or recommend other bakers.
3. Leverage Existing Content: Focus on showcasing products that align with the new business direction.

This approach ensures a smooth transition without alienating existing customers while opening doors to new opportunities.

Community and Growth: Embracing New Trends

61:44 – 77:22

Towards the end of the episode, Heather and Corrie discuss the importance of community engagement and staying updated with industry trends. They introduce initiatives like the "Touch a Challenge," encouraging bakers to declutter their storage or enhance organizational systems to improve efficiency.

They also highlight the significance of perceived value in products, comparing custom-decorated sugar cookies to luxury gifts. Heather states, “The perceived value that that new baker, that undercharging baker, they'll either book out, they'll quit or they'll raise the price” (32:56), reinforcing the idea that quality and unique offerings naturally attract customers willing to pay a premium.

Conclusion: Moving Forward with Confidence

77:22 – End

Concluding the episode, Heather and Corrie reflect on personal growth, community support, and the ever-evolving landscape of the baking industry. They encourage listeners to focus on what they can control, continuously improve their craft, and maintain a positive outlook despite challenges.

Heather humorously wraps up with personal anecdotes about personal care routines and the importance of setting realistic, achievable goals for 2025, underscoring the episode’s central message of self-improvement and strategic growth.

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Notable Quotes:

• Heather: “The invisible hand of the market always even it out.” (15:23)
• Corrie: “Would you rather tell your audience why the other bakers shouldn't be charging as little as they do or would you rather book your January out?” (18:30)
• Heather: “To compete with Walmart, Hermes completely appends the marketing strategy that's positioned it where it is. Really high-quality products that are hard to get.” (28:58)
• Corrie: “The perceived value that that new baker, that undercharging baker, they'll either book out, they'll quit or they'll raise the price.” (32:56)

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This episode offers valuable insights into navigating market dynamics, emphasizing the significance of maintaining distinct value propositions and focusing on personal and professional growth to thrive in a competitive baking landscape.

Transcript

[A]

This is our final podcast ever. Just kidding. You stuck with us. Four people started being really sad.

[B]

Welcome to the Baking it down with Sugar Cookie Marketing podcast. We're actually a spin off from a group on Facebook called the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group. Within that group, we see a lot of trends. We see a lot of comings and goings, ebbs and flows.

[A]

Corey said when she walked in, she was like, write down ebbs and flows. So I do. And then I said, what does it have never said? And she was like, I don't know. Why did you write it? And I said, I wrote what she told you. She said, I did a gaslighter. So we see a lot of Washington gas. Should send an invoice by how much gas you use to gaslight me.

[B]

There's been a lot of gas these days.

[A]

Light me up, man.

[B]

What we see is a lot of trends that are happening in the cookie world. What we like to bring to your little gas step ear hole.

[A]

Every year week is last of the.

[B]

Year, first of the week is what we see that's trending at least somewhat in the cookie world.

[A]

But you said you found a TikTok trend and wanted to. And the puns here are so solid. So just break down to us how it started, what it is and then we'll break it.

[B]

There is a brand of high end purses called Birkins. So if you've seen any celebrity, they've been walking around with a Birkin. There's a Birkin that can go for up to $150,000.

[A]

If you guys don't know what Birkins are, they're just purse purses.

[B]

Just purses. But they, they have an iconic look and it's not been rubbed square square.

[A]

With a buckle with detail about the end of it.

[B]

But there's people who collect these. The thing about it, the Birkin that is the most valuable is called a Kelly.

[A]

I guess it seems to be the one you can only get if you've purchased X amount of these already.

[B]

So it's truly very few Kelly's. Every year you can go into a Birkin store in Hermes. Isn't it Hermes or makes that?

[A]

I don't know. I'm sure we're allowed to say it at the poverty level we're at.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know.

[A]

Are we allowed to say that you.

[B]

Can walk into a stor and they can only gift you the Kelly? The option to buy the Kelly. You cannot go and demand a Kelly.

[A]

You can give somebody the option to spend money on it.

[B]

Yes. So you can buy some off name off name brand off Kelly brand merchandise and hopefully be considered for Kelly years down the road.

[A]

Yeah, you brand just other things that's not known.

[B]

Like you wouldn't be like someone.

[A]

It would be like you have the bogo which is genius because you got a bunch of really wealthy people competing for something that is given to an even exclusive number of people.

[B]

So when you see someone carrying a Kelly you know they've come from a. For the sheer fact that they've spent a lot just to get the option to buy this.

[A]

Fascinating and genius.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And.

[B]

And these bags alone start at roughly 9 to 10,000 for a mini Kelly which is also.

[A]

But it's not the Kelly Kelly that we don't. It's not the Kelly Kelly, it's a mini Kelly status baby Kelly. Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you said TikTok somebody finds that Walmart introduced a lookalike.

[B]

Someone was walking through a Walmart and they said guys, you'll never believe what I just found. It is a Birkin made by Walmart which is now dubbed the working, the.

[A]

Working Birkin bag for the working woman. So Walmart has. Okay. And the legality of whether they, whoever owns the purse looks one for one, right? It does. However, it's not real leather.

[B]

It's not real leather. The, the way it's sits like the Kelly will sit up and it looks like it's never been squanched a day in its life.

[A]

This is squanch. The work isn't working. It looks like it's been like us working folk, we've been squanched. So now that working Birkin did you know the price point?

[B]

80 to $90.

[A]

$80 to $90. We have something that's 8,000 to 10,000. This Kelly being 150,000 and now Walmart that comes out with the work in Birkin. Would you. Oh the Walmaz. The Walmaz. And it's only 80, $90. Right.

[B]

But a lot of people who have Kelly's did a review on the work in Birkin and said it's, it's well made for what it is. It is well made. So now what this Birkin who has been a brand to the elite of the elite is now being copied and now is a brand for all.

[A]

So that begs question, you know, applying this to bakeries, you have, you, you have the baker who's spent a lot of time, developed their skills. They've been in the game for years. And then entering stage left is this underpriced new person who you look at and you're like there's no way you can profitable. Because I feel like I'm barely profitable and I'm triple your price.

[B]

But here's the thing. People are going wild. They're talking about this cheaper version because for the fact it's a cheaper version, it's easier to get a hold of it. There's not such a large buy in process.

[A]

Let's break down these comparisons of why both can still exist and serve both a purpose that is completely different. At the end of the day, the point of a bag is to carry your stuff with you. Right. So these are, we're no longer talking about bags in the same way. Cookies are just food. We don't talk about sugar cookies in regards to being food because now they're not anymore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's more of a status. So different market segments is the biggest one to me. We have people, the people who are getting a working burger, they, they were not going to get a Kelly. They weren't the people who are vying for a purse that the option to buy it is only gifted to you. We're not going to go to Walmart and get this. Yeah. Walmart could produce as many as they wanted and still not tap the market that Hermes, Hermes, Hermes wants. Right. And Hermes could make as many Kelly's as they want and still not take any of Walmart's market share. It's just two and neither one is right nor wrong. You can look at the person who shops at Walmart and be like you're really savvy and you can look at somebody who shops at Hermes and those purses sell resell for over the value. That's a great as well. But there are two different types of market segments. Yeah. And while it's hilarious that there is crossover. There is no crossover.

[B]

There is no crossover. You're not going to see someone who's has a closet full of actual Birkin Kelly's going to Walmart to snag up.

[A]

And say this is my work in Birkin. Like you're not. And then the person at Walmart, I would not even be able to tell I'm at Walmart, man. I'm. I know where, I know where the kitchen is. I can tell you where you can get the salad dressings and toilet paper. I do not know where n Hermes stores. I could guess it's at Tyson's too though. Maybe, maybe. I don't know. I think I'd have to show my idea. I think they'd be like, man, Walmart is two lights down to the last. So we have different market segments. And the same thing applies to cookiers. And I know that some cookies are like, well, they, you know, they're doing make a good product, but they're just so underpriced still. The market, the invisible hand of the markets will always even that out because if they have a great product and underpriced, they'll book out.

[B]

I want to tell you also, to an extent, there's people out there that think the cheaper option is not the best one. You guys can be buying from the same cutter shop. Someone can be half of your price and someone will still book with you because they think, what, something must be wrong, that this person's half the price of this higher baker. You have people who shop that way.

[A]

Well, I listed, you know, had that motorcycle back in 2020, right? Yeah. And I want to sell it. And so I made a spreadsheet of all the motorcycles that were the same make and model on the east Coast.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And all their prices and mileage. Right. And I said to myself, I don't want to be the most expensive, but I want to be second under the most expensive, but I want to be as far away from the cheapest. Why? Because people will be like, that motorcycle's too cheap. Something's wrong with it. Something happened, something is weird, something hiding.

[B]

Something, it's not as valuable.

[A]

And you know, everyone always wishes like maybe it's just cheap because a person is old and didn't understand the market and I just got a great deal. But the odds of that happening, that if it's too good to be true, it's not true at all.

[B]

Maybe in the day when we were still the same, getting our news from.

[A]

A newspaper, Methane came to me. She got this email from Home Depot and I was like, I hope your little buzzer, your alerts went off because you don't shop at Home Depot. She's like, yeah, but it was about a free chainsaw. And I was like, I hope we had more little alerts there because you don't use the chainsaw. And she's like, yeah, but I had been selected for free. And I was like, what's the rule? And she said, if it's too good to be true. And I said, it's not true. Right. So we have though, that precaution that anything that's too cheap is dangerous.

[B]

Yeah, there it must be lacking in value.

[A]

It's so funny. It can be too cheap because we had a coupon code and it was originally really expensive, and that's okay. But if it's cheap out the gate.

[B]

So what happens when bakers see a new baker come into town and open up shop?

[A]

They.

[B]

They don't know, you know, they haven't priced their stuff out, so they're just going at the price of something they saw online. They'll say, well, look, they're taking the market share. People want them. One people will look at that and be like, if I buy with them, they might take my money and run because they don't look established.

[A]

Or if I buy with them, it turns out they're really booked way out because they're so cheap. So, yeah, it comes down to the gas station. There's a gas station right next to our house. It's the cheapest gas in all of Northern Virginia, I'd almost wager. I've seen people say that they journey to this gas station, there's always a line. You're always going to be there for 20 minutes. You're always left in traffic and causing accidents. But Ruthanne grandmother will not go there because she said it's too cheap to be quality. We were right in the gas in our cars. Little tiny explosions. So it says different market segments. If there's a working Birkin and her maze still, both are selling.

[B]

And you know what? Wherever the gas station Ruthanne goes to, probably she can get in and out.

[A]

Oh, I go to her gas station, it's twice the price. And I never wait.

[B]

And you never wait.

[A]

But it has little advertisements. Somebody, like, hold your hand while you fill up your gas, like. And then the one I go to, I mean, they're just kicking you in your shins. The dad.

[B]

Yeah, flip the finger.

[A]

At least there's people breathing down your neck because they're just as frustrated. But we pay half the price. So there's two different markets and none of them intersect. Although we all need fuel, we all need gasoline. We are not even in competition with each other. Yeah, then you have supply and demand. So we got Hermes, we got the Birkin. It's so hard to get to. Corey said, you have to be. Not only do you have to be wealthy, you have to also be chosen and still wealthy because you're not given it. You still have to buy it. You're given the option to buy it. We have. So, okay, let's say Birkin says, well, Walmart's coming out with the work, and I'm going to flood the market with Birkins because the more I have, the more I can stand to sell. And People won't by the Birkins. Now the invisible hand of the market works in a graph. If you took your arms right now and crossed them over and created an X, that's this graph of supply and demand, meaning as supply is lower, demand is higher because there's not enough to go around. But as demand, as supply increases, demand decreases because there's enough to go around. If, if Hermes sees Walmart and says, well, and this is what happens to bakers, put your baker hat on there. If they say, well, we're going to just make a lot of these, they've increased supply, but they've lowered demand. Now it's the wrong approach to take on Walmart. Same with bakers. Let's say you say, well, that person's producing at such a low rate, I'm going to increase my production cost. Well, when you increase production, you decrease something else. We don't have an unlimited amount of resources and time being a resource. So let's say we increase production costs to capture more market share. Let's say we don't decrease price, but we did inadvertently decrease demand because we have so much. Now we have an expiring product as well. Unfortunately we're not purses, so we have a, an expiring product that doesn't last and we've increased output so we decreased demand. We also have somebody changing the demand on the lower end because we can't seem to separate that. We have two different market segments. So what we've done is we've actually hurt our own business in an attempt to compete with somebody that is so much cheaper than us. Yeah.

[B]

So I like, I see oftentimes in the group someone will be like, I saw so and so they posted that they sold out and made bajillions of dollars. One, we never know what sold out means to anybody. They keep those cards very close to their chest.

[A]

I know people use it as marketing strategy to sell more because.

[B]

Absolutely. So you're like, well it sold so good for them when not knowing anything but what they have shared with us, that you were like, I'm gonna do that for the next holiday. I'm gonna produce 20 times more than that. Because if it did good for them, it's gonna do for me. And then you're sat there with all this XX product on you because it worked for them. But we didn't have any market research behind it.

[A]

Right. You, now you can say, okay, let's say I'm not going to increase supply so I'm not going to throw off the Supply and the demand curve. But what I'm going to do is lower my cost. Well, when you lower your price, you increase demand, and that's what allows you to sell. But now you've also shifted who your market segment is. There's a way to manipulate. And you can see that there's a ton of this crossover. Whereas I have a product and I'm offering a discount as a way to lower your price. But just to lower your price is also a way to lower your price, but they have two different effects. Like we said, we have the gas station that's always cheap. And my grandmother cannot be convinced it's valuable, but she will shop a sale her whole life because she feels like she got something a sale.

[B]

Higher value was higher value at a lower price.

[A]

And for whatever reason, she's never questioning why it's a lower price. She just said it, you know, kind of hits that dopamine receptor that I've got something I shouldn't have.

[B]

It's smart to use that instead of lowering your price to compete with somebody offering things that are early bird, you know, first come, first serve the Creating the limited discounts.

[A]

Yeah, that kind of stuff. Where it still taps into that almost gambling like receptor where we're like, oh, my goodness, like luck of the draw. I know everyone's been seeing these TikTok purple tickets and Corey and I were talking about it's become a lot of spam in a lot of the local community groups. You know, all you have to do, it's genius. All you have to do is get someone to click on the link and you get money. Yeah. And if that isn't gambling, I don't know what it is. Right. It's an. And it's gambling. We actually don't lose.

[B]

You don't lose, but you get 10 clicks a day. Oh, my goodness.

[A]

Right. Just genius. But now it's flooded these groups, it's flooded some of these baking pages. And I want to tell people, like, if. If I could, if I was allowed to post one link this week, and one brought me 78 and a lifetime cookie customer, and the other one got me two dollars on TikTok shop. Which link would you post? Listen, you're all posting the TikTok job. So we have the different ways to mess with the supply and demand, but to mess with supply and demand, to compete with somebody who's charging lower than the cost you could charge to make a profit. Right. So you have that. We got to cover our costs. We got to cover our indirect cost. So Everyone thinks of cost as ingredients, but our indirect cost is electricity to turn on the machines, the computer, the software, the invoicing software. Those are indirect costs. We don't charge our invoicing software cost to our client, but we charge 10% of our sales price goes to those indirect costs.

[B]

When someone's new to the market, new to the cookie world, they just open up. A lot of times they don't have those costs associated with their business.

[A]

They can still use. They're using Venmo, Friends and family risk. But that's a risk they're taking. Violating policy. Okay, fine. But they do not have to pass on the indirect cost they're taking.

[B]

They're taking their orders via Facebook. Dm, Not a website.

[A]

Not.

[B]

They don't have the Google domain right there.

[A]

Just those two things. We've already saved probably $50 in costs. Yeah.

[B]

So when you, you do have those costs and you're trying to compete with someone who truly does not have to.

[A]

Imagine the price, you're losing even more than they are, which makes you the worst business owner.

[B]

So you, instead of being like, I'm so mad, they're charging less, one, you don't know if they're even charging enough for whatever they're doing you. They might not be buying in bulk like you do, using discount codes like.

[A]

You do, but the supply and demand and the invisible hand of the market always even it out. If they produce a really high quality product, they're really low. They'll book out. If they produce a product below market cost, we don't know what their costs are. So maybe they're actually breaking even or maybe producing profit. And then you have yourself at the completely different market segment.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Right. So that's why we always say, put the blinders on.

[B]

I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna challenge you. I love when someone comes to the market who's cheaper than me.

[A]

It.

[B]

It solidifies me in this higher end bracket that I want to be in. And when they can peg me up against someone who's cheaper, I get the. The more expensive client.

[A]

The wild part is, you know, your skills should match your time in. So let's say somebody's just gotten started. Well, their product's going to be less polished.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But their hourly rate is a lot lower. Yeah. Because you're able to work faster. Well, they're not even working faster. They're taking a lot longer. They're just not as good. So I wouldn't pay somebody who's been doing this for years a rate of $2 an hour. But I would pay somebody who's just getting started. It's going to take them longer. They're going to produce a less polished product. But as they produce these better designs, because they're practicing, they're getting time in, they're going to naturally raise their price because they're going to say, this isn't worth $2, this is worth $7, or this is worth $15. And they're going to keep raising that rate. So again, without our injecting ourselves, the market still finds its way.

[B]

It always corrects. If it's a race to the bottom, price wise, the industry will fall apart. There will be no industry left. People will not work for free. You have people you can't. So you have people who start, stop, which we see a lot of the time the cookie industry is strong because people are charging correct pricing.

[A]

So. But then you have these bakers and they can't help but look over the fence. What's that? Home improvements, where the guy always looks on the fence, can't help but look over the fence and be like, well, you're ruining the market. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the audience I've cultivated over years and I'm going to run through them and tell them, you get this, don't buy this. And this is how long it takes me. I'm gonna bully my own market because I'm helping the market understand.

[B]

Here's the thing, you're talking to one person and they're busy in their kitchen baking the person, the people you're talking to. And that's why I'm like, me and Heather run these groups. They're very positive groups. But oftentimes you don't see behind the closed curtain of adminning, we probably delete 20 posts a day over the course of all these groups, tons of.

[A]

I had to delete a post the other day and this, you know, lady comes up and she says, I can't believe somebody in area is charging. Look how terrible this looks. This is so embarrassing to the industry. I mean, I was even like, so thankfully, all 20 comments that I got in there in the five minutes were like, hey, this isn't kind of the vibe.

[B]

But here's the thing, the groups are this positive vibe because we don't punish the majority for the sins of the minority.

[A]

So to punish your audience because a baker in your area is charging below you is a weird way to spend your marketing currency. Right? Like we said, only 2% of your posts reach your audience. If that 2% includes why the other person shouldn't charge, what a waste of marketing space for you. But your ego will get stroked. And unfortunately, because a lot of you guys do follow trains and bakers follow you, it will get more reactions because of the bakers that follow you. And then your mom's gonna like it and stuff like that. Would you rather tell your audience why the other bakers shouldn't be charging as little as they do or would you rather book your January out?

[B]

I want to say I probably will get zero sales from dogging on the local baker that's not charging enough.

[A]

Well, it doesn't end with an order from me at higher price. They never end that way.

[B]

If my one sales that could reach the eyeballs of the people in this hard world of reach anyway secures me one sale, then that post is not valuable. That made me zero sales.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It felt good. Well, feel good and it'll get a.

[A]

Little bit of traction because of the bakers that follow you in controversy, always out Chinese and then external links. There's a lot of factors to go into it. You're gonna feel, you're gonna feel like that was good content. Imagine if that's your home content marketing strategy to tell people that they should, that they're charging 100.

[B]

I know. I almost called it working. Birkin is not gonna say if you.

[A]

Buy from Walmart, imagine you go to Birkin and we're at Magic Herme's website and the COVID photo is here's why we charge so much. Yeah. And. And it has a picture of them disassembling a work in Birkin and saying, this is cheap. Yeah. And. And that's where they spent. Like, we don't need to be convinced. In fact, they're probably so unbothered.

[B]

They're so unbothered because their audience isn't.

[A]

Buying the work in and the audience doesn't want to know what Walmart's up to. Yeah.

[B]

And the people who are buying the work in are never going to buy the burger.

[A]

They were not on their ma's website in this talk. Again, no crossover. But we can't, as bakers seem, to separate what that person does. It doesn't affect me. If anything, it becomes an anchor. Yeah. That newer person charging less produces a lower quality product. Just by nature, not even a rude thing. It's how you get started and it allows people to anchor to me. For a more posh product, they're going to have to spend more. It is a service to you when Somebody enters the market.

[B]

If you have self doubt in your.

[A]

There you go. And that's pretty much what this actually.

[B]

It does come down to. If you have self doubt and that self doubt is leaking out in negativity to your audience, that's an internal problem that you need to focus on.

[A]

Here's the thing, what you see is oh no, I've got new competition and I don't feel like my skills are up to par to even charging what I'm charging. Instead of upping my skills, I'm going to try to hide, I'm going to try to hide everybody else's post. I'm going to try to yell louder than their poster posting and I, and I'm not going to work on myself though because I'm scared I'm going to fail because I'm scared of that because I hate failing and if I don't try then I don't have to fail. But I also, I don't want anyone else to leave me. Right. And that's going to come through in your marketing. You can kind of see when it.

[B]

Leaks out there, you can see it, it's disheartening because you have, you have so much potential that you're wasting away on by looking over the fence at what you think is your competition when it truly is maybe one class away from, you know, getting a better flooding consistency. Like it's so easy to fix the, the whatever issue you have. I'm gonna promise you most people don't have an issue with whatever you have.

[A]

You have an issue and then just power through it. Yeah, I, when I was an IDIOT in my 20s, I had gone to this lady's house and she was so concerned by what I wore. But I watched her and her husband, they argued constantly. But she was so worried he'd leave her for some India 20 year old. But I want to be like if you just learned how to you two not argue, you'd have such a better relationship. But instead you're worried so much about keeping everybody el way instead of fixing the internal problem which would produce if, if you two are really happy in your marriage, you'd never be worried about other people. Yeah, they're still together. They actually celebrated their anniversary yesterday. Whatever she was, whatever you did. And she looks great. She does look great. Okay, moving on. Cost covered. At the end of the day, Walmart has just an infrastructure I think would just blow our minds. Their connections to suppliers in other countries, their infrastructure, their delivery network, their brick and mortar stores just wow. A well oiled Machine. There's. It's so pervasive. A book was written called the Walmart Effect, where Walmart is able to enter in a market, decimate the competition because they're able to charge so little because their costs are so efficient. But at the end of the day, if you. So Corey was talking about this amazing thing. I think I found someone had gone, some news program had gone to the Hermes factory before the Birkin, working Birkin came out. And I'm looking at it and this lady, she's French, she only speaks fresh. They, they, she was like studied in producing sewing materials.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And they were like, how long does it. She has one of these Kelly's in front of her, right? She's only. They have a translator there. They're like, how long does it take you to produce this? And she was like, it was like 50 hours, 60 hours. It was a tremendous amount of time. And she's produced this purse from scratch. This studied woman who had education in producing this single thing. And they were like, which of these purses do you know how to produce? And she was just naming them off one at a time. And then you have Walmart, who gets a supplier, a manufacturer. It's a machine, the machine sending it to this factory, this factory is producing it. Shipping thousands, hundreds of thousands of these back to Walmart in America, distributed through their, you know, 18 wheelers coming across the interstates. It's just such a different experience. So, okay, let's say Amazon says, okay, well, we gotta compete with the working Birkin. We gotta lower our cost. So pretty French lady who's wearing a cute dress and delicately working on this, you're out. Because you're costing us too much. Because the cost of somebody that skilled is too high for us to compete with work in Birkin.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So we got to lower our cost, which lowers our quality. We got to increase our production. So we got to completely get rid of these handmade bags and we got to go to factory produce and then maybe we can get some of that market share back. Does that sound insane?

[B]

It sounds wild.

[A]

Because what's the point of everything? The lady, the French lady, you've studied in sewing, get a PhD in how to make a cross stitch, producing this bag over 80 hours and handmade, hand built, hand inspected and handed it back to you.

[B]

Yeah. So you thinking, should I lower, Should I lower my prices? Well, what's going to. At what cost? Just to keep up with so and so down the road.

[A]

Okay. If you lower your sales price, you have to lower your costs. Or your profit. Either one. Something's got to give. Okay, so let's say we first tap in our profit. Well, then we have an unprofitable company. Well, we've made ourselves a job. That's. That's fine. You're sustainable. You're not profitable. You'll not grow. But you got yourself a little job, a little jobby. Right. But let's say that person's still cheaper. Well, where. We have to cut costs, but we can't work for nothing. So where we're going to cut costs, we're going to lessen the quality of our ingredients. Oh, okay.

[B]

If you're going to do that, let's. Let's do out with the cello bags. It takes too long to put them in there anyways. But that means our cookies will.

[A]

But we get a lower price, so.

[B]

Lower price. But the expiration date is now.

[A]

It's fine because we're only focused on lowering price because we're competing with the work and Birkin of cookies. Okay.

[B]

So no Sellobacks. Cookies are getting a little stale. That's all right.

[A]

We lowered our ingredients so the taste is a little off. But that's fine. We're able to lower price. We don't make a profit. That's fine.

[B]

Listen, packaging, the bows, the shred out.

[A]

Let's get rid of the website cost because that does cost.

[B]

They can just DM us through Facebook.

[A]

Through Facebook. We won't be able to send an invoice because we're not paying for that either. And I want to pay the fees because I can pass the savings of the fees on. So what I'm going to do is have them pay a pickup. Some people are not going to pay a pickup. Some people are not even going to show us we have wasted product. But that's fine. I was able to lower my price. Well, let's cut some of our marketing. Let's get. Let's lower price by gaining time.

[B]

My camera, it's too expensive anyways.

[A]

Well, we can't be spending money on a camera if we're trying to lower our price. Absolutely.

[B]

And I don't have the time for the software.

[A]

We're very close to getting to that cheapest price, though, which is great. So we got to keep going. Where else? And you can see that that never ends. Mending, trimming to compete with somebody. Lower price is not the solid business decision. It's.

[B]

You can't build your business off of somebody else's business practices. That's not. You guys aren't the same you're not.

[A]

Coming from the same. That's right. You'll see like someone's like, what should I price these? And a lot of times the question the answer is what did it cost you to make it? Plus 20. Because that's the formula for pricing an item. And when you come and. And the big thing and why. I think that question does become bothersome. You can ask it. But. But your high cost of living area. Corey and I just to drive down the road is $20. That's how much the tolls are here. And then you go to rural. Let's say Iowa. My grandmother's best friend is coming from Iowa today. It's no speed limit because there's not enough people to even enforce it. Yeah. So the high cost of living. There's a factor in Corey's indirect cost. When she prices stuff. Our cookie prices. Our cookie class prices are really high because the high cost of living. And then you're asking somebody in a low cost of living state what to charge.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Well, they're gonna not have such different indirect costs than us because we live in two different areas.

[B]

I would like to think when me and Heather entered this cookie space, I entered it before Heather did.

[A]

And I told her you drugged me. Kicking into screaming, buddy. What?

[B]

When I asked, I said it just.

[A]

Seemed like the question to do. What would you charge for these? It's not a bad question. What would you charge for these?

[B]

Okay, so what's in 22? I said, I guess even though this is my first time ever selling.

[A]

Are these the clowns? Oh, yeah. You guys and deliver. This was not fun. Do you remember Cory and I had to drive down the road. Here is $20. She charged 22. I said, this was horrible.

[B]

I don't want this experience ever again.

[A]

Right. So we can't charge below our cost. And we never want to charge without profit. We can lessen profit. We can discount profit. We can charge below profit. Because if we charge below profit, we tapped into cost and we charge below cost. We work at a loss.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's just not sustainable. You'll quit before your business doesn't exclusivity. The. Okay, so we have Hermes. And you can only get this specific. Kelly. If you spend X amount of tens of thousands of dollars over a course of years. That's what makes the value of that bag what it is there. You can buy. They all look the same to me. They all feel that sacrilege.

[B]

But they're.

[A]

But this one specifically has exclusivity to it. Which means of A lot of wealthy people, you're the wealthiest.

[B]

I wanted to say, here's a story. A millionaire wanted to buy a Kelly for his wife. He was not offered the Kelly he had never bought from Hermes before. So what he did was fly to Japan. Someone was selling a used one. He bought it for a hundred thousand dollars and is getting it refurbished to look like a new one. This is how exclusive it is.

[A]

But is she going to like it as much? But because he had no other choice.

[B]

So that's how exclusive it is.

[A]

So we have exclusivity. So Hermes could be like, well, Walmart's taking some market share here with the working Birkin. I'm going to lower my exclusivity and I'm going to mass. I'm going to not even mass produce. I'm going to produce more of the Kelly so more people can buy it so that I can gain some more of this market share. But then we lose what made the bag special in the first, in the first place. Because remember all this stuff is to carry the things we have with us. It's not what this is about. It's about a status symbol. So to compete with Walmart, Hermes completely appends the marketing strategy that's positioned it where it is. Really high quality products that are hard to get.

[B]

Hermes could always mass produce these bags. They'll hire more people, hire more French ladies in pretty dresses. They could make more bags. It's not about, it's not about how.

[A]

Many bags it is, it's about how hard it is. Yes, because, because at the end of the day it's not about utility. When we get into this level of pricing now, even Walmart's isn't about utility as much because you could still use a grocery bag.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

It's not about that. It's about. So Walmart's selling the perception of exclusivity where amaze is truly selling exclusivity. Now Walmart is capitalizing on the marketing and that is, is that could be frustrating but I don't think Hemis even cares. If anything it makes me would say now I didn't know that the Kelly was so hard. Again now when I see somebody with a real one. But you may say but now people are, are getting it and you won't know if they're real or not. You'll know because the market will indicate that the person shopping at Walmart with the Birkin, I don't think that that's a real one. Probably I'd be right there next to you.

[B]

With my Ziploc balance 2 driving that $400,000 car down below.

[A]

And I would have guessed theirs is real. Or maybe they just. Yeah. So you kind of get that concept right. And then last we have is perceived value. The perceived value of Hermes is high because that is a valuable company. They have never cheapened their products to compete with Walmart. And it's, and this is such a great comparison because these two companies are so polar opposite. They're so polar opposite. I think when we get into cookies, suddenly we see this, like, so similar. So it's, it's, it's not the same. But when you can see the difference of a high. I don't want to call it a high quality baker, a really talented baker versus a new baker, we, we kind of lose it. This is the exact same comparison. They're two different market shares. We got a new baker covering their costs, just getting started, not even sure if they want to do this. Then we got the talented baker that's been in for a long time, that has a really high skill set who's like, I have to make more money or I can't keep doing this. And both have, both are right. Both have the right market share. But when one looks at the other, the only way we should be looking is the new one should be looking at the old one and saying, I'm going to get, I'm going to get this. There.

[B]

The, the old one. You, you've set your, you're, you can't change your pricing because your pricing is locked in to be a successful business. You're not looking over at the new bakery like, oh, my God, they've taken. People eat multiple times a day. If people wanted to save money on cookies, there's Oreos.

[A]

That's why this perceived value is so interesting. Why do you, why does somebody choose a sugar cookie baker to make a custom set to give someone? It's because of the perceived value. Yeah. Our older sister cannot fathom giving somebody something that she got for cheap.

[B]

She cannot.

[A]

She can't. Because she was like, the perceived value, the gift for me being given is in what I've spent on it. Yeah. So if we were like, okay, back to. Remember, at the end of the day, the job of a purse is to carry. Anything that can carry our stuff with us is a purse. Yeah. But the perceived value is that the purse is fancy. So comparing that to cookies. Cookies are food. Anything you can eat can be compared to what we sell, but it's not, we're not selling food. We're selling a custom made specific detailed gift.

[B]

When someone buys cookies for me to gift to someone else, they're showing that person, look how much I loved you. I loved you. 80 dozen. $80 a dozen worth.

[A]

We loved 80 dozens.

[B]

No, sorry, we can't afford that.

[A]

You can get 80 dozen Oreos.

[B]

But that's why she could have, they could have brought a packet of Oreos and been I love you. Here's food, here's some cookies.

[A]

You're gonna live. It turns out you need some water with that.

[B]

But you don't want to portray that. And I, I came to that same way it with the teacher gifts like teachers do want gift cards. But it went and I was like that. There's no thought in there. There's no that. I thought of you before I went into the checkout line buying my string.

[A]

Cheese for my son's.

[B]

So I'm like, the perceived value of that gift is less unless I add something that is a labor of love to it, whether it be a gift from or handmade cookies.

[A]

And that's the Hermes of cookies is a custom decorated sugar cookie at a high price.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So the perceived value that that new baker, that undercharging baker, they'll either book out, they'll quit or they'll raise the price. You do not need to worry about them. And Hermes is going to stay the course with its really high end marketing celebrities.

[B]

They're going to have people begging for Kelly.

[A]

They're going to have people begging for Kelly.

[B]

It's just the same reason Target and Walmart can both be billion dollar corporations side by side. They almost need each other. Do you want to go to Walmart and stand in a long line?

[A]

Yep, you, you can do that.

[B]

Do you want to go to Target, spend a little bit more and the line is shorter.

[A]

So different experiences, same very similar stores, two different market segments.

[B]

Audiences are so different. You have someone's like I would never pay overpay for a tube of toothpaste. I'll stand in line. Because to me time is not money. You have people who go to Target and be like there's my time matters more to me than the extra dollar that the tube of toothpaste costs.

[A]

And then there's so many more layers. The customer service a Target or the displays a Target. I mean I feel a little bit like cattle when I go to Walmart. They've tried, they've gotten better. I have one. We live next to one of the oddly smallest Walmarts. You do. It's weird. Used to be it used to be at Kmart. It was bought out by Walmart. I was like the biggest Walmart, right? So our Walmart doesn't even have space to be fancy. It does not have a producer vegetable section. It hardly has a pharmacy. So it is truly one of the old Walmarts where you're just like shoved in or whatever. But that's what I want. I, you know, I shop at later hours because my time is still valuable but I don't want to stand in line so I go at weird time.

[B]

I love a Target experience and I don't. I am willing to pay just a tinge bit more for that Target high. I get whatever that high is then.

[A]

Have you gone to Whole Foods in Springfield? You ain't know what's been a little bit more looks like but you know.

[B]

The distance to me.

[A]

I fall out of the Whole Foods.

[B]

Line because I'm like a 40 minute drive for food.

[A]

Everyone's once every, every once a year we get a post and it will be always this, it'll always be a time in baker who's been in for a while and she will, she'll be like, oh, this person entered and they're copying everything I'm doing. And every time I post I go to their page and there's something similar. I'm gonna be like, yes. Posted about Valentine's Day.

[B]

Here's the thing. We're all buying from the same cutter shops. Whatever is trending, we're all buying it.

[A]

If you want to suspend your business's valuable time staring over the fence at the other baker and what they're doing and you, you want to use it to not. Because I love looking at what our competitors are doing. Like that was good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Actually got figure I gotta reverse engineer that. Or you can be like nay did that and I hate them. Well, they're winning because you're going to go insane.

[B]

Well here's the thing. The time you could have spent doing something different, getting into procreate, making your own custom cutters that no one else is using. You're spending looking over the fence, dogging up, hating. They're taking up rental space in your brain and they are not even charging you a dollar. They're living there rent free.

[A]

Our older sister Ashley, that girl loves a book. She does. She found Mel Robbins. Kirsten Lot, blondheaded lady. You see her on TikTok a lot. She's a writer and came out with this book. It just dropped. We actually couldn't find anywhere. She actually made me download the audible book last night. So I was listening to it and it was the let them theory. And it was a theory of like, you can spend your whole life being worried about what everyone's doing and how they're doing it and how they're doing this and what they're saying to you and how they're treating you with their perception of you is. Or you just let them do whatever they want because at the end of the day, they're still going to do it. So the baker that's staring at the fence just. Just so upset that this other new baker is copying everything I'm doing and they're using similar words that I use and they're using similar steps that I use.

[B]

They use ChatGPT.

[A]

You can get so upset like that or you can just let them and you can focus on yourself because not letting them is going to run you ragged.

[B]

Here's how I live 2024. There's things I can control. There's things I can't control. I cannot give any life source to the things I can't control. I can't do anything about it. The things I can control making my photography better, making my florals better, because they are poo pooish. They're horrendous, offering more sourdough.

[A]

Sourdough Diversification.

[B]

Diversification classes. I'm really good.

[A]

Aren't you going to macaron class?

[B]

I'm going to a Sur la tab class.

[A]

Right. And that is harder to do than just staring at your neighbor and being.

[B]

It's so easy to come into a sugar cookie marketing group and be like, how is everyone feeling about the market saturation?

[A]

You guys do that a lot. There's no such thing as market saturation. There's things as market saturation. A lot of us want to use that as the cop out to not have to learn. Because too many people, it's everybody else.

[B]

So what do we think about that?

[A]

Everybody else? The whole concept of like, why is there so much traffic? When you're traffic, you are part of it. Why are you guys here?

[B]

When people say, do you feel like your market saturated? Like, to someone who was there before you, you are the saturation.

[A]

I've been in five years, somebody's been in 10, somebody's been in 20. That bakery's been here 30. So the market is always breeding new, new competition and the old competition is retiring. And what me and Heather say to.

[B]

Our clients is, if you came to us and you're like, help me market this thing. And we looked around and you had zero competition.

[A]

I'd be like, I don't know that there's a market for.

[B]

Market for it because people don't want it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

We actually, you as a business owner want to have more bakers in the area. That means the market wants it. It's opened up and people are like, I see there's value in that industry. You need to have competition.

[A]

You can't.

[B]

You can't work your saturated market to where you're the only one.

[A]

Now here's a find. There's such thing as too much market saturation. But I think it should be like one of the last reasons, not the first reasons. Corey and I, we started teaching cooking classes five years ago and we were not the first to market. No, there was somebody already there. There's actually a handful of people are there. In fact, Corey and I took somebody else's class, saw how they did, and said, I think we can do this too now. Then Corey and I started teaching classes monthly three times on a Saturday. I think we might have done it a couple Saturdays. It was grueling. Now if you look at our class teaching schedule, it's like, are you guys barely doing this? Yeah, we're barely doing it. We did it. We. That was great. And now we found stuff that's more interesting. We're still barely doing it, but we have left a lot of market share.

[B]

Oh, yeah, right.

[A]

Because people get tired, people's schedules change, people move. The market's constantly shifting, but it can still support all of us. If you think your market is saturated, please pay attention to the number of gas stations you drive by today. Absolutely.

[B]

It's so easy to get that tunnel vision and just think that it's everyone else but you. But there's so much opportunity. And Heather's right, it is hard. Do I want to wake up at 8 o'clock on a Saturday to go take a stroll at Tom Macaron class for three hours?

[A]

I just like.

[B]

I do like learning. And I think if that's something you.

[A]

Can fall in love with learning, you have a weapon that most people cannot.

[B]

I told you, I can figure something out the first time. It will be bad. But if I can move past that first time, I'm gonna get it. It's gonna take a minute, but I'm gonna get it.

[A]

Cory and I were talking on the morning walk that I guess everyone took off tonight except for us, putting in the. I had posted. Markway had posted a meme last night and said, I work so hard this year. I have so much cookie Money I don't have to work for the rest of the year. Hilarious. Here we're working. So she didn't, um. But what was I saying? Lost my train of thought there. Oh, yeah. Corey and I were saying that the age of the Internet, which I love, creates a really, really short attention span to get dopamine. The distance of time between when I watch a TikTok and I feel my brain say, that was funny. Is seconds.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So so few seconds that if you don't entertain me in two seconds, I'll swipe. Yeah. So I have this. So yesterday I started taking a procreate class and it was like making a box. If you want to learn the basics of procreate, that draw with flow lady. Yeah, she's very. And if you're curious, procreate would be.

[B]

If you wanted to make your own cutters. Nobody has.

[A]

You would start with procreate and your own designs. I mean, your own cookie. You could do so much.

[B]

Your brain's gonna do a lot of lifting.

[A]

So I started taking the glass I got, you know, I was like, okay. I got my laptop set up in front of me. Got my iPad, my iPad. Pencil's like, girl, you never used. I've had that iPad pencil for years. I remember. And then I used my next speaker. I connected it Bluetooth and I think I got everything set up to just excel here. And I'm starting to draw this bible and I'm like, wow, this is just taking forever. I looked down, I glanced down at how many minutes this video had. I hadn't been doing it for 6 minutes and 35 seconds. 6 minutes and 35 seconds of procreate is a year on earth. It's hard because the dopamine release is at the end of this class. It's an hour long class. It's completely free.

[B]

Here's the thing. And it comes back when you make the post dogging on the local baker and why you charge what you charge and people start. Start commenting to you and be like, yeah, girl, the dopamine release you get.

[A]

There is higher than the one where you had to go to the three hour sur la top class to learn a new skill and offer that and you're it.

[B]

Where Heather says cog and a hamster wheel.

[A]

She loves to. We're on a ham. We're at hedonistic treadmill. If you think about it too much, you'll get depressed.

[B]

But you can feel that dopamine high of complaining about the local market and do nothing about yourself and still feel just as good as if you took the three hour Sur La top class.

[A]

You feel just as good. But it took seconds. It takes seconds to write a ramp. It takes years to become good at something.

[B]

That's why if you find in the you won't. If you look in the sugar cookie marketing group, we delete the posts that say mark saturation. Should we all be quitting because it's not valuable.

[A]

If we were chili smart, we'd let those posts go out, get everybody to quit and then we would just say nara. But here's the thing. Cory and I got tired of teaching so many classes, so many out seconds apart from each other so many times that now there's space for someone to enter the market. And they have. And it's beautiful.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In fact, people are like, can you please offer no more classes? And I'm like, no, but I have some bakers I could recommend.

[B]

So you have to think. There's things you can control. There's things you can't control. You have to think, where's your dopamine hit lie? Where are you letting something own you? Where can you own something? I will be making hollow macarons at Sur La Top Guarantee. Horrible. But they taste the same as a good macaron.

[A]

But here's the thing.

[B]

I can control something. If I can get better at macarons, I can then sell that to my clients.

[A]

Love it.

[B]

I hate that there's so much learning process in the middle there.

[A]

But. But that's the true capture of dopamine. Yes.

[B]

So don't be hating on the work in Birkin. Don't be hating on the Kelly. There's room for both and there's room for you and there's room for the person who's just starting out who says, you know what, I'm a stay at home mom, but I love the opportunity to save and make my own money to help my family out. It's never that they're coming after you.

[A]

They're not. But you feel like you feel it. You feel it.

[B]

Like, how dare you. But you have to think, what in their life is spurring them to take on something new that can help them. It's probably the same thing that was happening in your life. A lot of people started during COVID It was something, an outlet.

[A]

Well, technically, a lot of jobs stopped in covet, so it left up a lot of free time. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. It's never about you. At the end of the day, I'm going to say the world's too vast.

[A]

I know that's the most freeing. It's the saddest thought if you let it get to you. But it's the most freeing thought. No. My grandma always says if you realize how little people thought of you, you just wouldn't care.

[B]

18, 16, 17.

[A]

My world is like everybody's looking at.

[B]

One time I tripped, I wanted to die.

[A]

I used to keep a small mirror in my pocket.

[B]

Oh, you.

[A]

You brought that out.

[B]

20.

[A]

So now I just. If I set my teeth, maybe I'll need it later. Leave me alone. Maybe I like that sound. Oh, time in man time. Okay, last week I made an offer. If someone texted in, one of you would be selected to win a stupid card. I'm gonna ask you to pick a number. One through five. I got five texts.

[B]

Oh, I'm gonna choose four.

[A]

Okay, let's go to four. You got fan mail. Hi, Heather. Amazing name. From south Louisiana, Heather. I choose three. No. Heather wins. Heather, you are the winner. From New Orleans, Louisiana. You have seven days to shoot me an email. Heather, sugarcookiemarketing.com include that you won this and I'll send you that stupid cartridge. I just need your address at the end of seven days though. The whole point of this is to get you guys to keep listening. So you got seven days to claim it, Heather. Before the next podcast goes up, she says, I have a long standing baking business. 16 ish years. Quite a few breaks with having children. I have five. But anyways, I did cakes for so long and then I opened up to macarons, then sugar cookies. If I wanted to shift and no longer offer custom cakes, should I make an announcement on my page or do I just respond to inquiries that I'm no longer doing them? Should I remove cake pictures from my page? I don't have a very pretty page. I just have haphazardly added order pics throughout the years. Thanks for any help. I think it's a great question. Yeah, I would if it's a hard. No. If you're like, cakes are no longer. Okay, what we're going to do is remove any mention of cake today. Forward website, no cakes, no pictures of cakes on your website. No mention of cake on that website.

[B]

If you make a cake for a.

[A]

Friend that you like, we're not gonna post it. Even if it's the best cake you've ever made, we are not taking cake orders, so we're not gonna post that. Would I go back in time and delete cake photos? Only if you're using your Facebook page as a portfolio, otherwise. If not, don't worry about it. Yeah, content's there. Nobody's scrolling. Not people.

[B]

Yeah, they're not scrolling.

[A]

Now, do I make an announcement? I would not. Here's what I would do. You're going to continue to get cake inquiries. What you're going to say, per inquiry, let's pretend you've not done cakes for a while. Like you said, you've taken off a lot of breaks, so maybe we're not even getting that many. When somebody places a cake order, you tell them, hey, I'm actually no longer doing cakes, but here's what I think I could do for you. I can do these sugar cookies, which, with a matching macaron set, and here's what that would look like. If you want a cake, though, I can recommend you to another baker, but I'm pitching this. So what you're going to do is you're going to cross sell them. They are already a lead. They're a warm lead, in fact, because they already know something about you. It's a really solid lead. And I wouldn't want to be like, if you want cakes, don't come to me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's a local lady and she will offer you sugar cookies if you want a cake because she knows she makes enough sales that way. So what I would say is, I'm not going to make, I'm not going to waste that announcement. I'm going to still take those inquiries, I'm going to take those order forms, but I'm going to say, hey, I don't offer the cake, but here's what I can offer you. And you're not going to get all of those sales. Some people just want cakes, absolutely. But you are going to get some of those sales. So I don't want to leave that off the table.

[B]

We're not going to be posting pictures cakes, we're going to be upping the pictures of things you want to make most. If that's macarons, more macarons. If that's cookies, more cookies.

[A]

Yeah. Lean into what you want to sell. I don't go to a Toyota dealership to buy an Audi because I don't think they have any. But if all the Toyota dealership posted was Audi's, I would start thinking that maybe you're selling something different. I'm going to read one other text, but, Heather, you have won the stupid car tray this week. Just to recap if you want to be entered in to win next next week. 571-556-5644. Or on your podcast player you may now see the option to text in a question. And if you didn't know what the.

[B]

Stupid car tray is, that's its name, but it is the most handy, dandiest thing dandier than dandy. It levels out your passenger seat.

[A]

It's pretty neat. I used it today. Yeah.

[B]

For the muffin.

[A]

Neat.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay. Not a winner, but still a winner in my eyes. So. Minneapolis, Minnesota, if you're listening, you can still. You can text in every week. Like, somebody's gotta win a stupid character. Hi, twins. Coming back to the podcast for a breath of fresh air. As I'm starting to plan for 2025, I'm realizing that I don't know what exactly I want to set for goals. I'm pretty happy with where I am currently, but also I want to keep moving the needle forward. How can I figure out what some good goals are when I am indecisive? Thanks for your insight. I think it's going to be personal. So I'm going to come with mine. You come up with yours.

[B]

I was going to come up with a what it. Because you have to think, if she's happy where she's at, where's something that.

[A]

You feel like, well, you know what my. My thing is, I'm happy with where I'm at, but I've gotta have something that pushes me a little bit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you could say. First you gotta say, what is the metric that we're using? So are we saying money? Money's a great one. Let's say we wanna increase our sales by 20% in 2025. Okay. So find out what your 2024 sales are and add 20% to that. That's our new sales goal. Divide that by 12. That's going to be kind of an unfair because of how lopsided our industry is throughout the year, but that's what your monthly goal is going to be. You could narrow it down and do that per month to see what the increase of 20% per sale per month would be.

[B]

True.

[A]

And then that's what your goal is. 2015, 10%. That's still an increase. You're still pushing yourself. But again, I really agree with those smart goals. What was the that? Yeah. What does the acronym stand for? For some reason, I love this thing. I can't remember at all. Specific. 20%.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

20%. It has to. You can't say, I feel like I'm doing 20% better. You have to pull up the old numbers. Measurable. You know, you can do that. And achievable and relevant. So achievable. 20%. I feel like, achievable, yes.

[B]

When you say I'm going to be a millionaire.

[A]

Not achievable. Had this ex boyfriend and he'd be like, I want to start a business. And I was like, what kind? He's like, I don't know. I was like, well, I don't think we're ever going to start. When are we going to start? Every single month. It feels good to say it, though. Yeah, but it's not that. It's not the meat and potatoes. Like, I want to make 20% more each month. So I got last year's numbers. This, this January. Here's what I'm looking at. I have to. How am I going to. When you have it that dialed in, it makes it very simple to say how do I get from there to there? 20%. Still ambiguous. Once you have that number. Okay, I have to make 55 more dollars this month.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How can I make $55 or more? That's one custom set. How can I get a custom set? Well, I can post in this group on the day. So that could be that one. That is a measurable goal in terms of finances. Let's say you want to be more organized. We got a more ambiguous goal. I would make a list of places where you feel like your disorganization is.

[B]

And a lot of times it could be cookie cutter storage.

[A]

Like it.

[B]

You do waste time searching for a specific cutter.

[A]

I had listened to. I had listened to a book on organization and the guy, the book was written back when everyone had checkbooks. And he said twice a day he would look for his checkbook. And it took him about 15 minutes. So that's twice a day. It's 30 minutes a day. And for 365 days he thought he did that. And that's 10,950 minutes. Let's divide that by 24. He would. I did something wrong there. He spent a million days looking for that thing. But you get the point is that he spent 50 minutes twice a day trying to find something. That's 30 minutes. I have to do this times 365. Girl, what are you doing? One. That's 10,000 hours divided by 24. Am I wrong here? Am wrong. I don't know what I'll talk through. Yeah, please do. You're just staring at it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Cuz you're sorry.

[B]

I want to say, back when I didn't have a good cookie cutter storage, I had these bins of cookie cutters. My husband would Just watch me. Looking for a specific cutter. And he said, is that going to work for you? And I said, no. This is the most annoying part. That's why I hate it. I don't. I know I have this cutter. I don't know where it is. This past year, I've done gone painstakingly.

[A]

Slow, almost eight days, almost eight days.

[B]

Painstakingly slow through my cookie cutter storage. But it's becoming so much better. So now I have bins that are labeled. Within those bins are bags. So my new thing in January is I have a ton of odd Christmas tree shapes.

[A]

That's a good one, though, because you've saved so much. 20, 25 minutes.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

That's a big goal.

[B]

So I said, you know what? I was putting all the Christmas cutters away because the holiday's over. I said, let me not just put them in this bin.

[A]

I like this goal. Because she's saying, I'm happy with my businesses. So increasing sales is increasing your business. So I'm happy with my businesses. So where can we start buying back time cost. I'm going to say something that I.

[B]

Did for myself in 2024. I said, I'm going to. I'm happy where my orders are. I want to push myself with the designs that I do with the orders. So I took on more difficult designs, designs I would stay away from, and I was able to push myself one. My clients were happier because they got unique designs to them. I was happier because I pushed myself into. I can do that now.

[A]

I like that one. Yeah.

[B]

So I like the organization one better photography.

[A]

And I think that, yeah, as technology advances, so can our skill set. At the end of the day, and per your question, Minnesota. It's. Find out where you want to take it, even if it's just one goal. Absolutely. I think sometimes we're like, new Year, new me. Here's my 50 goals. I think if you're like, hey, new Year, new me. What if we only came up with one goal a month? 12 things.

[B]

That's.

[A]

And each one could be a conquest in 12.

[B]

I don't think I could say 12 things I did from this year.

[A]

What if you only want to increase Your sales by 20% one month?

[B]

Fantastic.

[A]

That's a lot more palatable than the 20% of raw February. In the later months, you could do that. So what you need to decide is, like, where do I feel like there's a weak spot? And then the goal should follow the weak spot and make it support whatever that is. And you know what your Weak spot is are. It's probably the thing that it's something that keeps you up, get defensive. Anything that you're protecting an open, gaping wound in your eco system. So that's how I would do that. Now, if you guys want to text in, we have some text. I'll read next week. Thank you, guys. This has been fun. Stupid card trade back on. I'm honoring it again. Nice. Do it another. I'll do it another week.

[B]

Enter to win. No, I do need one for my. I don't know.

[A]

I'll give a little. Good. You can enter to win, but you had to pick the number of whatever that is.

[B]

Am I feeling too weak today?

[A]

571-5-56-5644. Or on your podcast player. I know Spotify has it now you can text in a question and it ends up in our fan mailbox.

[B]

Fan mail. We love a fan mail.

[A]

You're gonna check the mail.

[B]

You promised to do it.

[A]

We did a fingertip.

[B]

No, it was a finger tappy.

[A]

We both did it. Guys, please text in and remind me. Frank died. Frank passed away. If you text in and say that, I'll tell you. Frank died. That was wild. Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Back to the cat thing, right? I had him for six months. The last month was the worst of my life. Like, that was the wildest thing to have to treat an ear infection that was actually a stroke. Would I. If I knew when I got him that I only had him for six months and the last month would be traumatic. Would I do.

[B]

It was his love.

[A]

We were still getting to know each other.

[B]

You.

[A]

What Gam said when I. When I. I love that little dude. When Gams was like. She was like, but what was her point? When you were saying, I'm fond of. She was like, but it was a fun six months. Yes. She said, but wouldn't you be happier that he died at six months and not two and a half years after you knew him?

[B]

I don't know. My cat died at two and a half.

[A]

And you were like, devastated, sad.

[B]

But I would.

[A]

I would have been robbed not having.

[B]

Those two and a half years.

[A]

I told Corey this when you purchased Just adopt, find a pet. You were like, I don't even know you, guy, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna know you. But. But, like, if you died today, I wouldn't know you. It would be a bummer.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Then you're like, oh, my God, I fall in mad in love with this creature. And we knew you were gonna die in my lifetime. Because they only live however long they live. Except for my snake, which is right there. I know. Like, how did me and this dude last? What is he doing? He wants to get out. He literally looks like an upside down clean escape. When you have no arms and no eyes, you can only communicate by being shaped. Never.

[B]

Now knowing. I don't think I love watching bird content. Could never own a bird.

[A]

You want a bird. You send me so much birds.

[B]

I love watching them. They're in. They're forever toddlers and they scream.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, I saw you sent me one that he screamed like that. My snake does not like to be dirty. But how can it communicate to you? Here's how it communicates to you. It'll sit in its water bowl, of which it's soaked up all its water. It spilled all this water. That's how it communicates that it's not happy about something and then it won't rest. He wants to get out of it and wants me to clean it up and then put it back in.

[B]

Let's move on to the cookie college. Give them a little lowdown of what they can expect in 2025.

[A]

Well, I'm actually going to tell you what you can expect the next seven days after the new year. You can expect a discount. Now. It's never the cheapest it's ever been. It's the. Oh, ch. Cheapest it's never been. It's the cheapest it's ever been. Our initial launch price was $60. I see a ton of you capitalizing on this and I am happy for you. You can stay as long as you want at this grandfathered rate. Grandfather rate is $68 a month or $680 a year, which is even cheaper because you get two months free that way. But it's the launch price from August 2021. Yeah. Now since August 2021. And today we've added so much more content, you're able to get it at that first. That price that people paid in. And it took a big old risk. Wow. Because we had about 20 classes then and one membership now. We have five memberships, 80 classes in just one membership alone. We have almost 30 cookie class kits. We have almost 40 digital downloads. Yeah. 180 transfers. There's so much more content, and you still get it for $68 for the next seven days. And the reason why is New Year, new you. If you're willing to put money where your mouth is, if you're willing to make 20, 20 year for your bakery, if you're like, hey, listen, I can either sink or swim, I can quit or I can keep going. This would be the step to keep going.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I still getting people in that signed up during the Vendee Blendy into the Facebook group and I love they're like, I didn't even know that this was an option. I didn't even know that an atmosphere like this existed. Where it's truly brainstorming and community and some water cooler talk. But strategy. What is your touch a challenge? January. Can you explain it?

[B]

Touch a challenge in January.

[A]

What are the challenges? And then what is it?

[B]

Okay, each month, save some of the super busy months. We try to offset it just a little bit. But each month during the year we choose a challenge to go through. So one, we had a walking challenge. Everyone loved it. It was how you know, because the person you ignore when your business is doing the best is yourself. But if you're not feeling good, your business is not going to feel good either. So we did a walking challenge. All you had to do was just track your steps and it was a fun. It wasn't a competition, but it was a fun. Wow. You can't believe what you walked to the Himalayan.

[A]

It wasn't about how many steps you took. It was that you took a step.

[B]

And having a community. So imagine if you had like office that you went to and you guys did a challenge together. This is what it feels like. In January, we're doing the touch it challenge. I don't want you to have to throw away anything you don't want to throw away. We had a declutter challenge this past week, year, this January. I need you to know what you have. If you keep buying the same cutters over and over again, it's because you don't know what you already have. I just want you to go through the cutter bin. I want you to lay eyes, lay hands on the cutters that you have. Just so you know, entering 2025 what you have. A lot of times we have leftover bags from past years that didn't sell. Let's just know what we have. Let's write it down on a spreadsheet so we know how many, how many Advent calendars we have going into 2025 so that when we see a sale, we're not waiting to the last minute till we're begging people.

[A]

I oversold my Advent calendars. I didn't know how many I had.

[B]

We're going to go into 2025 just knowing what we have. So it's a daily challenge. I'LL be like, go through your favorite cutter storage box. I just want you to touch everything in there. If you find things you want to part with, great. If you want to keep absolutely everything totally fine, you just need to touch it once.

[A]

Bins of sin.

[B]

Bins of sin. And that is freeing to get rid of them.

[A]

My 2024 early in the year initiative was to replace all my bins, opaque bins, with translucent bins. Because then you have to see the ugly reality of what's in there. And I also. It allows me to know what's in there more, but I have to see how disorganized the bins look.

[B]

If you see that you have two boxes left of a certain design or maybe some boxes that the design has been discontinued, tell yourself, do I think I could sell four? Is it worth it to sell four of whatever this is, making the samples, taking the photos, trying to sell them? Or is it more conducive to have that space for something that I could make more money off of at the end of the year and maybe do away with those four random boxes?

[A]

Again, the challenges aren't requirements. They're more suggestions. And you have a bunch of people doing so it feels better. So the cookie college is a one membership within. It rolls up five total memberships. So you have the cookie college, which is typically $76. It's $68 for the next seven days. New Year, new you, new set of twins to work with.

[B]

I can't wait to hear the uproar when I say the touch it challenge for your sprinkles.

[A]

And I hate it. Then we have the cookie class kits. Now they're included in the cookie college, but they're also their own membership. It's only $63, but for 60, for a mere $5 more, you could get all the cookie class kits from 2023, 2024, and we're already working on 2025. You're gonna love the Galentine's. So if you're in a current cookie class kit membership, you can easily upgrade by going to settings, change plans, switch plan. But that's $63. Again, that's all included in the $68 membership, which also includes all its own content. We have the digital downloads and the baker's business basics. And the transfers, those get updated. The transfers and the digital downloads get updated monthly. And I just added some Valentine's Day tags. You did the words I love our relationship.

[B]

And there was a donut one. There was a likes count one, I think.

[A]

Yeah, I was trying to think if you were giving these to your. If you were Archer.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And your mom made you take cookies to class. Yeah. And you needed to hand them out to girls you did not like want to be in love with. Smart. Because social media Archer would. I know. I was trying to channel Archer.

[B]

He would read that and take it to heart, whatever it is.

[A]

Like, if I give this, I'm gonna get five marriage proposals today. So I can't do that. So there's 10 of those front and back. And the transfers, I think we're gonna work on some snowman faces. Snowman bodies. Snowman. Someone had asked for it, so I said I do. You have funky hearts.

[B]

I feel like you did that one year.

[A]

We have a bunch of hearts. We have a bunch of shaped hearts.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

There's a ton. There's. I keep saying underneath there's probably about 200 in there now. And then we keep adding them every month. The $2 Transfer Club is $2, but it's included. It's actually included in all our memberships.

[B]

Nice. That was nice of you generous Heather.

[A]

I said get you some dragons.

[B]

Listen, this podcast wouldn't be here if it weren't for our sponsors. So you listen up and you support these sponsors because they are bringing this to you each week. First and foremost. If you say I'm happy with my business but I would like to up a few things is definitely something that could bring you more sales and you would like it.

[A]

As far as guaranteeing, we like you.

[B]

Don'T have to go to Sur La Tab and learn a whole new thing. So if you went to the backers company, they make these nice 23 by 23 inch food safe, rigid, matte, waterproof, scratch resistant backers. If you see a photo of mine, it's honestly it's probably taken on one of the backers co backdrops.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You can get 20 off right now using the code sugar cookie at checkout.

[A]

Love it.

[B]

I love that they have these L brackets. These L brackets allow you to almost transform a space. Like it turns the one backer stands straight up. One backer is flat on the ground. But it looks like you're in a different space. That's not my house. It really, really changes the photography makes it looks good. And you know Valentine's Day is coming up.

[A]

They have a deep red one.

[B]

They have a bright pink one. They have a pink marble one.

[A]

Fit we truly buy with our eyes, man. Oh, I must Cory and I love your clients. Don't know at all but you posted a set you did. And then the client so graciously went to the community group and was like mixing bowl cookie co is just amazing.

[B]

Never seen Shishito.

[A]

The photo was terrible and but the client was like what? And I say it and this is what my theory is. I'm actually stunning. But my cell phone doesn't take the right photos. That's what it is.

[B]

You know, my photos, my cookies looked great in person. Horrendous in their photos.

[A]

Right? So photos do just do you a.

[B]

Disservice if you don't do them. But they can do you.

[A]

They can make you or break you.

[B]

Yeah, they really can.

[A]

If you don't think so, watch the behind the scenes of how they make like a McDonald's commercial with the burger with the patty falls on. It's so wild. Cuz they know that that's not the bad. That's not what you're getting when you go there. But that is what sells it. So if you want to separate yourself.

[B]

Out from the market because it's so oversaturated, photos is a great way to do it. And the backers co can help you do that.

[A]

If you want to separate yourself from the oversaturated market and increase your ingredients quality. Corey really loves Bakey Bake. It's Royal Batch mering powder code twins for 10 off 10% which will probably cover shipping. I don't know people. I saw a thread in another group and someone was like who has tried Royal Bash? And I was like, well let's be truly authentic. I think sometimes people were like, oh, they sponsor the podcast or the twins. Don't let them have your opinion about whatever you want to write these products. I just thank them for sponsoring the podcast and keeping this going. So I was like, oh, in this other group people are going to feel more free to say what they want. Although please let me stress, whatever you use, I don't care. I just like that they sponsor this podcast and Corey really likes the product. In this other group people are like huge fan of Royal Batch. Tried it, can't switch. Love this product. And I was like, oh, this is truly an organic review.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Of just how many bakers have tried this and loved it.

[B]

I would not have brought them on the podcast if I didn't like the stuff.

[A]

I remember when Courtney Post who owns Bakegity Bake, had reached out and Corey was like I don't want to support a product that I don't use. And you were really rude.

[B]

I was rude for the fact that I just didn't know.

[A]

So Cory reaches out to her and she's like, I'm, can you just send me the product? I'll try it out. If it, I'll make a review about it if I if it.

[B]

And I said, if I don't like it, I'll pay you and it'll accidentally.

[A]

So she said, Cory, like, wow, I'm actually a huge fan. And then you've never actually switched back. I've never switched back. It's been a few years now. Yeah. So that is bakeitybake.com you can find it. Royal batch. She has a few other products now. I think the Code Twins works across her website. Really? I haven't even tested it yet. I didn't even think about that. I'm sure telling her, try to buy something else and tell her the code didn't work and ask if she wants.

[B]

Okay, I'm willing to take. I'm willing to be the martyr and do that.

[A]

And then last but never least is Eddie the edible food printer. If Santa wasn't good to you this year, screw him. Be your own Santas. Now that could be a decent 20, 25 goal. Yeah, I want an Eddie. So Eddie's $3,000, not you. Let me do the math here. My math is not. Is mathing today. So let's say we have $3,000 and we have 12 months of the year. So we're looking at an extra $250 a month.

[B]

We do say very investable.

[A]

So let's say 250. Let's say we take. What's an average order for like a heavier part time baker?

[B]

I would say probably two dozen. You're probably at a hundred dollars. So fifty.

[A]

No, like how many dozen a month?

[B]

Oh, I would say probably 6 or 7.

[A]

7. Let's go up to 7. So for each order we need an additional 35. How could you increase each order by 35? You can either take more orders and you have only increase it by much. So let's say if you do 14 orders a month. 14 dozen. Pretending. Right. You only need 17 additional dollars. Could you give them ring powder? Could you add custom packaging if you did that, if you did 14 dozen a month and increased each order by $17 is not. Not chump change.

[B]

No.

[A]

Or you could sell it two DIY kits. $17, one DIY kit. You could have yourself Mary, a little Eddie. Eddie baby by Christmas. Yeah, that would. It's, you know, $3,000 is not. If you were just hearing this word.

[B]

Eddie for the first time, you're like what are they? Talk child named Eddie. No.

[A]

Yeah. And he comes to your house and he paints.

[B]

Eddie's a direct to food printer. It has been amazing and a world changer for anything corporate that I've done. If you hate airbrushing, if you hate collecting stencils, if you hate cleaning, the airbrush Eddie is that in a bag of chips. You don't have to clean him. He looks like an actual printer and he prints right on the surface of cookies. If you're like, you know what? I'm not into corporate. It can really absolutely add to the essence of your custom order without half of the work behind it, which is fan freaking tastic. A lot of cutter shops now sell Eddy png.

[A]

It really is a. An efficiency purchase.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's, it's. You don't know exactly the Eddie what it is until you've witnessed it.

[A]

It's kind of hard to explain.

[B]

It's hard to explain, but it's so cool. Even when I turn them on now, I'm like, oh my God.

[A]

There you go. That takes it. If you want to learn more about Eddie, you can go to primary.com that's to purchase it. But I'd recommend join their Facebook group Eddie Printer Users group on Facebook. It's really wild to describe what you almost have to see to believe.

[B]

You can also see on their Instagram they're constantly showing you him printing and that's very fun to see.

[A]

Yeah. That app that they came out with that we should have had by the time we did that wedding direct to print thing. That was pretty interesting. Use case of the whole thing. It was. Yeah, it was. That put hair in your chest though. Woo. I was sweating. Yeah. Pretty fantastic machine. So Those are our three sponsors. Do you have 20?

[B]

I do.

[A]

Really?

[B]

I'm on a hair care journey.

[A]

Okay. I would like to take a little credit. Why? Are you talking about the hunt?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Cor and I tried. Don't know if I'll ever do it again. The twin advent birthday gift. So our birthday is in November. So in December we had 24 gifts open. It was a blast opening it. Terrible setting it up, but we did it. And I thought it was a lot of fun when I was like trying to decide because I wanted some quality gifts that weren't all skincare but weren't also stuff you were just going to donate. In two seconds you're going to donate a lot of that. I can actually. I found this hat. It's a red light therapy hat. So if you've gotten Targeted in the ads. Red light therapy is just literally a red light that shines on your skin. And apparently it's supposed to.

[B]

It can go past the top epigenerons.

[A]

The concept being. And if. And if this sounds hokey to you, it sounds hokey to me. But I mean, imagine you go outside and the sun infiltrates your skin and produces a tan. This is a concept. But with red light therapy that infiltrates the skin and evens out. I want to see discoloration.

[B]

It brings the red blood cells.

[A]

I mean, they're acting like you've shined this red light in your tanks are file. I don't know. It can't do everything it's saying to do. Either.

[B]

A year ago or two years ago, for our birthdays, me and Heather bought ourselves this red light therapy mask.

[A]

Right. You look like an alien when you.

[B]

I said to myself, if. If you get this mask and don't use it. I've used it for one year.

[A]

Do you think made a difference? See, that's a wild part.

[B]

But how would I know? I don't. I might have a little less fine line. I wouldn't know. I don't have it.

[A]

So anyways, Cory's on a hair care journey. And this company came out with a ball cap.

[B]

Like a little ornamental.

[A]

Somebody's like wearing a ball cap, but in it is all these red lights that infiltrate what they say is your hair follicle. This thing wasn't cheap, Cory. It was so expensive. Cory actually had to foot the bill for half of it.

[B]

I know.

[A]

So my mom gives. Everyone won one special gift. And that was Cory's special gift. But it was two special. She had to give my mom money.

[B]

I don't know if it'll work.

[A]

If you're wondering if the red light is creeping out of this and Cory's head's glowing. No, it completely is hidden.

[B]

It has a beep. So you know it's on. And when it turns off because you.

[A]

Kept lifting it up, I was like.

[B]

Is this still on?

[A]

But the thing when she turned it on, it was like the sun surface.

[B]

It was so bright because your hair's in the way. Like, so I'm like parting my hair different spots to let that light to get to.

[A]

I don't.

[B]

Listen. I don't know.

[A]

But you've been on this hair care journey for like two years. Years. I think a year and a half. Really? Minoxidil.

[B]

And you're right. The what is neutrophil?

[A]

The little. Yes. Then your scalp oiling and stuff. Do you feel like your hair is healthier?

[B]

I feel like it has gotten.

[A]

You almost needed to have taken photos. I.

[B]

And you know what? Actually someone in the college. Bless your dear soul, posted me and you at that cookie con that we went to. My hair, I. It was like this. The surface of the sun, it was so, so thin looking.

[A]

If I can find that photo, that would be great. I would like to know. Because really the subtle changes over time. You cannot.

[B]

You can't change. But I got my haircut yesterday to start off this new year. New me hair care.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Really. It looks very healthy right now. It does, it does.

[A]

It does. Looks very dark because it's so healthy.

[B]

Is that. Yeah.

[A]

I mean like dry hair is brittle and it becomes porous and you can get the light. That's why it's always like real light.

[B]

So I think thought, you know, put. I do put my hair in a bun for cookie decorating and things like that. That bun is heavy. My hair follicles hurt at the end of the night.

[A]

Is it what the boys tell me about mine? Your back just run into your leg. So my hair bun is so heavy.

[B]

But I have to have my hair up just for decorating or whatever. So I said, let me cut this shagginess. The man kept cutting.

[A]

I think it looks great.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Plus it will grow back in two seconds, especially with your red light cap. So that's a good twin dress. So we'll see if it works.

[B]

It could be hocus pocus, but I'm gonna try it.

[A]

I'm gonna use it. Yeah. I don't know. My husband, all this.

[B]

The days long was like, what is this?

[A]

I was like, it's a hair wig cap.

[B]

They had put it on.

[A]

And I said, you know, it's not a miracle. The gym I go to had a sauna. Okay. I had light therapy. Sauna. No, no, no, no. It was just a sweaty sweat D. Sauna. Right.

[B]

I hate saunas.

[A]

Right. And. And it always wasn't. I think people kept putting water on the heat source and it had so many signs. Like, don't put water in. He suddenly it was shut down and now it's a single person. Red light sauna. Stop. You just stand in line and then you can go in. It's. You have to have. Is there a long line? No, cuz you have to pay more than I'm already paying. And I was like, for your body. Yeah.

[B]

And always red spas are doing that.

[A]

The red emanating from that. That room. It's a completely covered room. It's seeping out of the crevices. Yeah. Whoever stand, mirror. An old person walks in, a two year old walks out.

[B]

So here's the thing. Our dad grew up using red light therapy for any aching.

[A]

We thought it was hokey.

[B]

For them it was hokey. But in my.

[A]

My dad's child, I am on tik tok. You can find these doctors. The other thing. Oh, he's on the move as well. They both want a snake clean. These doctors say it really does work. I'm gonna let you know.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Here's the thing. We're twins, so I thought if Heather, you don't have the discipline to do it.

[A]

I've been doing it this year. I haven't missed a single day this entire two days. I'll do it for the rest of the year. Yeah, I said Heather's not going to do it. So that means. So I'm the control group. The ugly, wrinkly, red spotted control group. Our control group. I don't know if it's a word, obviously, I don't know. Here's a twin dress for you. Our sister older and then our sister younger got this app for discipline.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it is gamified.

[B]

If you like the game animal crossing.

[A]

Then you're gonna like this discipline app. It's a goal setting app. And you are a bird. And you can pick your bird size and color. And then every day that you do your goals, your bird grows.

[B]

The more goals goals you give yourself, the more chance you have to meet.

[A]

Your goals, the more rainbow stardust you could use to buy a boat. But it's, it's a gamification way of tracking your mood and reaching your goals. I'm on the free plan because I'm on the free plan and I think if you were like, hey, here's my five goals today. It's kind of a fun way to do it. It's called. It's very cute. Very cute. Punch. F I, N C. I can say.

[B]

I did my walk.

[A]

Click. It did.

[B]

Look, I'm growing.

[A]

Why don't I hear any of the same sounds?

[B]

I don't ever have my phone on.

[A]

Oh, the sounds are the cutest part. The reason.

[B]

So you can have a little friend. You can put an egg on a thing you really want to get yourself in the habit of doing.

[A]

Look at these sounds. Hello. That's gonna. Oh, deaf and somebody. Hi. I want to tell you when I do a goal, what it sounds like it's gonna sound. It's making me breathe. I mean it. Just listen to this.

[B]

So cute.

[A]

Listen. That'll. That'll. That sounds like a casino.

[B]

So you can attempt match prizes to things you really want to get the habit of. So I said I want to walk every day. So I put a little prize. A little.

[A]

Oh, you gave yourself a prize.

[B]

You can put an egg.

[A]

It's truly an honor system. And then your bird kind of grows with you. Yes. But you can also friend other birds. So like my little sister's constantly at my bird's house and I'm like go home.

[B]

You can get clothing. So right now mine. My verb is decorated for Valentine's Day.

[A]

I got a custom color.

[B]

Oh you did?

[A]

I couldn't change it.

[B]

A beak.

[A]

And I got a bow. I got a bow.

[B]

And you can change your house.

[A]

So you can. Oh, I haven't earned enough to get my house. I'm in the Serengeti for some reason I don't know how I travel. You're very cute. And you know what? I kind of like it. It's kind of fun cuz they're constantly.

[B]

Doing it and it sets of notifications. So one is my red light therapy.

[A]

Oh, that's good. So at 6pm he'll be like ready for your red light. And then if you do it, you're bird is really happy. But you do have to be honest with yourself. Yeah. What's the point of doing it if you're just trying to get in the system? That's Finch. It's an app. I think it was voted one of the top apps of 2024.

[B]

Very cute.

[A]

If you want a 2025 way to be cute, maybe get a burb. Be me and my friend.

[B]

I need a Susie.

[A]

My name's Hondo. I don't like that look, Mav. It's the only one I guess. Okay guys, Happy New year and we will see see you in 2025.