205. Baking it Down - Top User Submitted Marketing Tips

Summary

Podcast Summary: Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪
Episode 205: Top User Submitted Marketing Tips
Release Date: April 1, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 205 of the Baking it Down Podcast hosted by Heather and Corrie Miracle, the sisters delve into the wealth of marketing wisdom shared by members of their Sugar Cookie Marketing Facebook group. This episode emphasizes community-driven insights, showcasing how fellow bakers are innovating their marketing strategies to boost sales and enhance business operations.

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Announcements and Winners

[00:44] Corrie:
“In the month of March, we said, hey, if you wanted to win, four people once a week wanted to win a month in the Cookie College on our dime, all you had to do is make a marketing post or question in the Sugar Cookie Marketing group this month.”

Heather and Corrie introduce a contest where active participation in the Facebook group can earn listeners a free month in their Cookie College membership program, aimed at making bakeries more efficient and profitable.

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User-Submitted Marketing Tips

The core of this episode revolves around actionable marketing tips submitted by group members. Heather and Corrie read and discuss these tips, providing their perspectives and additional insights.

1. Tammy Jones: Reaching Out to Past Corporate Clients

[02:35] Tammy:
“Don’t be afraid to reach out to past corporate clients about ordering again.”

Heather:
“But in the world of corporate court, my corporate version of myself and my personal are two different people.”

Tammy emphasizes the importance of re-engaging with previous corporate clients, highlighting that busy corporate environments often lead to forgotten orders rather than a lack of interest.

2. Sharon: Innovative Branding Photo Shoots

[06:02] Sharon:
“Want to do a branding photo shoot but think your kitchen isn’t fancy enough? Use a nearby model home!”

Corrie:
“She brought a piping bag and a cookie and left everyone there baked.”

Sharon shares a clever strategy to use professionally staged locations like model homes for high-quality branding photos, thereby overcoming limitations of a small or cluttered kitchen space.

3. Jennifer Lister: Effective Take-Home Gifts

[07:25] Jennifer:
“I make a mini 3D printed cookie cutter and provide a coupon for either a custom order or $5 to $10 off my next cookie class.”

Heather:
“She’s still charging enough that she covers her profit.”

Jennifer discusses the dual benefit of providing tangible take-home gifts that encourage repeat business or class sign-ups, balancing generosity with profitability.

4. Stacy: Maximizing Pre-Sale Samples

[14:03] Stacy:
“Have extra cookies left over? Cut them into quarters, freeze them, and save as samples for your next market event. Always offer one flavor of the sample to prevent people from wanting multiple flavors.”

Corrie:
“Don’t overwork samples.”

Stacy advises on utilizing leftover cookies effectively by creating standardized samples, ensuring efficiency and preventing dilution of brand essence through variety.

5. Marianne: Leveraging Local Business Partnerships

[09:48] Marianne:
“My husband and I have made a list of local businesses and strategically take samples and business cards to them.”

Heather:
“Networking with local businesses can significantly increase your following.”

Marianne highlights the strategy of partnering with local businesses that align with your target clientele, enhancing visibility and fostering community support.

6. Tara: Building a Business Identity

[20:23] Tara:
“Start thinking of yourself as a business owner. When people ask, I reply with, 'I’m a custom sugar business.'”

Corrie:
“You are your number one fan and lead source.”

Tara underscores the importance of self-identification as a business owner to boost confidence and brand perception, reinforcing personal belief in the business's value.

7. Deb: Consistency in Posting and Engagement

[22:55] Deb:
“Be consistent with your marketing efforts. Implement tips from the podcast and see continuous growth.”

Heather:
“If you’re consistent, you’re going to win some.”

Deb emphasizes the critical role of consistency in marketing, advocating for the regular implementation of effective strategies to sustain and grow business momentum.

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Technology and AI in Marketing

Heather and Corrie explore the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in marketing strategies, discussing both its benefits and limitations.

[24:35] Corrie:
“AI helps in creating verbiage for Instagram and Facebook posts, but you need to adjust them to add your personality.”

Heather:
“AI is a fantastic sounding board, but the real connection comes from your unique personality.”

They caution against over-reliance on AI, recommending its use as a foundational tool that requires human personalization to maintain authenticity and engagement.

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Photography Tips

Effective photography is crucial for visual marketing, and the hosts share practical tips to enhance the quality of baked goods photos.

[32:28] Heather:
“When taking photos, packaging adds a lot of value. Use backlighting to minimize glare from cellophane.”

Corrie:
“Use natural light or ensure your setup is well-lit. Close-ups and varied angles offer more content for your feeds.”

They discuss techniques such as backlighting, using plain backgrounds to highlight products, and capturing multiple angles to create a rich portfolio of images for social media and promotional materials.

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Virtual Assistants

The episode highlights the advantages of employing Virtual Assistants (VAs) to manage various aspects of a bakery business, allowing bakers to focus on their craft.

[63:46] Deb:
"Consider tasks like front desk management, social media posting, newsletter preparation, and financial tasks like invoicing."

Corrie:
"A VA can handle mundane tasks efficiently, freeing up your time to bake."

They provide insights into delegating administrative duties to VAs, emphasizing improved efficiency and the ability to concentrate on core business activities.

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Upcoming Events and Sponsors

Heather and Corrie promote Popping Con, an upcoming cake pop convention, and acknowledge their podcast sponsors, enhancing community connections and offering exclusive discounts.

[75:32] Corrie:
"We’re speaking at Popping Con from May 4th through the 6th. Use code TWINS for a $25 discount."

Heather:
"Backers Co is offering 25% off with code SUGARCOOKIE. Perfect for transforming your baking setups."

Sponsors like Eddie, the Edible Food Printer and Backers Co are highlighted, showcasing innovative tools and products that can elevate bakery businesses.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Heather and Corrie Miracle effectively leverage the collective knowledge of their Sugar Cookie Marketing community to provide valuable, actionable marketing strategies. From client re-engagement and innovative photo shoots to the strategic use of AI and virtual assistants, the podcast offers a comprehensive guide for bakers aiming to enhance their marketing efforts. The emphasis on community support, consistent implementation of tips, and embracing technology underscores the podcast's commitment to empowering local bakeries to thrive in an ever-evolving market.

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Notable Quotes:

• Tammy Jones ([02:35]):
  “Don’t be afraid to reach out to past corporate clients about ordering again.”

• Sharon ([06:02]):
  “Use a nearby model home for your branding photo shoot if your kitchen isn’t fancy enough.”

• Jennifer Lister ([07:25]):
  “I make a mini 3D printed cookie cutter and provide a coupon for either a custom order or $5 to $10 off my next cookie class.”

• Tara ([20:23]):
  “Start thinking of yourself as a business owner. When people ask, I reply with, 'I’m a custom sugar business.'”

• Corrie ([24:35]):
  “AI helps in creating verbiage for Instagram and Facebook posts, but you need to adjust them to add your personality.”

• Deb ([22:55]):
  “Be consistent with your marketing efforts. Implement tips from the podcast and see continuous growth.”

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This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of Episode 205, providing a comprehensive overview of the discussions, strategies, and insights shared by Heather, Corrie, and their community of Sugar Cookie Marketing members.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the I'm trying to not do it so sales pitchy. Welcome to the Baking it down podcast. Man, get in here. Welcome to the Baking it down podcast. We are spin off from a group on Facebook called the Sugar cookie marketing group. About 48, 000 bakers in there now and there's no more pending people. If you are. It's every week it's cleared out. So if you want to get in, get in, just answer the question. So it cuts down on. But this is a podcast based on things that are happening in the group, trends, what people are having issues with in their bakery businesses. But this one I think will be kind of a fun topic.

[B]

It'll be a fun topic. So in the month of March, we said, hey, if you wanted to win, four people once a week wanted to win a month in the cookie college on our dime, all you had to do is make a marketing post or question in the sugar cookie marketing group this month.

[A]

So what the cookie college is, it's the membership that me and Heather offer. Who are me and Heather?

[B]

People talking.

[A]

Nothing more, nothing less. But the cookie college is based on making your bakery more efficient, more profitable, adding revenue, adding success to your bakery. When you sign up, our goal is to make your money back and plus a dollar. So you'll stay and you'll be like, I find so much value. So that. That's why a lot of people want to be in the cookie college, because there is value behind it. It's been going for years now. There's thousands of bakers who have come through it, who have seen success. So that's why so many of these people posted some phenom posts. Some phenom posts.

[B]

Yeah, there's some really great posts. I thought we could spend today kind of reading some. Yeah. And. And then I'll announce these aren't. These aren't the winners. I have to blindly make Ruthan choose them. So I'll announce that sometime later.

[A]

But we thought we'd cover just a few here. Here's the thing. Me and Heather can. We've talked on the podcast endlessly. We only know what we know, but we don't know what you know. And that's why these posts were so enlightening, because some people had some really good marketing tips that even me and Heather are like, that's a good one.

[B]

Yeah, Some real solid stuff. And then I made that reminder yesterday, like, don't forget to post. And people are like, this is great.

[A]

So Heather's gonna cover a top few. A few that Took off in the group that.

[B]

Yeah. So this one is Tammy Jones. My marketing tip is don't be afraid to reach out to past corporate clients about ordering again. That's a great idea. It is. I think we all know we should be reaching out to clients. Well, I.

[A]

With corporate clients, you feel like this weird. Yeah. Can you please buy from me?

[B]

But in the world of corporate court, my corporate version of myself and my personal. They're two different people. Yes. Like corporate. When I had to do corporate earnings, I worked for marketing for, like, a franchise. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they would be like, here's a company card. And then I'd be like, I don't care what the price is. I care who makes me look better, who does it fast and does it great. Yes. So it was like, you know, I was like, price is factored into a small business. Like, I know I'm going to be paying a certain amount here. As long as it got approved. It was like everyone was just dialed into that small business. Corporate pricing was higher.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we weren't like, trying to nickel and dime or anything because, you know, I think it was a modeling company. And the average remodel cost from 50 to 70,000.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

So when the average project is $50,000, that cookie is not a big expense. It's not.

[A]

But I will say, in a corporate world, you have so many people pinging your inbox and you have so many people telling you what to do that you. You don't have time to be like, who did I order cookies from last year? What did we do last year?

[B]

I can always appreciate when somebody's like, hey, you know, I'm like, oh, you know what? I forgot about that. It's so funny. And I'll read the rest of this post in a minute. Corey has a Neiman kind of this weird standing Neiman Marcus relationship. The guy pays not net 30. He pays net whenever he thinks about it. Like, I'm sending QuickBooks. QuickBooks now has AI. And the AI was like, hey, this guy doesn't really pay on time. Here's how we think you should word this. Pay me now. But one cook. Like, you had to do a brand, right? What was the brand that you had to do?

[A]

Acris.

[B]

Yeah, you pronounce it wrong.

[A]

Akris. That is how you pronounce it according to the men. Right.

[B]

So, like, whether this is perfume, which, you know, Corey did that Creed. Creed. For Christmas. I thought I'd get Corey Bottle Creek. I thought, how funny, because you baked that perfect with the Eddie print. The one. Okay. How much did you charge for that order? Oh, I think it was 300, maybe.

[A]

Three to four something.

[B]

Where? And I think it was like two dozen or something. It wasn't.

[A]

It was like.

[B]

You made. You made your bag.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When I went to the store and I. I took my little sister with me, this was supposed to be a surprise. And I went to the greed counter, call it the greed category. Each bottle was $400. One bottle. If they had sold one bottle of perfume, it would have covered Corey's cookie cost and then some. So corporate world is a different world. Yes. And that's why I think people are like, let's not fear. They're making a ton of money off your effort. So anyways, Tammy goes on, I just received two orders, one for 300 cookies and one for 1000 cookies. By reaching out and basically saying, hey, you ordered this time last year and would you like to order again? Sometimes they just need the reminder that they want your cookies.

[A]

Yeah. Agreed, agreed, agreed. And agreed. If you're not reaching out to them, someone else is. Hopefully it's not your competition.

[B]

And I think that the thing is that that's a great perspective. Is not that they forgot about you. No. Not that they didn't want you. It's that they truly got too busy.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

And if you're like, hey, worst case. Worst case, they can say, worst case. They know.

[A]

But you still top of mind. Top of me. Email.

[B]

I heard. I was listening to a podcast yesterday, and the speaker was like, any successful person leaves a trail of no's that they've heard. And he was like. He's like, if you want to see a successful person, it's a person who's been told no a lot and got.

[A]

Real comfortable with it.

[B]

And he said, rejection is a part of success. So that one was a really great one. Now, Sharon, she's in the good college, but she. I like this one. She said, here's my marketing tip. I want to do a branding. This was an interesting tip.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

This was one of those ones where your tips where I'm like, I would have never thought of this. Okay, sure. She said, want to do a branding photo shoot? But thinking your kitchen isn't fancy enough, like, you know, that is a challenge.

[A]

I got a dark kitchen. I'm in a townhouse in the center there. There's a lot of not light.

[B]

And by the nature of being a baker, your kitchen is very full of things.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right. She said, why not use a nearby model home? So she had reached out to the home builder or the salesperson and said hey, can I set up a photo shoot? And I think that she ended up promote. Oh she called them, it's free. She asked when their slowest times were and then made plans for an hour and. And then she left. Everyone there baked cookies.

[A]

Genius.

[B]

So what she's saying is, you know we got model homes, new home builds are open. Yeah.

[A]

That's how they sell. If a new community is opening up. They have one model home that built. It's, it's specked out so you can see exactly what you could buy. Um, so they have open hours.

[B]

Like I can search a new community and their. Oh their house. The one, the model home, the tour. The one you tour has open and closed hours.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

Uh, and then you could reach out to those salespeople. I mean it was. That's a really slick idea. That is. And she posted a picture of it. She got a professional photographer.

[A]

Oh really good for her.

[B]

She brought a piping bag and a cookie. But yeah, to then to leave them all again back to corporate girly era. She's connected with not only a real estate agent, a sales professional and a home builder. And then left them on.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

If she went one further and she didn't mention this, but if you went one further and said hey guys, I just want to let you know I toured this home and promoted to your audience.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What are, what are they going to say that's so great? Jennifer Lister, she's been in the groups for forever. She said and you know I just sorted these tips by highest engagement.

[A]

Yes. Yeah.

[B]

Uh, every cookie class I've hosted, each attendee gets a little take home gift which you do that.

[A]

I've done the take home gift. Usually I do it what the next class will be to kind of get.

[B]

Em to sign up. She said I'd love to see what everyone else does. But here's a sample of mine. I make a mini 3D printed cookie cutter and I provide a coupon for either a custom order or sometimes it may be 5 to $10 off my next cookie class. I find it's been working very well to get them to return to class or to place custom orders.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

So I like that. And I know everyone's like well don't run a discount. Your price is your price. No, she's touching her profit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And she's gonna say that she's still charging enough that she covers her Prof. But she's able to. I see that happen. My first three classes booked out and this Other class didn't. She's hedging that by getting the people who signed up for those first three classes to have an incentive to sign up for the next.

[A]

You also have to think whatever time. And the discount she used to get people to sign up again is now she doesn't have to remarket to new people to try to get them in class.

[B]

I like how she kind of switches between custom or class. So whatever's hurting at the moment. Let's say, uh, Corey and I find that teaching cookie classes in July is a bit harder. So I might have that be the incentive for June class. Hey, guys. And then let's say when you know your classes are gonna book out kind of around October. Let's move into customs. Give that discount to drive people to customs. Uh, so that is great. I'm gonna scroll on a little bit because now they're sorted. Unfortunately, my baker roll call posts have been performing. I'm wonderful. I'm sure.

[A]

I'm sure.

[B]

Uh, so that was so many great tips here.

[A]

Dead air.

[B]

Dead air. Yeah. I was hoping you. You were like. I don't know what to say there. Stare at her eyeballs. Oh, no, this one. That one did. Somebody did a naughty cookie this funny. I'll just read it this. Baker tip of the day. When somebody asked for naughty cookies, make sure you understand their version of naughty. Because she ended up over baking a very provocative sentence.

[A]

Communication is key.

[B]

Yeah, communication.

[A]

It does come down to whatever you're thinking. Hopefully aligns with what I'm thinking.

[B]

And it.

[A]

That's why I asked for an inspo phone there. You. Just so I can see where you're at and make sure it's where I'm at.

[B]

It's that. That whole premise of the naughty cookie. If you guys join a Facebook group, I think it's called Cookies after Dark. I'm not sure if you can still get in, but it's kind of like.

[A]

Yeah, there's a wide range of provocative. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. This one I was reading last night. Marketing tip, local businesses, she says. My husband and I have made a list of local businesses in our area, from mom and pop shops to large warehouses. And we've been strategically taking some of the samples and boxes and business cards to. So she said this is how she vets to create this list. What would this business employ? My target clientele. Stick on. Second one. Would bringing samples to this business get my business name in places it isn't currently known? I really like that one because it really is like, well, okay. That's.

[A]

That's being strategic. At the end of the day, if you've had a pop up at a shop, they already know you.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So bringing them more cookies, while it can solidify a relationship, isn't getting your name in places it isn't already.

[B]

Like the Neiman Marcus one. I would never assume a conglomerate like Neiman Marcus would want cookies. Yeah, but oddly they do.

[A]

Oddly.

[B]

You have remodeling companies. Yeah. Landscaping companies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know these ones where you're like, no way. But they're like, we got to give something to our clients. And then their cost per project is in the thousands of dollars. So that cookies are like, yeah, for sure. She has a third question. Does this business openly support other small businesses? And I think that helps with that.

[A]

When you have that mindset of small business for small business, it's like almost like the conversation is so easy. And they go from. It's just easy for them to recommend.

[B]

You get it.

[A]

You get shout. Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Yeah. So she's like, these are the questions we've been considering. We've gone to car dealerships, furniture stores, medical offices, boutiques, salons. That's a good one.

[A]

Salons, yeah, for sure.

[B]

Coffee shops. That one's a pretty typical one. YMCAs. And we have more on our list. Doing this has greatly increased my following. And shortly after beginning this, the owner of the local Harley Davidson shop reached out. No way. Yeah, for sure. And then she included some of the cookies that she had been taking around. So she looks like she has gone to a gym. And me and Heather were just on.

[A]

A walk and we were talking. It's not about what you know. It's about who you know. The person that's sitting behind, you know, the YMCA desk might not be the person who orders from you, but their brother might own the Harley dealership. And getting your name in, in there, it really, honestly, you have to take off your introverted hat and put on your extrovert hat and be like, I'm gonna assign myself one hour to not be a wallflower to get out there to. To say the words that I need to say. Dropping off a cookie box and saying no words is easy to do. I know. Here, this is for you guys. Thanks.

[B]

But say being. And somebody had mentioned that yesterday. She was like. And I hopefully I scroll past her tip. But she was like, being your own bestseller.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So she's like, when I walk in, she's like, I almost have to breathe. And then say like when she's like, I think she mentioned going to the bank. She's like, hey, I. You know, she's like. And I said, if you're not your fan, who else?

[A]

Nobody will be my fan.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

For sure. I said to you, no one's gonna business like you do.

[B]

You got to be. You are. Whatever energy you have about your business and how you talk about it, nobody will surpass.

[A]

I know, I know. So you got to be the most excited.

[B]

She brings up a great point with car dealerships. Is watching TikTok, and this girl is like a day. She worked at a Porsche dealership.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And she was like a day in my life. And she was kind of. She would get the service records and then get the, like, oil change supplies to the. But then she also was in charge of gift bags. And in the back of this Porsche dealership, if you guys don't know about Porsches now, they're around over $150,000 for the vehicle. She would have this whole bag, and they had this, like, stuff that she puts in the bag, and it was like, custom tumbler.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That Porsche of Miami on it or whatever. And, like, imagine if they could put a custom car.

[A]

A picture of genius.

[B]

And, you know, we're talking about a car that's 150 to, you know, $300,000.

[A]

Oh, for sure. They're. You're making them look good.

[B]

The average Harley Davidson is $40,000. Her cookie if she charged them 400, 500 if she charged them $1,000 for a set of cookies. Still a deal if they sell one.

[A]

Honestly, if. If you could create a relationship with a dealership. Dealerships are moving how many cars a week? You'd probably think for an area like this, 40.

[B]

They all have those little snack areas. They.

[A]

Oh, they all have the sink. But imagine every car that's sold, you get the bow on the top and then a cookie in your. That's genius.

[B]

If I bought a car, I've never bought a car and had a bow on it. I love. I've never had any manifesting car on bow experience, but if I got a car with a bow on it and inside is a car, my car is a cookie.

[A]

Yeah. You best believe even the logo, which would make it easier for the baker and for them, like. And then you can incorporate Eddie into.

[B]

That in some way. You know, the brand logo. Kathleen writes marketing tip. Have extra cookies left over. Great. Cut them into quarters and freeze them. Save them as samples to give out at your next market event. Always only offer one flavor of the sample. Otherwise people will want to try the Multiple flavors.

[A]

Yeah, that's a. That's a genius move.

[B]

Here's the thing.

[A]

We were talking about it. It is spring season. The Dale City farmers market, which we mentioned often last week, is changing from its winter hours to summer hours. This week will be the first time it's open. Yeah. So I think samples get people in. They get people curious, they get people tasting. People buy with their eyes, buy with their stomachs, taste buds screaming.

[B]

You know, it gives you also that iceberg. I read a book, I think it's called dollars and cents. But since it spelled like yes, brain sense. And it was like when you give something to somebody for free, our brains are like, we owe them something. We have gotten. We have received something.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So now we must owe them something. And that could be all the difference between somebody stopping by your booth and saying, well, let me. I'll grab a cookie.

[A]

And you're right. It's an icebreaker. Hey, wanna come? You want a free cookie? Come and dice them. It makes it so much more natural than buy my stuff. You know where we're get. We get choked up. Don't make eye contact, be on your phone. No, this makes it more natural, I think.

[B]

You know, we did that podcast on the Lotterach Lash, that chocolate shop.

[A]

I just remember the joke. Yeah.

[B]

And the funny thing is like they have somebody standing out there and giving samples of which was decimated by Covid. But it's come back, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you may think, well, I give samples and nobody buys. I had probably eaten four different times of samples before I made a purchase. So don't even think. Well, I just. People just take them and leave the teriyaki places at the mall. Oh, I know.

[A]

When I. Absolutely. It's funny. They always give it to you when you're walking in. They never offer to you offer. They know their ideal audience. You're walking in there.

[B]

I can remember teriyaki at the mall because of those free samples over time.

[A]

What I love for this is a lot of people waste their pre sale samples. You know, you make them so far in advance from the holiday. What are you gonna do? You put a rando name on there. You know Mark, you know who's Mark? Mark never ordered. So these.

[B]

So sure you're gonna pick Shelly.

[A]

Yeah. Shallow Shelly. These cookies go to the cookie graveyard. That cookie is called. But actually utilizing them to benefit your business, there's no loss there. So you're making your samples work double time. Overwork samples, not overworked dough. Because we don't want our gluten to be too crazy.

[B]

But an overworked sample we love no true rewards for life. Don't want to overwork that gluten.

[A]

Don't. Down girl. Die.

[B]

Stacy wrote. Make a post on your business page asking for everyone that has purchased from you to leave a review. Give them specific things like 1 flavor, 2 texture, 3. Sum up in the review. Sum up their review in one or two sentence and then you can use these reviews as spotlights in to spotlight their comments on your page, your reels or stories. Um, she said, and I personally do a drawing forever leaves reviews in a month. I give them a 20. Somebody wins 25% off.

[A]

I think that is genius. It is so hard. It's. It's the craziest thing. You'll have a great experience with a business and never say two words about it. The minute that they do something wrong, you're in every local group. Be like, I hate this. I gotta bring this to your attention. You gotta know about this. That's why it's so hard to get positive reviews. Incentives work. They do.

[B]

Biggest disclaimer. Those websites do not want you to add an incentive to review. But until they protect you from the spammy bad reviews, I don't think that they can be calling the shots.

[A]

I know, but incentives work. Asking point blank, period. Can you leave me a review that.

[B]

And I've said this in another podcast. It worked for the same franchise and they had bad reviews for the. By the nature of that's who. The squeaky wheel. Right. So they were like, at one point, their strategy was to get delisted from Yelp. Yeah, you can do that.

[A]

We just don't want to be honest.

[B]

Yeah, we just. Yeah. And so I was like, yeah, we can't do that. So. But what we can do is try to build up good reviews and kind of bury the bad reviews. And they were like, well, let's add incentives. Right. We tried. It just fell flat on space. So instead we said to the project managers, it was just an interesting shift. Instead of giving the client money for leaving the review, which, you know, violated those rules too. I know. That's ten years ago.

[A]

Ye.

[B]

We said to the project manager, you get a bonus if you get a review. And whoever gets the most reviews in a month gets $500. That was the. That was. The boss came up with that money. I was like, okay, one or two of these. There was a tier. The first one got 500, second person got 250. Two of these. Project managers were like, they figured out it's A car payment. Like they were.

[A]

The great thing about them is they created the relationship with that customer and.

[B]

They used it as like it's different than the me saying, corey, give me your money. Like if I directly benefit. Instead the project manager became this third party saying, hey, it really helps me look good to my boss. Me, you against them. So you can do that as a baker saying, hey, it really helps me to Google.

[A]

Absolutely, absolutely. That if someone emails like oh my goodness, it's so amazing. Like that's why I like to send the preview photo a day before pickup. One, to make sure I didn't misspell anything. But two, so I. They can be like, oh my goodness. They, their, their anxiety lowered. My anxiety lowered. We're going into tomorrow super happy too. But that is a perfect opportunity for me personally to say, oh my goodness. I so glad you like, if you don't mind, could you leave me a review on Google? Here is the link to my Google. If you could just mention how you found me.

[B]

You know, I want to tell people, like don't even just send them the Google search. If you go to your Google business profile as the admin of it, click on reviews and click on get more reviews. It'll create a link that directly links them to. To click the star. Yeah.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

I would say going as far even hitting that five star rating and writing nothing works.

[A]

It works. It's better than zero things.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

For sure.

[B]

For sure. Yeah. Because that's going to be that rating.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So asking for them directly, I found to be the number one driver of good reviews.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's hoping it happens. We're busy people, we forget to write. I had a great experience over the weekend at a restaurant and I never said anything. See, I gave my money.

[A]

Yeah. They never asked but I'm like, if.

[B]

They had said if the guy I had such a great experience, if he's like, hey, I hate to do this but I was like, it's so amazing that you guys aren't crowded. And he's like, yeah, we never really get crowded. And I'm like, yeah. A little bit in my mind is like, maybe I don't want anyone to know about this.

[A]

I want to keep it to myself. Yeah.

[B]

Tara writes marketing tip. My business is fairly new, so this just might be a me thing. Start actually thinking of yourself as a business owner. I'm a stay at home mom, so when people ask me what I do, that's what I reply with. I've been listening to the podcast and it's empowered Me, I'm way, way behind in the episodes. And at the dentist the other day, the hygienist asked what I did, and I said I. A custom sugar business. By the time I left the office, I'd handed out five business cards and I've already gotten.

[A]

You are so much better.

[B]

You believed it.

[A]

You have to believe it. Whether you're selling two dozen a week or you're selling 15 dozen a week, you are a business owner. The only person who's going to believe it, who needs to believe it the most, is you.

[B]

Imagine. And I always say, if you go get your car's oil change and the guy's like, well, I, I, I'm not real big into oil changes, but sometimes I do them. I'd be like, you can give me my. I want you to be like, I'm the best oil changer in the world.

[A]

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

[B]

And a ton of spam calls. You know, I haven't gotten a spam call in so long. And then yesterday I got one. They found you.

[A]

They found you. Well, you are being filmed right now, so help me with this, since you have the only thing to look at the next we know.

[B]

If I'm not thinking, you're gonna just for sure. But yeah, back to that kind of believing. The sauce also. And unfeather thy brow. When somebody calls back to back two times, that's always a potential for somebody who's got a problem. If they ain't.

[A]

If you ain't got their number in.

[B]

Your phone, dang, they ain't worth it. Unrequited love from 10 years ago just said, heather College right here. And there's no voicemail, but calling two times in a minute. Karen, my marketing nugget, she's like, this is for the cookie college entry for sure.

[A]

I like it.

[B]

You know, she named.

[A]

She named it.

[B]

She manifested. Here's one she said, just do it. A year ago, I was making sugar cookies for birthdays, family gatherings, friends. About 20 sets in total. Guess how many photos I took? Zero. The four I do have came from friends. I thought my cookies weren't good enough to post, so I did not post them. Fast forward to now. I'm finally ready for the farmer's market. But guess what? Most of the vendors want an active social media presence or a website. And mine just says coming soon. If I'd started just posting, connecting with vendors and asking friends to engage, I'd be in a way better spot. So take it from me, just post the thing. Future you will. Thank you.

[A]

I will say the way that I decorated five years ago isn't the same way I decorated now. But the people who were ordering five years ago were ordering at whatever level I was five years ago. I can always remove stuff from my social profiles, but I can't go back and add things to it. So thinking like this set isn't good enough or if you're comparing to someone, it's good enough that someone's willing to buy it so it's post worthy. So making sure you post up that content, even if you're second guessing it, it's still good enough. And it's posting it up allows people to see it. It's like your online catalog.

[B]

Yeah. I want to say when you look back, you're going to vomit in your mouth. Yeah. When you look back two years you're gonna be like, I can't believe I thought that was good. Corey does all the time. But. But at that point that was, that was great. And that's all that matters. That then it was good enough. I saw this quote. I think it's gonna step. It's not my quote. I think it's gonna step on some toes.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It says perfectionism is just a form of COVID laziness because you don't have to do it until it's perfect, then you never have to do it at all. It'll never be perfect.

[A]

Sometimes I look at my old photos and I'm like, what? But then I think about it when I made that set, that feeling of just pure proud of myself that I had in that moment, that was 100% of the effort that I had. And for me to look back and be like, isn't that good enough for social? It's fine. It was fine then, it's fine now.

[B]

You know, I like to tell people like if this relinquishes you from the shackles of perfection.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The average post stays in feeds. That's the thing. Like where in marketing, if I could get a post to stay in the feed longer than the seconds, I'd be a millionaire. Right. You're imperfect. Cookie is barely going to get any reach anyway. So kind of the double edged sword. Like we love more reach, but if you're second guessing it, who cares? I'm just going to see it anyway. Nobody.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In the event that one person sees it, there's a potential for sale. You may be like, but I'm not good enough. Therein lies the very issue that she said, you're never going to be perfect. You're never going to be the best. And once you arrive to that place, you, I thought you're going to be like, I think I can do better. Never. The ante always ups itself. This one I liked and I'm gonna read a quote. I.

[A]

You're adding a quote?

[B]

Yeah, I added it into her comments yesterday. She said, I just want to share that AI has helped me save time by creating verbiage for Instagram and Facebook posts. I tell it to create a post and what it's for and what it does. And it does a lot of the creative thinking for me. And then I adjust as necessary. I think that adding that last part is important. Adjusting as necessary to add back in your personality. Sometimes, like Corey and I were talking about, I can tell when somebody's used AI to write this and not that because AI doesn't know you. So it doesn't have your personality. It doesn't.

[A]

And I think as technology gets bigger and more pronounced in our lives, we. That personality is what people. That individualism is why people buy from you and you know, not a big conglomerate like Walmart or Target. It's your personality. It's the way that you put things. The way you spin things is your differentiator.

[B]

If we're all using AI, that's exactly what I saw. This podcast, this guy said, as we all use AI to write our sales emails, he said, I think it will be the return to in person sales because you cannot think. They said, once every email you receive is perfectly written, you'll stop reading them. Which I've noticed. It's pretty interesting. When we started the podcast four years ago, AI hadn't been released by OpenAI yet. So when somebody would write. We get solicited constantly for people to be guest on this podcast. It's a generic form. They're sending out to millions of podcasts podcast. And sometimes every once in a while I get somebody that'll be like, hey, listen to the podcast you wrote last week. You guys. You guys did last week. And I thought this was interesting. Now they're all coming in that way. It's because AI is writing them. Yeah, I can listen to the podcast, write a blurb about it and say, hey, Heather, I was listening to your podcast. Very interesting how you covered this and this and then.

[A]

Yeah, I know.

[B]

So I'm like, wow. Yeah, it's making me read none of these.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because they're all written the same way. And I can tell if they're all written that they taken time to listen to this podcast. You likely haven't AI is doing it.

[A]

I think AI is fantastic for a sounding jump off board.

[B]

I think it's starting point. Yeah.

[A]

A starting point where? Okay. I have no idea. So give me some direction and let me run with that direction.

[B]

Give me a framework. You can tell it like, here's a copy formula. I want you to write it, and you can say, I want emojis. But then I think you're going to take that as a first draft.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And you're going to implement this now. Some bakers are listening right now and saying, see, I'll be the death of everything. I disagree. I think AI will become the ultimate help desk tool.

[A]

It's like that little paper clip that we had.

[B]

He is. I can see you're trying to write a rest. His name is Clippy. And then I heard a quote that AI won't replace people's jobs, but the person who learns how to utilize AI will start replacing people's jobs who don't choose to use it. And I can see a lot of, like, adherent, like, abhorrence that's too strong. But, like, hesitation from AI in the baking community. Kind of like, you know that they're making those photos a lot with the cakes.

[A]

Oh, for sure. Where these cakes are. So there's like a unicorn being birthed out of the middle of the cake, and it's like, seamless.

[B]

And people are really frustrated because they. They're like, well, that's. AI can just adjust the expectations. Hey, client. This is AI. Here's what this would look like realistically. Here's what I can bake for you. I think we should see those cake photos, which have kind of fallen out of things a little bit, especially with the AI label. I can see that's kind of marketed. I think a lot of people are like, that cake's fantastic. Let me find a cake baker.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now you have that little bridged gap of expectation setting.

[A]

But what's so funny, I actually got some. I am.

[B]

Even though I've been doing Cake Fox.

[A]

For a year now.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I still. My confidence level is not there like it is. If you placed an order for cookies, I can be like, yeah, I can do that.

[B]

If you place an order for cake.

[A]

Box, I'm like, I'm really hoping the dough works with me that day, so probably I can do it.

[B]

So I.

[A]

Someone placed an order for cake pops, and she sent me an AI image of a jellyfish cake pop.

[B]

He showed it to me. It was fantastic.

[A]

It was.

[B]

AI really pulled out.

[A]

So I had to say, hey, customer. I. I so appreciate you taking a gamble on me. You know, even though I'm technically, like, focused on sugar cookies. I said, I would not be able to make you happy with what I would make. I didn't say, and you shouldn't send baker's AI. It's unrealistic. I said, the. The expectation that you have isn't something I can fulfill. The closest person that could get you to there. And I named. Recommended someone else to her. She ended up switching and was fine with the cookies. And I was like, well, I can do the cookie one.

[B]

But I had to say, like, I am.

[A]

I am not your baker.

[B]

Yeah. And, you know, so a lot of that AI stuff is. You can't recreate. Right. It's fantastic looking. And you can kind of see that AI is getting spooky good.

[A]

Spooky good.

[B]

Today I said, cory, look at this. And she's like, that's AI. I said, oh, no, I can't.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I know.

[B]

I lost it. Yeah. So great point. I think, you know, kind of leaning into AI, you can pay for it and kind of train your own guy, your own AI bot to kind of think like you. AI has a real hard time with humor. So if you are able to write humor, I'd incorporate that back into there.

[A]

The framework, then it gives you fantastic.

[B]

I think that's the great. The framework.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't think that the constant copy and pasting straight from AI is going to cut it in a competitive world.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Baking.

[A]

I don't think it's going to be able to connect with a customer at the end of the day. A computer and a person, two different things.

[B]

If you want to use it as a content bucket and maybe like, I'm too busy today. I don't think it should be the only thing that's writing, at least in its iteration currently.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Again, we got those superfluous. Superfluous adjectives that kind of make it hard. Delicious.

[A]

Delectable.

[B]

Decadent.

[A]

It loves the word decadent.

[B]

It loves an adjective.

[A]

Decadent.

[B]

So I think maybe delete some of those adjectives. You know, you can, you know, and they have these now. Prompt researchers. I try. I'm like, hey, listen, you're not wordy. You should cut straight to the point. I don't like the word decadent. Please write copy. And it's like decadently decadent. Carolyn West. I'm giving you her full name because she added an image that really helps with her tip.

[A]

Nice. Heather loves a good distraction on podcast. I love. I said Heather Loves a good distraction on podcast.

[B]

You need to change. You need to manifest more positive attitude right now. I've been successful a lot. I ha. I've been successful at a lot of great markets, so I'll share my advice here. Nice. When setting up your booth, make sure your product can be seen from far away.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I love to make cookies on a stick so they're not flat on the table. And I add the stick to the cookie as soon as it's done baking. Because everyone always asks, when you add this.

[A]

I want to say just to a caveat. In Michael's, they have oven. Oven. Okay.

[B]

Sticks.

[A]

You can bake them on into the cookies. But both work.

[B]

I wish everyone could see this image and I might try to add it to the YouTube channel. And if I don't, you might have to just check to see if I did. But she's got them all on a stick and you can see them and you know they're tall and they're cookies because else. And you got display options. But there's a pretty unique way to do it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Also, if you're like. If you're at a market. I don't really like things on my hands.

[A]

True.

[B]

I like a. I'm like a. I don't like food on my fingers.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So having the stick would let me eat it.

[A]

Oh, the stick is genius. One time I went to the pickle guy.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

They put a pickle on a stick because you have to think a pickle is ginormous. So holding it my hand would be gross. But he put a stick into the pickle. Yeah.

[B]

I don't want to.

[A]

So I ate it like a little hot dog on a stick.

[B]

And that's in a vendor market. Market strategy.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

That was great. And then the other one, the display options, you have those, like we said last week, Hobby lobby.

[A]

Hobby lobby. If you're doing cake on a stick, if you use the cake pop stick, you can use the cake pop holders. And there's so many vast different designs.

[B]

You can even 3D print those now you can.

[A]

And have your little name on there and everything.

[B]

Okay, let me just see. I don't. I'm not reading the marketing questions. I'm reading the marketing tips. Yeah.

[A]

If you wanted to know anything counted. So any post made in March count. So if you had a question or if you had a marketing. Marketing tip, people just ran with the marketing tips, which I thought was genius. Yeah, actually you were.

[B]

I posted a thread and a lot of people replied to it. Oh, you did? Heather Said last call for the post.

[A]

And people were like, post?

[B]

Never heard of her. I'm gonna post in the comments. The comments were like phenomenal. Genius.

[A]

They were genius.

[B]

I'm actually gonna read one from you and you're gonna expound in it. You said photography tips. Cellophane.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Talk about it. Okay.

[A]

When you're taking photos, packaging adds a lot of value. I know that sometimes when I take pictures of DIY kits and the cookies aren't in bags, I have customers emailing, will the cookies be individually bagged? So there is value to show how something is going to be packaged. Whether you're doing a Mother's Day set, you know, a teacher appreciation set, showing your packaging adds a lot of value. The problem, when you take photos of things that are plastic, there's a glare that comes back into your camera lens. So shifting and using the light as a backlight. So the lights behind your sword first.

[B]

I'm telling. If you listen to the. If you go watch this on YouTube, search sugar cookie marketing. If you watch this one, I'll put these pictures.

[A]

Oh, nice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because I posted two pictures. I posted a picture where we're facing the light sources. You have to think a light source is a reflection. So if I'm standing to one side of the light source and the light sources is a diagonal, like right across from me, my lens is going to capture it.

[B]

If you're going to capture the bounce, the reflection.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right. So if I. In this one, you can see that she's got the window right here. I can almost see the window panes. We've got these strawberry cookies and cellophane right here. And our camera's right here. And it's creating the perfect bounce of that reflection. I cannot see the strawberries, unfortunately.

[A]

And the details of the strawberries are lost in the glare of the cellophane.

[B]

Instead of using that, what she's saying, like creating that 90 degree point where the. There's a reflection. She has shifted the strawberries over and now the light's coming from behind that window pane, is coming from just behind the cookies. It adds a light from behind. But the cellophane is not acting like a mirror here.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

I don't think they could do like non reflective cellophane. Like, how would you do.

[A]

It's so like plasticky.

[B]

I know.

[A]

It's because it is like, technically food safe. Like, I don't know.

[B]

When you go to the grocery store.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you go to the Danish bakery section, the Danish baker, and you have that Little thing that you grab so you don't touch everything.

[A]

Oh that it's like. But you can't see through it, can you?

[B]

No, I think that's what you.

[A]

I know, I know.

[B]

Some of the comments on this. I have a mortgage broker. This is from Dana. I have a mortgage broker that does birthday bags each month for ladies and a mom's group and it contains business card goodies from local businesses as a way to say happy birthday. Check us out. I put in a cookie with my information and on on the back and this is our first month. I'm going to see how it does. Oh yeah, that's. Real estate agents in our area at least always give a gift when they sell a house.

[A]

Yeah. Housewaring it. My one issue with real estate agents is they give you no run time and it's because they have no runt. Could freeze them.

[B]

Huh? Freeze them?

[A]

Yeah, you could freeze them but like one lady said I need cookies tomorrow. The next day and the next I was like same. It was just hard for me to work with.

[B]

How would a real estate agent not know they're going to closing isn't it takes forever.

[A]

I think you think it's going to but when the pieces fall in place they're falling in place so fast cuz.

[B]

You know it's going to closing. But then there's subtle nuance.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A tip. If you listen to a local radio show take cookies to them. I've done this twice and I've gotten more followers and so many more customers too and they shared it on their social media. But yeah you know radio stats say think about a radio station. You have to produce content every day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's hard.

[A]

I want to say our police department in Prince William if you take it.

[B]

To central police department will post a picture.

[A]

You take it to the central district station. Whoever their social media person is is in that station.

[B]

That person. I'm assuming it's a woman because of how it's written.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Will take a picture of a police officer holding the food. If you stand there get a picture.

[A]

She'll get a picture of you tag.

[B]

Your business and then to write to. Okay. How many people do we think follow the is Prince William County?

[A]

There's tons of people who follow. I don't know.

[B]

It's gotta be okay. She'll post this to guess how many followers are local.

[A]

132,130 the county ginormous.

[B]

Yeah. So for bringing cookies to the police.

[A]

Department you know what page has engagement the prince one of the places.

[B]

Yeah, I'm a fail. My marketing tip, this is Internet. What a cool name. My marketing tip is to really focus on taking quality pictures. I know sometimes we're in a bit of a crunch, but good pictures make all the difference and a fancy camera or setup isn't necessarily needed. Here's one big focus. Natural light if you can otherwise well lit as best as you can get. Backgrounds doesn't always have to be perfectly set up. A plain background can be just as beautiful if you take the quality photo as you said. Close up in different angles. Give yourself some content. Love it.

[A]

Yeah, give you some content. Runway. I like to take pictures of, you know, if I do a funny set like a Dino set, I like to switch out and take a picture of just the T. Rex for whatever T. Rex day. Or if I just have a T. Rex fact instead of combining all the cookies in just one photo. If I can take one photo, great for the customer. Love that. But if I can individually take pictures of the different designs, it give me so much content to work with.

[B]

Corey gave me an external hard drive with some cookies she baked over the years. Right. I just had a photo dump but she takes in Every folder is 30 photos of the same set.

[A]

Narrowed it down just a little bit. Now I've gotten to where I know the.

[B]

That's one. But it gives me when. Okay. Like it's time change day. Right. I usually post a reminder but I'm like I posted that one last year but she's got 50 version of it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So I'll get it from this and I'll get it from a zoom in, a zoom out.

[A]

It just gives you so much content to work with. I never wake up thinking I have nothing to post today. I have so many different iterations of every set that I've done. Close ups, far away details, overhead.

[B]

But I've gotten better than that. Yeah. Yes, marginally. But sometimes we can't tell the end user. We can't tell.

[A]

I posted a set that I was so proud of. I. I did the set six years ago. It was one of my first sets with those little. It was like squares and I put little flowers on each one. It's the most elementary set I've ever done.

[B]

I saw you post that and I said, wow, I know when that was wrong because we used that. I know.

[A]

I love those.

[B]

I swear when we were teaching our first cookie class and he didn't have the cookie class content to post it. Yeah, I think I used that. I think you did. I think we Used it all over. Does it look like a stamp?

[A]

It is a stamp. One of the first cutters I ever had.

[B]

Jolie said my marketing tip is to join the sugar cookie marketing group for amazing marketing tips.

[A]

She posted that in the group.

[B]

Genius.

[A]

Love that.

[B]

Yeah. And I gotta say, like, this stuff is slick.

[A]

I was telling Heather that bakers will come into a group and share the knowledge that they have learned so freely with people who you would look and you would think, those are my competitors. But to look at them and be like, no, those aren't my competitors. That's my fellow industry friends and colleagues. And when they succeed, the whole industry succeeds. It's just as mind blowing to me. Like, just a giver's gain mentality. Like when the whole industry wins, when every baker starts charging more, when every.

[B]

Baker starts charging more. You better hope your competition finds this group. Yeah. Because if you're that one who's like, well, they're charging so little. How can I compete? Percent of here?

[A]

One, you can't compete. But two, they're gonna burn out and they're gonna quit and they're gonna have.

[B]

If they find a group.

[A]

Absolutely. You could be like, I want to bring you in, friend.

[B]

I want you to bring in your business.

[A]

You might learn some marketing tips, but you're gonna raise those prices.

[B]

Just kidding. I probably wouldn't reach out to my competition and be like, you're too low. Yeah, they'll find us on their own. Don't worry. Eventually you just, just have to go and say, wow, this is, this is costing me a fortune. I think everyone starts out like, I shouldn't charge a lot. I'm just getting started. And they're like, this is a fortune.

[A]

I think it's the same mindset where I'm, I'm not a baker. I'm, I'm a stay at home mom. So I'm not going to go into the dentist office. And when they ask what I do, I'm just going to be like, oh, stay at home, mom.

[B]

It's.

[A]

You have to believe in yourself. You are going to be your number one fan. No one's going to like your business more than you are. You are your number one lead source and marketer.

[B]

Yeah. You're the salesperson.

[A]

Yeah. So if you don't believe your worth it, your price is going to reflect that. At the end of the day, you cannot work for free. You are not a charity.

[B]

You also can't work without a profit. Like, we need to pay ourselves. Great. We need to cover our costs. Great. But you got to can't work without that margin. That margin leaves you the elbow room to account for mistakes. Reinvest in the business, reinvest in marketing.

[A]

The problem is when you charge less than you're worth. The ingredients aren't going to take less money. Giant the grocery store is going to take for the 4599 for the Domino's powdered sugar. You're stealing from is yourself.

[B]

You're doing. You're running a great charity but you're not a 50132.

[A]

I know but you can't work for free. And I mean we'll say till your snake is so long and being very weird right now. Putting his face on the wall.

[B]

Yeah, I gave him a giant rat than I usually do.

[A]

Oh he's probably like that is stuckle in my throat. He's so long.

[B]

Was something wrong with him?

[A]

No, he's just being weird. He always does it mid podcast comes.

[B]

Out being weird when they eat then they got to go on a little circle.

[A]

I want to say when he hears our voices it must be nail on chalkboard. He will come out from hiding during the podcast and like throw himself at the top of the cage just to launch himself off to the floor.

[B]

He. He's a great snake escape. Like that guy has gotten out before. Big dude is like but now he's so long.

[A]

I remember when he was so little like a noodle. Now he's an extra extra.

[B]

I don't know. Snakes are recording today. But I want to keep my snakes. And I was like I don't want them to die prematurely. I want they call it keeping of snakes is called husbandry. Oh, you've been a great husband. I probably wouldn't get him again. That one lasts for 45 years.

[A]

Heather thought she was almost done with this little guy but unfortunately we did.

[B]

Look, she's only halfway through healthy snakes in captivity. This breed live longer than rogue snakes fighting for their lives.

[A]

And this guy is living his best.

[B]

This dude who hates me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I want to be like you want to go outside? You want to see what the snakes are dealing with outside there. There is a game called snakes because they die so often. Yeah, because it gets too long. Cuz it gets course. I'm sorry. You live in a temperature controlled apartment. High rise apartment.

[A]

Let me out. Let me out.

[B]

This is Renee. She said I mostly do cakes these days. People are always sending me pictures wanting these elaborate multi tiered fondant cakes. They cost a lot. I quote them on what they send but they always offer. But I always offer an alternate option that's less expensive. And at the bottom of my template, I've added. And did you do sugar cookies section with some prices that can explain that. What can be done with the cake or the party and things? 8 times out of 10, they pick the cheaper cake and add cookies. Spend is almost the same, but they perceive it as a higher value because they got more for the double. You got. You got.

[A]

Instead of one cake, you're getting a double. Wow.

[B]

She. She. Because, like, she can say, like, I know they may ghost me at the price of just the cake, but I want the money. Right. So let's pretend we're just charging. Let's pretend $300. So she's saying if I do a 50% of the cakes. Yeah, I do 150 cake and $150 cookies, they feel like they got more because they did.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In a way, instead of one cake, they got one cake and cookies. Yeah.

[A]

Genius.

[B]

And so she can work that. Spend is almost the same, but they perceive the higher value because I got more for the money. I may have lost a sale if I'd only quoted what they'd requested. I've been doing it this way for about a year. My sales have increased massively by like a third. I hope this helps someone else. That is.

[A]

That's nice. Genius.

[B]

This.

[A]

If only I knew how to make a cake.

[B]

You could only.

[A]

I think I could make a. A stellar smash cake. Like a kid coming at it with two.

[B]

Marketing is so wild because people are like, I'm not eating it, so I shouldn't have to pay. I know that one's always. Here's the thing.

[A]

We have a local grocery store called Harris Teeter.

[B]

They do them, don't they, for inexpensive.

[A]

It's like $15. And it's just enough that you put your own topper on it.

[B]

If I. Not a beggar. If I had a salesman. If someone comment occasionally, I said, hey, I actually add smash cakes free with the purchase of a birthday cake, which is great because if you have people coming over, serve them up that cake and then this. Because, okay, we're gonna price that one cake enough to cover the smash.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But they feel like the smash cake, which they're not eating, has no cost. So it makes sense.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

Then you have sell them on the other cake because you're like, wouldn't you. If you're having people celebrate, you know, make it a.

[A]

The thing with smash cakes, like, a lot of photographers get them because that's.

[B]

What you want the photo? Isn't the whole point just for photos? No.

[A]

Because you can do a lot of times it's a first birthday experience, then.

[B]

That'S going to be an easy sell for the real cake. And then add the smash cake in as the free.

[A]

I would honestly say if you could get in with the event planner. There's an event planner, the event she plans and my cookies have been at one of her events so I can put my star on that. I have to send you her name. But she phenomenal. The the what people what she must charge I can't imagine. But these people are paying for the most elaborate done out first birthdays I've ever seen in my life.

[B]

Because I want to say the first birthday is not about the child, it's about everything. The child has no friends yet. It's about the parents. And once you're like I'm not baking for a one year old, I'm baking for two 35 year olds. Yeah. So one tip before someone jumps in. Put together a basic business plan. You can't get a business just because three people said your cookie's good. You gotta rely on facts and figures. Find your local score. Retired small business people. Oh, find your local. It's a like a chamber of commerce or small business development association and they're a great resource and typically those are free.

[A]

I want to say that we do have one of those and they will meet with you. There's someone on the team ready to meet with you to be make you successful. And their end goal is for you to join the chamber of common. But at the end of the day they're there to help. Yeah, that's a strategy too.

[B]

I do like that one. I think sometimes when we start, typically with bakers, specifically with cottage bakers, you get started just like she said, three people order from there like this could be a business. And then we kind of flounder. Like we're like okay, what do you started now?

[A]

What?

[B]

Yeah, I think a business plan helps you kind of put those goals in a perspective that you can word to somebody. It kind of helps with that foundation laid the right way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And if you, if you're like, oh, I'm a year into this and I haven't done it. Business plan, there's tons of templates. They kind of ask you to ask that question, where do I see myself? Where do I see this business in one year and in five years and.

[A]

Naming that will give you the direction to get to there.

[B]

Corey and I have been working on manifesting manifest.

[A]

We just figured out what it technically means yesterday. Heather thought it was wishful thinking.

[B]

It's a power positive. It's kind of hard. I was like, I don't know. I manifest a great.

[A]

Heather said, I manifest Outback steakhouse.

[B]

Manifestation. I think you're using that word incorrectly. Yeah. Someone said, take time to learn the business and marketing side. They started just posting pictures and class details, and then now I'm learning the other side as I go. It's totally backwards. And that's kind of why we started the cookie college. Because a little bit you're like, I want to do this. I'm going to post it. What do I do? It's kind of that the problem is you.

[A]

You become a baker because you like baking. You didn't want to become the social media manager, the copy specialist, the.

[B]

I know.

[A]

So that's what the cookie college is there to kind of help hold your hand and guide you and to be like, oh, I get it. I get the copy. I get what goes. It makes the scroll stop. And converts people. I think I use the word converts a lot. And it is jargon that's in the marketing industry. Converts. And it turns people into. To buyers.

[B]

Right. So let's say I'm think I have a party. We all, hey, everybody out there has a birthday. They do. Everybody has a birthday. So you're like this person. They're likely planning a party. How can you get that person from a birthday party in the planning stage to I bought cookies from every birthday party. And that's conversions. We're converting a potential buyer to a paid buyer. Oh, yeah, I like this one. I think he can be applied to. And I'll finish when I finish that thought. When I read her thing. Denny says, in my area, we have a local TV station who hosts a show Monday through Friday. And it's an hour of what's Happening happening in Michigan. I never heard of it. They invite small businesses to come and be interviewed about their businesses. I've recently thrown my hat in the ring to talk about my classes. And I did get a call back. See if you have something like this in your area that I see. That is some baker's total strategies. Remember, these morning shows, especially the hyper local ones, have to fill that hour.

[A]

They do.

[B]

And you'll see, people will be like, hey, just want to reach out and let you know, I do this, I can do this. Whatever you need, I'll show up. You got to get in front of a camera and you've got to talk on tv. But wow, talk about that. And then you have all that because you see the baker will turn around, be like I said, I'll let you know. I was featured on the news. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's great. Now if you're like, okay, well maybe I'm not going to pitch it in a TV show. Real estate agents right now are doing a lot of local features because they got to produce content that's, you know, the real estate industry kind of gets it. Talking about houses endlessly, it gets a little one dimensional. So what can they do? They can sell you on the area where they sell houses.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

And they're all going around creating content. A lot of them are interviewing. Interviewing small business owners or going to restaurants.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I would say, hey, real estate agent, I know that you're producing content. You can find it because they'll post it on their own social media for sure that they're featuring. Hey, I just want to throw my hat in the ring here. I'd love to bake you a dozen and be featured on your channel.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or your reels, your Instagram. And again, we're just doing these little outcroppings of our marketing to get new.

[A]

Audiences, to get the shared audience. If their audience, if they are a real estate agent, they. That is focused on Lake Ridge. That is someone I want to partner with because I too am focused on Lake Ridge. I don't want to to partner with someone who's focused on the next county over because odds are no one's going to take that drive over. To me, if I'm planning on maybe moving over to the next county over or the next county over has my ideal audience there. That would be a good partnership. So thinking it through this person.

[B]

I'm so sorry. Maybe you could go a little bit, you know, like when somebody is in and clicks to the wrong posts and comments. I think this has gotta be it. This group is amazing. So I was like, oh, let me read this one. I have a burning question. When do tickets go on sale for trips to the newt farm? I don't know, but I want to go the new. Is that a salamander? That's a great question. That's a good one. Tip. If you can invest in a dehydrator, I highly recommend it. I have three at my bakery and we're able to do more jobs each week. Oh, and we have an Eddie. And that helps too. In my opinion, with not smearing one package, the best investment I've made a dehydrator one.

[A]

It's fantastic for storage. So sometimes when you're leaving your cookies out because they need a full day of dry time just to keep them safe, Especially if you have young ones in your house or you don't have a dedicated cookie room dehydrator for just storage alone.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

Now, the dehydrator, what it does for your cookies is it draws out moisture. So it's low, constant heat in a constant fan. So it's constantly drawing out the moisture. So that's why you get beef jerky from a dehydrator. Or if you put tomatoes in there, you get dehydrated tomato sauce. It just takes the moisture out of it. There's things called dehydrator sheets. I know that's the number one thing. People are like, it's gonna dry out my cookies. Dehydrator sheets sit on the bottom of each tray. And what it does is protects the bottom of the cookies so your moisture stays there and it focuses the air on the top of the cookie. So you're withdrawing the moisture out of the icing so it crusts faster, it dries faster. But you protected the bottom of the cookies and the top top is protected by the icing.

[B]

How long can you leave them in there?

[A]

I've left them. It depends on how humid client or climate that you live in. So if you live in Arizona, you're going to leave it in a lot less. But where we are, very humid. I've left them in for eight hours if the order's due tomorrow.

[B]

What if you left it in for like a week?

[A]

They would be crusty, dusty and dried.

[B]

Crusty, dusty and dried. Okay, that, that is some great content. I'll announce the winners in the group. Yeah, yeah. But that content is the type of content you'll find in the sugar cookie marketing group. And some of those tips, like, so great.

[A]

They're fantastic.

[B]

They're just looking at, hey. They're looking at the question, I need to sell this. And they're coming in it from a different perspective of strategy. That's not so typical.

[A]

And the great thing about it is we're all at different levels in our bakery. So you might not be like, well, I can't afford three dehydrators and I started yesterday. But there's a tip in the sugar cookie marketing group that someone who just started out who's like, you know what? I felt like I was a stay at home mom, but when I went to the dentist office, I said, I'm a baker. And you know what? I got to hand My business card out. So there's different tips for people who are in myriad of spaces, whether you're coming back from, like, a maternity leave, you took a break for a few years, you're entering retirement, and this is going to be your fun money.

[B]

Yeah, it's definitely going to look different depending on where you at, where you're at, and where you want to go.

[A]

I don't want anyone to think sugar cookie marketing is made for someone who's been in business for a long time.

[B]

I actually think we're like, best. Best fit for someone who's been in a couple months and who's like, I need to make. I need to make this a thing.

[A]

We love helping you lay a good foundation. We can always retweak a foundation that's been laid poorly.

[B]

Well, here's the wild part, right? It doesn't matter how long. Some of these bakers have been doing this for 10, 15 years. But the marketing, it's ever changing.

[A]

It's ever changing. The platforms are changing.

[B]

Yeah. Corey's mad at me for not posting a thread. So I. I open thread. I. I literally added a reminder at 11 to post to threads every day, Right. But when I open it, I'm like, this is a whole. When I typed in the. I typed in a hashtag, right? What were you stuck to? But it didn't. It created a thread. It created a thread around hashtag, and anyone who uses that hashtag is now talking in this thread. We're unconnected otherwise, but we use the same hashtag, which I'd use, Cottagebaker. And it said, okay, she has written to the thread Cottage Baker. When I clicked on the thread, all the people who had chosen bakers to write to Cottage baker thread, we were all able to, like, connect in that way. And I'm like, wow, this is a take that, you know, Instagram doesn't. You know, Instagram got rid of hashtags, took it, and kind of ran with it in a very unique way. Way. So threads started a year and a half ago.

[A]

Heatherson. Instagram got rid of hashtags. They did not. It's just the way that they're. Yes, there you go.

[B]

Recents. This one has a recent filter. Oh, nice. Yeah. So I can see the people who recently wrote to the cotton. There was one that, you know, when I opened it, it was like, well, you seem to like bakers. So here's every baking thing ever. And people are writing to a thread called baker's thread. Yeah. And I was like, this is pretty neat. Yeah.

[A]

Neat. So yeah, it's ever changed, changing. So the sugar cookie marketing group, if you're listening and you're like, I just don't know it's for you whether you just started out, you know, you know, you know now we welcome you just answer the questions on your way in. But we'll get you in.

[B]

Corey and I every Monday are saying if you answered every question and you didn't create your Facebook page two days ago from Nigeria, you're in, you're in, you're in. And then you can see this wall of great content this month. And I want to thank anybody who's written or asked a question. This has been a great, phenomenal, fun content. And I only scrolled back for the last couple of days. Yeah, there's been a month of this. I know. Just really great information to really kind of say, okay, and you're not going to do all this. That would be amazing if you did.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But you're going to say, I'm going to try this one this month or I'm going to try this one next month. I'm going to try and do two things. Yeah, maybe. AI people keep talking about I'm going to go check it out and then there's a lot of opportunity there. So some of the questions I'm seeing are people like my still my sales are stagnant. Dating. Try some of these things. Yeah, try some of those things. I really liked. You should try the Princeton County Police Department.

[A]

I know I should.

[B]

I, I have the whole i132,000. How much would he have to pay an influence to get you to make a post? Okay, I'm gonna do it.

[A]

I'm gonna do it.

[B]

Granted that thing is like people who are following death and destruction of police.

[A]

Which is for sure.

[B]

Like I want to see. Give me, let me see that car.

[A]

For sure picture of it.

[B]

I want to know when the road disclose. I'm not necessarily the target audience, but in 132,000, if you're looking to create.

[A]

Awareness, they're going to be aware.

[B]

Cory got aware with the police officer behind her yesterday.

[A]

Given you know, I pay their dollar when you married. Yeah.

[B]

We are moving on to our text in questions. The stupid, stupid text questions. If you want to text in it's 571-55-656, 644. Or if you're on players like Spotify, maybe even Apple, you can click that text in and it will come to the same place. Nice. If you want to win a stupid card trade, we do this drawing, each week, every week it resets. So if you texted in last week, didn't win, just do it again. This week I've had almost everyone claim their tray.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

Yeah. Way to go. You say, okay, girls, I'd like to win. I'm not winning or I'm too busy or I just want to buy it. The code sugar at checkout gets 15% off. And they say it's tax stackable.

[A]

Stackable.

[B]

And they run sales a lot.

[A]

They do.

[B]

So you can. They're running a sale and you can stack that on top of that, meaning you get an even steeper discount. Okay, am I choosing them? 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.

[A]

I'm gonna go with 4.

[B]

1, 2, 3, 4.

[A]

See, they chose 37 last week.

[B]

Area code 518. Where do you think that is? 518?

[A]

I'm gonna say that's Tennessee.

[B]

New York.

[A]

Oh, I was east coast.

[B]

Schenectady.

[A]

Schenectady.

[B]

Albany. And I think it's upstate.

[A]

It's right by Long Island.

[B]

Is it? I have no idea. I don't think so.

[A]

I just really want to say Long Island.

[B]

I lost my emails. Lost my emails.

[A]

Long island.

[B]

Okay, so 518. If you email heather sugarcookiemarketing.com in the next seven days, you can claim Deb. She said she already won. I'm sorry, you gotta pick. Deb's already won. So I'm gonna go scroll to somebody else. But I'll read. I'll come back. Deb's like, I'm gon. She even says, thank you so much. I love. I love my stupid question.

[A]

Okay, number two. Number two.

[B]

Two. Number two. Okay. 765 area code.

[A]

7, 6, 5. That feels Arizona ish to me.

[B]

Does it?

[A]

7, 6, 5.

[B]

Didn't you hit it right the last time?

[A]

I did.

[B]

Indianapolis.

[A]

Indianapolis.

[B]

I'm sorry, Deb. One last time. So this is the new winner this week. 7, 6, 5, 7, 6, 5. Your strategy of being consistent assistant is obviously you're very.

[A]

It works, right?

[B]

So my question is a follow up about old. An old WordPress blog that you read a couple weeks ago. And I didn't win the stupid card. Dr.

[A]

I do remember her post.

[B]

My WordPress blog is not cookie related. It's just about my life. My question is, since I already paid a hundred dollars a year for that site, can you use the same platform for my new cookie website? The. Can you? Yes. Should you? I'm gonna say no. And the reason why is because of search engine optimization. Because you will Be driving traffic to that website. WordPress blogs are different than WordPress websites.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. WordPress blogs can still rank well. And you say, well, that's the point. Right. I want to show up in Google searches. That's what I'm saying when I say rank well. But you have likely a cookie website that probably has a blog component to it.

[A]

The problem with the blog, you're typing a lot of words there. It's not necessarily set up for conversions. You're set up for someone reading your stories.

[B]

Let me differentiate that.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

There's website with blogs attached to them and then there's just blog websites. And they're oddly two different things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The beginning of the Internet, it was harder to make a website. It was easy to make a blog.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you just update. And then every time you go to that blog, you could see their diary.

[A]

It was a diary.

[B]

She was like, this is about my life. I've been doing it for years. So now she's like, can I just get rid of the life stuff and then make a cookie? And I have that same blog type concept. But I'm gonna say she likely has a website that isn't a blog. That's a cookie bakery order for me here. Website.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And a lot of them, like Shopify, Corey is what we have her set up on will have a blog component to that. When you write your content under the umbrella of your bakery website, that entire website benefits.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So yes, you could write your blog content here and have this website linked to it. But it. Google's gonna see those as two different websites and it's gonna say this bakery website isn't producing a lot of content, but it links back to this. This blog website.

[A]

So wouldn't you see it as conflicting points of interest there instead of that blog lifting up your website and your website and blog ranking together?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You'd be creating almost like dual content.

[B]

You'd be too. You'd be competing with yourself. But she's like, but I wouldn't be. Because they're both pointing to the same direction. And in that. That methodology, you're correct. But wouldn't you rather one lift up the other than one compete with the.

[A]

Other with user design? The UX design of things. You have to think you're. Your website is centered around getting someone on the website to the inquiry and making an order.

[B]

Google's watching what happens on that website. And if someone immediately is like, oh, I want to read this blog post and clicks away to a separate website, your bounce rate for your bakery Website just increased, which is a negative signal.

[A]

Yeah. And you have to think a blog. I like to think of recipe blogs. Often I'm not there to make an order. I'm there to make something myself.

[B]

You know, so for that hundred dollars you just paid. Bummer. But what I'm going to tell you this is write some content and instead of making it the focus, write it about your bakery and have it link back to it. How about.

[A]

Could I, could I just pose this noodle wall? I don't care if she made it about town blog, but incorporated her business within some of the blog posts, she.

[B]

Still has two more jobs. Here's my thought. Are you going to cancel this at the end of the year? If so.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Putting any effort in that and then deleting at the end of the year. It's almost worth it to just let the hundred dollars go because you don't want to put that effort into it because you're going to want to renew it. But now you're managing too completely.

[A]

I know, I know it is rough.

[B]

It is a hard one for me. I would say a hundred dollar lesson learned and then. And then just start.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'd start blogging on my own website. The domain name that I own. So they are not competing with myself. Great question. So 7, 6, 5. Thanks for listening to the podcast. You won the stupid car train. I'm going to just read Dev's question though. Deb, thank you so much for being so consistent and adding content. Love Deb. If. If marketing ain't just consistency.

[A]

If it ain't, I don't know what it is.

[B]

If you're consistent, you're gonna win some. She said it's Deb again. By the way, stupid car tray at one is fabulous. Thank you. I'm re listening to episode 27 about supply and demand. I was burning out because my prices were $3 a cupcake. So I raised it to 4 and wow. No more burnout. I have time for offering classes, which is super fun and I find that a few more custom orders. Oh, and I. But I find I want a few more custom orders than I'm receiving. What does do more marketing look like? I say, honestly, Deb, if you want custom, I think you're referring to probably custom cookies, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think on all custom cupcakes. I don't know you.

[A]

It depends. Yeah, you can do custom.

[B]

A lot of it's just going to be implementing what you heard here. If you're on episode 27 and you raise your prices and it bought you more time. Congratulations. Now we're going to move into that marketing stuff we just talked about, which is a lot of the tips we covered today. You can do more of this unique marketing or you can do more. More promotion of customs.

[A]

You can also, if you like the way that things are going, you can incentivize a. If you're like, I feel burnout at $3. But I was still making a profit. But now you're at $4. You can incentivize custom sales and maybe make a two dozen minute minimum. Um, so you secured your profits there because there's. You're baking the same thing just twice. So it saves you on time in the kitchen and incentivize 10% off. You know, that's why I see a lot.

[B]

That's what that one tip was like when somebody orders cupcakes.

[A]

Getting enough? It's all you, baby.

[B]

Oh, really? Yeah. Why?

[A]

I can't see anymore. It went dark.

[B]

I charged this time.

[A]

What is this camera? It's all right.

[B]

It's all right. Anyways, we'll keep going. Okay. And my last one. So again, I'm gonna say to Deb, just keep listening to these, find a couple tips and be so consistent with those tips over a longer period of time than you think you should.

[A]

I want to say Deb's so consistent, she's listening that she won on these late podcasts. And going back, back. You're getting Deb, you. You're in the right head, space, girl.

[B]

She said, listen, I'm gonna make me some time. And I love that she implemented something and her burnout decreased.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Marketing question. I want to consider using a virtual assistant to keep up with my inbox. But without decorating experience.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I would think it would be really difficult to respond. Oh, yeah. But if they don't have decorating experience, I think it'd be really difficult to respond to customer inquiries and quote prices as well as just determine whether my calendar is flow or not based on the time it takes to complete an order. What are some tasks I could easily pass on to the assistant that would be worth the money to take off my plate? First of all, you can treat the assistant like a front desk person where they can still get order details for you and pass it along. So kind of consider this. When you call, let's say you call a landscaper, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If I call on the phone, I'm likely getting a front desk person. They're not giving me an immediate quote because there's no way, remember? Because they'll need to come out to your lawn to give you a quote. So what that virtual assistant can do, like, hey, thank you so much for contacting. Here's a couple of things I'll need from you to send to the baker to get that quote for you. And they can do that data collection right there.

[A]

Yeah, I love that.

[B]

What they can do is transpose that to you in either Excel spreadsheet or they can have them fill out a. They can fill out the form for you and they can be that first because you'll be the fastest responding baker because you don't have to do it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They can also do the social media management. They can do newsletters. Yeah. You're like, how are they going to write about something? Here's what I'm going to tell you to do. You write the blog post and have them transpose it into that newsletter. Right?

[A]

Transpose it to the newsletter. Transpose it into your social media post.

[B]

Yeah. So they can do your social media. Your cross posting they can do. If you set them up with community groups like, hey, here's these sales threads in community groups and here's how they allow you to post. Please post this. You can have them again. AI kind of helps it. It kind of helps. Like we said, it's a framework. Somebody doesn't know exactly what to write. They can have AI kind of answer the questions about. Yeah, I wouldn't have the virtual assistant use AI to answer the questions coming through your inbox. But if you had them write the sales post or some of the copy, AI can kind of get more of a foundational again. You want to be like a cupcake for me takes 30 minutes to bake. You're going to say like, hey guys, here's a promotion I'm running.

[A]

I think I have to. And whatever I do, people are placing orders so many months in advance and I always say I'm going to get back to you about a week out from pickup. That's a great thing to put on to somebody else.

[B]

CRM follow ups for last year's.

[A]

Yeah, fantastic.

[B]

If you have a CRM that says, hey Shelly ordered these cupcakes last year, these cookies. Last year it was a one year old's birthday. A va can say, hey Shelly, just reaching out to you again. Yeah, I know your kid's turning to. Yeah, right.

[A]

And putting that information into your CRM, keeping that CRM up to date. It noting if someone says we're moving away, you know, putting it in there, they're that's fantastic.

[B]

And VAs are great for financial tasks like QuickBooks, attributing, invoicing, receipts, invoicing and stuff like that. So you can say, hey, here's the invoices I need you to send out. I need you to follow up with these ones. I haven't heard back. I want you to reach out to these clients from last year. And then I want you to post to my social media and write this newsletter. That would be a great use. Again, you're in the kitchen. You are the baker. You are going to be involved. But you can have that virtual assistant because remember, these are people on the other side of VAs. They're very helpful. Say, just send me a list of the questions you have and I'll write you a response tonight. Tonight to send back to these clients for sure. So again, it's all real organized. You're in a single email. They're just doing it on their own. Like, I have a virtual assistant. He's from India. Yeah. Love him to death. I think we worked with him for years.

[A]

Yeah, I think so.

[B]

All the Facebook lives are getting deleted by June, but because I'm not the owner of them, I can't directly download them. So I hired my virtual assistant to screen record his computer. I know it took him hours.

[A]

That would have taken you a million hours.

[B]

And I would have had a bad, bad attitude. And I. He was like, you know, he was like, I love doing this stuff. Please, any thought bubble you have just asked me if I want to do. So he completed it and I was like, hey, buddy, do you want to upload these to YouTube? Because I don't want to do it either. And he just follows everything I lay. And sometimes I'll send him a little video of what I want him to do, but it's just done so efficiently.

[A]

I know, I know.

[B]

And he's willing.

[A]

He wants to. And he doesn't want to be a front facing, dealing with customers person. So Vas love that little middle spot.

[B]

That they can be in. He's a. He's a virtual assistant, but he does nothing with baking. However, he controls the membership access to the baking group.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I tell them, hey, here's what I want. I want them to answer all the questions and if they don't, you can just reject it. And he just does it. And he does it every week.

[A]

I can see him building up and.

[B]

Then I see him dissipate. Yeah. So Vas can really do a lot of that mundane stuff or the organization stuff that you hate.

[A]

Yeah. There's a little trust that has to go in there a little bit between you and your va. You're getting your.

[B]

Your in the va. I make him the va. The same VA is the one who removes everyone from the Vendee Plenty group. So I make him a moderator.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

So yeah, I really do like the thought of virtual assistants and there's many ways to find them. I found him on Reddit. Work together for a while.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

Okay, one last one. I'll read this week. Oh, it was Laura who won last week but she's, she already got in contact with me. She said woohoo, I won. I'm Laura, I'm 847. Do I just text in your address? But then she listens the rest behind podcast and reach out.

[A]

Oh nice.

[B]

So the winner this week, don't forget to email [e-mail] and claim yes. Stupid cocktail climate gal.

[A]

Climb it.

[B]

Corey. You are working on. Actually I'm working on a class for the cookie college. Cookie college pitch incoming. Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I keep calling it an Amazon storefront. There's an Amazon storefront and an Amazon Associates storefront. Amazon has added so many components to itself. So we were talking about more passive income generating things and creating an Amazon, an affiliate. Amazon affiliates are called Associates storefront where you can make small commissions off of certain products, which you would. When you go to teach a cookie class and you say I'm going to send you an email with all the products we used. It's my Amazon Associates link. So I get a little kickback. Because remember, we got to be honest, if you make money from a link, you've got to tell people. Right. And then you can generate some sales in addition. And, and hey, here's the thing. I used to be big into Amazon affiliate. You were? Yeah. And it's called like link attribution. Right. So when somebody clicks through your affiliate link, the purchases they make from Amazon for a certain duration of time are attributed to you.

[A]

Yeah. Not just, not just for one product for a certain duration of time. So if they went and bought a tiny scribe plus all their textbooks for.

[B]

School, that was my biggest payoff. One time I bought this very obscure car.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it was a first year production of this vehicle and the manufacturer had put glass headlight lenses. Remember if you go to your car and you tap on, it's plastic.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Very resistant to rocks.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This was glass. Glass. So any rock that hit this headlight would shatter it. So I had, you know, come outside, there's a shattered lens. So I had done all the research because I needed to replace it. And then I said I found the lens on Amazon. So I wrote in this forum for this car that had just been produced and it was a slingshot, if you guys know what those are, those three wheeled kooky things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I said, hey guys, here's how everything you need to know to replace this lens, headlight lens, and here's the Amazon link to it. If you want to give me a little kickback to pay for mine. I still make money from that. I don't think they even have the same lens. It's just the first version. But yeah, it's just. So one time somebody had clicked through it and then they didn't buy the lens but they had bought a bunch of stuff and I made small commissions from that. I think I made a thousand dollars that month. So that's what I'm working on for the cookie college again because 20, 25 passive income. Work while you work, make money while you work and have that kind of the effort that we do pay in a little bit additional. Right. So we're already making a lot of content. Right. So we're like, hey guys, you know, especially when you're teaching cookie classes because those people are trying to buy the same st. You can say hey guys, here's the scribes I use and here's that link so you can generate some income. Granted you're not going to retire off of this.

[A]

No. But it's passive and it can, you know, pay for your website subscription for the year.

[B]

Yeah. So I'm going to set that up again, a big one when you go to take the class all if you sign up for the cookie college, you'll hear it. It does require some manual reviews from people and you have to get approved. So it's not. I'm just getting started and I'm going to be an affiliate. It's I think a lot of them minimums where 500 followers, social media followers. It can't be in private groups and stuff like that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So that's what I'm working on, a passive income Amazon affiliates are fun. Yeah.

[A]

The cookie college gets everything. So the next cookie class kits will be a Cinco de Mayo class.

[B]

And it's stupid cute.

[A]

It's so stinking cute. So I've gotten everything Heather, she has, she'll upload it on April 7th is when you'll be able to get it. If you're in the college, you'll be able to get all the 2023, 2024, and 2025 classes. If you're like, you know what? I'm just in here for the kids. I just want to teach the kids. That's where I am in my business. When you sign up for the cookie class kids membership, you get all of the 2025 classes that have been uploaded to this point.

[B]

What do we have so far?

[A]

I want to say there's four. There's a New Year's theme.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Love that there is. Whatever we did in February. I can't remember. What do you guess? Where are you guessing? Go in.

[B]

Okay. February.

[A]

What was February? What were you in?

[B]

We've done so many questions.

[A]

So hard for me to remember.

[B]

You can't remember.

[A]

I can't.

[B]

3D 2. 1. Counting down. Galentine's Day.

[A]

A Galentine's day.

[B]

A diamond. A cupcake. Stanley Tumbler. I literally looked at it last night. March.

[A]

March.

[B]

We did.

[A]

What do we do?

[B]

Dogs. This is the cutest dog. Yeah. We did cats. We did DWGs. That was the most recent one. Cory makes these every month in her life. What was it?

[A]

Mother's Day. Mother's Day.

[B]

So if you guys are like, why? I'm saying March this. The classes drop a month before you need to even market them. So you can get six weeks to get the cutter source because we have a partnership with Sweet Big Olive and then to promote it. Right.

[A]

So that's why Cinco de Mayo is drafted the first week of April. Because it'll give you all of April.

[B]

Market and then you can teach it anyway. You can't drop it on May 1st when it's May 5th. Get to marketing, man. So yeah, if you signed up today for the cookie classes, you'd get those one, two. You get those four classes already, and then the other class is going to drop in seven days. Six days. So you'd get that one as well. Yeah.

[A]

So you can kind of think the cookie class kits pricing gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Back to the end. And we were like, why would you not just wait to sign up to December? Because people are teaching these classes right now because you.

[A]

You don't want to sign up November for the Synchro de Mayo.

[B]

My thing is, like, if you take the risk and you sign up today, you get the classes. Yeah. But if you do sign up at the end of the year, there was a great strategy. If you're getting the classes for sure. For sure.

[A]

Then we have. Next will be a Father's Day class.

[B]

Father's Day. We were trying to do our tertiary holidays.

[A]

Tertiary don't even know what that word is or how to spell it. But yes, we were ter.

[B]

I'm going to say this phrase. And if anybody understands what this phrase is, you'd have to be very niche. Now, I'm not going to tell them it's from tertiary adjunct of Unimatrix 05. I had no idea.

[A]

No idea.

[B]

If you listen to that and you know what I mean.

[A]

Is it Star Trek?

[B]

You're so weird. I was a huge tracking myself. Oh, so that is the cookie college. If you want to learn more about the cookie college or the class kits. Oh, the two dollar transfer club. I did cookie care cards. For Easter.

[A]

No, for the digi download.

[B]

Sorry. For the digital downloads, which is also included in the cookies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I did four cookie care cards with the text that's pretty generic that most people would use or blank if you wanted to make it yourself.

[A]

Yeah. So cookie care cards, are they for DIY kits or for. Yeah, Easter.

[B]

DIY kids specifically.

[A]

Nice. And Easter's a great holiday for DIY kids. Parents are like, that Easter basket lasted.

[B]

My kid two seconds. Where they rip through it last pocket. Yeah.

[A]

You know, before they go hunt for the Easter eggs, they can come back in.

[B]

Make the kit now. Super fun announcements.

[A]

An announcement.

[B]

We have a new. We have a new podcast sponsor. Temporary.

[A]

We have a new podcast sponsor.

[B]

Podcast. Amy with. Oh, this is always fun. So what's Popping Con?

[A]

What's Popping Con?

[B]

First ever cake pop convention. Attention. It's coming. It's coming. And I'm actually gonna pull up their website, but she has given us a discount code. Right, Nice. So if you're listening and you want to go, Cory and I are speaking at it.

[A]

We're speaking at it. It is May 4th through the 6th.

[B]

The discount code was take 20, 25 off your ticket. It is Code Twins. All caps.

[A]

Code Twins. Okay, so what's Popping Con? It is the big name.

[B]

What's. What's popping. What's.

[A]

What's poppin on is the big names in the cake pop world. I got starstruck reading through the names.

[B]

Did you see my name?

[A]

No, I. I tuned out at your name. The biggest cake pop people in it. It's all happening in Kent, Ohio.

[B]

We want to tell people right now today's the last day for the early bird pricing discount. I think you can stack the code on that as well. So right now you can save $50 if you sign up. And I think if you use code Twins, you can save an additional 25. So you're saving $75, you'll be saving $75. So your ticket would be roughly 275. Not the cheapest, but this is three days at a convention center in Ohio, which is valuable for us.

[A]

And I've been seeing her sponsors pop up on social media, but I want.

[B]

To tell them if you're listening to the podcast on April 1st. April 1st is the last day for that additional $50. Again, you can use a $25 discount.co twins. But this is okay. Join us in ken, Ohio on May 4 through 6 for what's popping? A new cake pop conference for beginners, bakers and everyone in between.

[A]

Nice. I have got to get my cake pop pants on so I can do this. I can get it popping.

[B]

Fortunately, is that we're not teaching a class on cake popping.

[A]

No, we're not. But I want to know what I'm doing.

[B]

Yeah, website is super cute. It's what's popping con.com. and here's the schedule. So starts on Sunday, okay. 10:00am Add on workshops and classes, 90 minute classes. More information on that coming soon. Six to eight. Oh yeah. So 10:00am To 6:00pm so it's all good classes.

[A]

Can I take a class?

[B]

I don't know when we're speaking on.

[A]

Take class.

[B]

I think we might be teaching. Okay, yeah, whatever you want. A 6pm To 8pm Check in, mingling, appetizers.

[A]

Love that.

[B]

And then 8 to 9pm Kick off. Okay. So you actually teach on day two. Monday, May 5th, day two. 8am To 4pm Registration. 8am To 5pm 5pm A vendor hall.

[A]

Oh nice.

[B]

8Am To 9am A coffee shop and mingle. So coffee, shopping, mingling. Nice. And then 9 to 11:30 cake pop learning sessions.

[A]

Oh nice.

[B]

I think you get started here. 11:30 to one lunch, shop and make angle. One to four cake pop learning sessions, four to five demos in the vendor hall and 6:30 dinner at the bell tower. Brewing drink ticket provided. Nice. That's fun. And then the last day is Tuesday, May 6, 8am to 4. If you're doing registration, we got the vendor hall again, the coffee shop and mingle again, the breakout sessions, the cake pop learning sessions, which must include these, the marketing and the business aspect of it. Lunch and mingle, cake pop learning sessions. And then it ends with the vendor hall. Done us. They're pretty simple. A whole day of learning and then two days of kind of like meeting and greeting and mingling each other. Yeah.

[A]

Meeting your favorite cake poppers in the world.

[B]

Who are our favorite cake pop.

[A]

All of them because they're doing mysterious magic things with things on sticks. I don't even know.

[B]

Oh. If you decide to stay longer. So if you say Wednesday because it ends on Tuesday, Keep the conference fun going for an extra day by joining us for brunch at Daisy Pops.

[A]

Oh, no way.

[B]

From 9 to 11 on Wednesday, May 7, enjoy a delicious catered brunch and get behind the scenes tour of Daisy Pops a commercial cake pop bakery.

[A]

It is. I just see it from social media. It's phenomenal. And she has a little bus on wheels. She has the cutest packaging. The way that she packages them is absolutely so stinking adorable.

[B]

Cake pops by Rachel is the keynote. Yes. She looks adorable. Sponsorship and then you can come a sponsor if you'd like. And on that she's a sponsor of the podcast. So that discount code is twins. If you guys want to hang out, let's hang out. May 4th through the 6th.

[A]

Listen, I never get away.

[B]

Let's hang out. You really truly don't. Let's hang out. I had a water loss last night.

[A]

Let's hang out away from my house in Ken, Ohio.

[B]

Very close to your ex husband. Maybe my ex husband will go to give us our next sponsor.

[A]

Next sponsor is the backers company. If you did not know the backers co is up the ante and upped the discount out the podcast monster. Backers co is no longer 20% off. It is 25% off.

[B]

What is that code?

[A]

Using the code sugar cookie. What is the backers co? It is a 23 by 23. Sometimes bigger. If you have cakes done for you backdrops that transforms your home into what you wish your home look like. I live in a middle townhouse. The light not there, the colors dark.

[B]

I actually have to use the backdrops for a hot sauce client.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wants new product photography. Yeah.

[A]

It's fantastic. If you've seen any photo that I've taken and the one that Heather will post on YouTube where it's showing you the glare is done on a backers co backdrop. Colors out white matte finish is my go to love it.

[B]

I think right now is the scratch and dent Salem.

[A]

It's a scratch and dent sale is happening right now. 9 to 9.

[B]

I'll get this podcast posted before 9. Yeah but remember it's all selling out today. Yeah.

[A]

Scratch and dent was what they have first come first serve type deal type deal. So if you want to 25% off. It's making it more affordable than it ever has been before. Using code sugar cookie at checkout I like it. Next up, royal batch.

[B]

Royal batch. Okay, well I'm gonna say I want to raise my hand. Royal batch. Launch a new product.

[A]

I wanted to raise my hand and mention it.

[B]

She doesn't. She did not tell us about this. She did not bake. Ity bake. I'll see if it's on our website. I want. I want to see.

[A]

I heard it's not on the website yet.

[B]

It's not. What is it called? What is the thing?

[A]

It's called royal batch but it's a glaze. It's an egg free meringue powder.

[B]

It is not here, y'all.

[A]

So she was at cookie con and Courtney post rolled out product. I don't even know if she thinks we can mention on the podcast but I'm going to because I like to be first. It is egg free meringue powder. So if you have those egg allergies and you are an allergy friendly baker.

[B]

This is more.

[A]

Someone called it a glaze. I think it is a glaze type.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But I cannot wait to try it. Someone said they worked with. It worked. Amazing. Amazing. It's not on the website yet.

[B]

Why would we want allergies?

[A]

Allergies.

[B]

These crazy note. Not on the website yet. So I don't know if we can use code.

[A]

I know but it was like a yellow green bag versus her pink orange bag. I know but the same kind of branding but just a different color.

[B]

May have to pester her for additional.

[A]

We will have to pester her and see what information there's anything we can do.

[B]

We can pester.

[A]

You can get the egg kind her her regular right now using code twin Stacy. 1010 10.

[B]

Corey's very distracted by my sink.

[A]

He's very active. Very active right now.

[B]

Gotta burn off that rag.

[A]

Y yes.

[B]

Last and never least, Eddie, the edible food printer. Don't forget stupid card tray code. Sugar. Eddie, the edible food printer. I think they're getting closer to shipping out this Freddy's. But I gotta talk to them. I want to get branded. Yeah but Eddie, the direct to food printer is a and that's what that lady had mentioned with her tip of the dehydrator. She's so you print directly on the.

[A]

Surface of royal icing sugar cookies, buttercream cookies, M M's, things like that. She's using the dehydrat for the royal icing sugar cookies. Here's the thing. Edible food coloring is wet. There's moisture in there when you're bagging things like cookies. If you've Ever experienced color bleed in your Royal icing recipes? There can be a color bleed with things that are printed as well. Even if you're doing it on wafer sheets or not.

[B]

When you're talking about a large scale amount of orders, you have room kind of margins for that. So using the dehydrator helps. But what she's referring to is Eddie. And it's kind of weird when we just say it. It's very popular in the baking community if you're new and you're listening. Listening or watching. Eddie is a direct food printer by a company called Primair. I think they're based in either Wisconsin or Michigan, something like that up there. And they developed this. Think of your printer, which I have mine back here. But one that prints on food with edible food Genius ink.

[A]

Absolute magic.

[B]

It is fascinating. And Corey, we talked about her Neiman Marcus standing order. All those are printed. She had printed that Creed bottle onto a Creed shaped cookie and then delivered it to Neiman Marcus. And you tried charged. I was thinking that when you charged 900, that was such a short turnaround time. Yeah. And it was such a custom thing. I think you had me take the bottle and like photo.

[A]

There was added gold into it. There was a lot of extras in there.

[B]

But had you not had Eddie, I couldn't have done it.

[A]

I could not have done it.

[B]

It's funny. Corey had posted a real last weekend and said what I baked this week and what I charged. And when she posted a printed cookies for the Acurus. Yeah, I'm not even fancy enough to know what that is. Someone was like, why'd you charge so much for this? And it's a corporate order. That's why. Because that guy never pays on time. He wants stuff immediately done. He wants it done last minute.

[A]

There's never any back and forth. There's no feedback. It's get it done, get it there.

[B]

He does not care. He wants that. And you can charge a premium for that level of customer service because that's what he's paying. And Cory and I always say, like, he's kind of frustrating because he's never pays on time. Yeah. Never communicates. But Corey, we were like, he hires you because you're so quick and you don't object to. To any of the things that he's doing there too.

[A]

Yeah. Me and him are on the same page. I'm going to print it and you're going to be okay with it. It's going to come to you the.

[B]

Way you want it. You can tell that he has forgotten about this giveaway for all these events. And that's the Eddy printer. Right. So it's $3,000. Not cheap. No discount code we've got. But he pays for himself with the strategies of marketing. I always say, you can't just buy the. Eddie, it's not a. If you bake it, they will come. Yeah, it is. If you buy it. If you bake it. If you market it, Market it. Market it, market it, market it. Market. Corporate orders will.

[A]

Yes, yeah, they will come.

[B]

That other tip where she was like, I go to. I go to. I go to dealerships. You can. That you, Eddie. Yes. Match made in heaven.

[A]

Especially like the ACUR dealership where there's like different colors of the logo, like there's different gradations of it.

[B]

Metal print. A lot of people had a. That franchise actually worked for. Had gold printed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And he was like, but look, when they printed it on the trucks, they made it a flat color. I said, because gold is not a color, it's a reflection. Right. So to create. We're not talking about gold overlay or like stuff like that, like glitter. We're talking about like create the gold gradient Eddie's gonna be clutching.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Think of that perfume bottle. It had the. It had a reflection.

[A]

It did.

[B]

It had the. It was purple. And then it came to. As the light hit the bottle to a white. You couldn't have. It would have been very flat if it was a good. Yeah, so that one. So you can learn more about all those sponsors answers on our website now. So the cookie. I'm sorry. SugarCookieMarketing.com forward slash podcast. And you can find what those discount codes are as well.

[A]

Nice. Do you have a Twinterest. Anything Twinteresting happening in your life?

[B]

We went to my mom's house. My mom had a kitchen model over the last. Last fall, I think so. And they finally finished it and we wanted to do some. A photo shoot, some headshots. Yeah. For more content for the website and stuff like that.

[A]

Did great.

[B]

I thought it was very nice. I used this camera. Camera. The problem with this camera is it's overheating because he has a metal body. That's why he's turning so hot.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

So this one has a plastic body which makes it lighter, but it doesn't have that cool touch. But we use this camera, the Sony A7C2. And the neatest feature of it is that it connects to smartphones and the smartphone becomes a digital remote.

[A]

Yeah, I thought it was neat.

[B]

We have no family photos because we always have. Somebody has to take the photo. Yeah. But I brought the tripod. I bought this camera. Camera. And I opened up my phone. We could all, like, squish together. Squish together.

[A]

It was great. It was great.

[B]

It was pretty neat. Yeah. And then I set a shutter timer of 10 seconds. And then we looked and we all like, okay, you know, posture. Yeah. One, two, three. And then we all.

[A]

Yeah, I thought it was. Yeah, I thought it was good. It was good. Heather finally updated her profile over two years.

[B]

I hadn't changed.

[A]

You know, I'm a believer in, you know, twice a year. What you look like in spring is not what you look like.

[B]

I did not know there's a twice a year strategy.

[A]

I do believe that what you look like last year, you do not look like.

[B]

I agree. I didn't. People would meet me. They're like, you don't really look like the person you're pro.

[A]

Yeah. I think twice a year.

[B]

A little.

[A]

A little early springish and then fallish.

[B]

I. I was going to be a two years in this one.

[A]

You have been a two year person. I just think you got to be up there in your. In your. Show them what they're getting.

[B]

My twin dress was the A7C2 camera connected to the phone and the family photo. I thought it turned out. I thought everyone looked really nice.

[A]

My twin dress going off of that is. I baked a macaron tower and sugar cookies. Bringing something that builds up is so much better than cookies that lay flat.

[B]

Okay. When we take these photos, these family photos, we usually do them at my older sister's house, but she stopped inviting us over because she said we caused her cat's stress. Yeah. You take that photo and it's kind of like, look at these people in a kitchen. Corey's like, let me bring some prompts.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, we'd frame our cookies. She wanted to frame the people. It did. Some of them do look like we're all supporting Cory. For sure. For sure. Somebody comes one of those. So funny.

[A]

It was so funny. Here's the thing. I wrot some rifle paper company has very cute floral bright colors partnered with Henry Hadley and Bennett.

[B]

Hadley and Bennett aprons. And Cor had a matching apron to the gloves to the spatchy. Yeah.

[A]

And then I made the macaron tower to match their colors. It kind of worked out. But I want to say the macaron tower made it easier to photograph. The problem with cookies is flat.

[B]

Yes. And so we did hatch. She did do really Cute cookies. And I took some pictures, but they were flat. Other than people holding them. But I'm not gonna hold them. I don't bake them. I know. Like a really enthusiastic eater.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Myself. The tower kind of framed the thing so that it wasn't like a boring kitchen. It brought.

[A]

There was something in the. The forefront and then the foreground background just to make the interesting throughout.

[B]

I was really happy that turned out.

[A]

So that was my thing. Make a mat ground tower. If you're going to do the professional.

[B]

We dedicate three hours. We got our older sister involved. We got tripods involved.

[A]

We got the oven and bakery involved.

[B]

And I'm not. I ain't no model. So we do. We call it a numbers game. Take a thousand photos. Which was 1500.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, no way.

[B]

And there was a raw house. It was about 750. Whoa. And then you take that, you end up with two that you got to.

[A]

You got to, girl. You got to.

[B]

But kind of like that other tip. Just take the photo. Right. You. You'll nitpick yourself to death. You'll hate this. And I hate how my just post it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Nobody else sees that.

[A]

I want to tell you. Usually I bring a bad attitude with me to these photo sessions. And you can see it on my face. It's not a genuine smile. It's just smiling for the camera. I said, corey, you're going to show up and show.

[B]

And I thought you had a good article.

[A]

And I said, shake it out.

[B]

I'm going to call you out on it. You really did have a good attitude. When somebody usually says, like, move around, you get mad because you were moving around.

[A]

I. I said, boom, boom, boom.

[B]

I said, I told Nathan.

[A]

I said, my husband. I said I could have four of the same ugly photos. Hate number one. And there's three other behind it that are identical. Or I could move this old geriatric body around and maybe like, I had.

[B]

To edit the photos. None of my sisters. And they all took their little photos. They were like, can you just edit it for me? To have to edit yourself over to repeatedly see.

[A]

You do it in the quietness.

[B]

I think it's therapy appointments.

[A]

You do it in the quiet of your own house.

[B]

I talked to the cat and I said, buddy, what are we doing? If anyone wonders the update about Munch, he stopped pee peeing. However, he did pee pee in the car on his little mat. But not in the house anymore.

[A]

My munchalooski is the muncha rooski. I love me a man cookie con.

[B]

Announce where it's coming.

[A]

It will be Cookie Con will be back to Orlando.

[B]

That's where we spent June.

[A]

June. I might have the day wrong. 26th, 25th through 27th.

[B]

6Th through the 7th. I thought it was a 6th through the 7th. June 24th to the 27th year.

[A]

Yeah. So you could make a Disney trip out of there.

[B]

The Disney trip.

[A]

I saw a lot of people excited.

[B]

About it being being in Florida. Here's what I'm gonna say. The reason why I think it does well in Florida. I have obviously doesn't well in Texas just for the sheer amount of bakers in Texas. But in Florida you can make it a Disney vacation. Right.

[A]

Plus plus there's a lot of airports landing parts there.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Not that I go out often, but.

[B]

I heard he's like I've heard of this.

[A]

You can land land called Florida.

[B]

Okay guys, we will see you next.

[A]

Week but in the group this week.

[B]

Bye.