211. Baking it Down - Luxury Refunds

Summary

Episode Title: 211. Baking it Down - Luxury Refunds
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Hosts: Heather and Corrie Miracle
Podcast: Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

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Introduction

In Episode 211 of Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing, hosts Heather and Corrie Miracle delve into the nuanced topic of handling refunds within the luxury bakery business. Drawing from their extensive experience managing the Sugar Cookie Marketing Facebook group, which boasts over 32,000 active members, they explore effective strategies to manage refunds in a way that maintains customer trust and supports business sustainability.

The Importance of Refund Policies in the Bakery Business

Heather and Corrie emphasize that refunds are not merely transactional but hold both business and personal significance. They argue that a well-crafted refund policy can enhance customer relationships and reinforce the brand's reputation. Corrie aptly states, “[Refund] acknowledges wrongdoing” (04:36), highlighting the delicate balance between admitting mistakes and maintaining professionalism.

Real-Life Example: Luxury Refund Scenario

To illustrate their points, Heather shares a compelling story about a client who ordered misty blue cookies for her wedding. Due to Heather’s colorblindness, half of the cookies turned out in baby blue instead of the requested misty blue. Rather than offering a partial refund, Heather chose to take full accountability:

“I'm going to make an additional 30 cookies that will be the correct color because your wedding day became our wedding day when you hired me.” (12:12)

This proactive approach not only rectified the mistake but also transformed an unhappy client into a dedicated customer for life.

Strategies for Handling Refunds

Heather and Corrie discuss various refund strategies, emphasizing the importance of flexibility and empathy:

• Full Refunds: Offering complete refunds can swiftly resolve client dissatisfaction. Corrie mentions, “[You] have to think of refunds as a business strategy” (05:07), ensuring that the business remains profitable even when refunds occur.

• Partial Refunds and Future Discounts: While some situations warrant partial refunds or discounts on future orders, Heather argues that these should be used judiciously to avoid undermining the client's immediate needs.

• No-Culpability Refunds: They advocate for refund policies that do not place blame on either party, fostering a non-confrontational resolution process. Heather explains, “Every time there's an issue, I always think there's this hole in the ground, and we could be on the same side… or be on opposite sides” (28:18).

Refund Policies to Build Trust

Adopting a refund-centric approach can significantly bolster customer trust. Corrie shares insights from their Facebook group discussions, noting that a 100% upfront refund policy often results in higher customer loyalty and fewer negative reviews. She states, “If you’re charging a premium price, that premium price has you some wiggle room for when the issues arise” (19:08), underscoring the financial prudence of such policies.

Balancing Generosity and Business Protection

While generosity in refunds fosters goodwill, Heather and Corrie stress the necessity of maintaining business viability. They suggest that premium pricing should inherently include the ability to absorb refunds without jeopardizing profits. Corrie adds, “These policies are there to protect you and allow you to bend them” (17:35), advocating for adaptable yet structured refund frameworks.

Refund Culpability and Proactive Solutions

The hosts explore the concept of refund culpability—how taking responsibility without defensiveness can turn a negative experience into a positive one. Heather highlights the importance of not making clients feel wrong:

“Letting someone save face makes them even more wanting to make it right to her.” (13:26)

This approach ensures that clients feel valued and respected, reducing the likelihood of negative reviews and fostering long-term relationships.

Lessons Learned and Evolving Policies

Heather and Corrie discuss the evolution of their refund policies based on past experiences. They emphasize continuous learning and adaptation to address recurring issues effectively. For instance, Heather mentions, “I have learned over the years that my form has to do heavy lifting because I'm not asking enough questions by myself” (45:01), illustrating the importance of refining processes to prevent future misunderstandings.

Conclusion

In wrapping up the episode, Heather and Corrie reiterate the critical role of robust refund policies in the success of a luxury bakery business. They encourage bakers to view refunds not as liabilities but as opportunities to demonstrate exceptional customer service and build enduring client relationships. By adopting a generous yet strategic approach to refunds, businesses can enhance their reputation and ensure long-term profitability.

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Notable Quotes

• Corrie: “If you’re charging a premium price, that premium price has you some wiggle room for when the issues arise.” (19:08)
• Heather: “I'm going to make an additional 30 cookies that will be the correct color because your wedding day became our wedding day when you hired me.” (12:12)
• Heather: “Every time there's an issue, I always think there's this hole in the ground, and we could be on the same side… or be on opposite sides.” (28:18)
• Corrie: “These policies are there to protect you and allow you to bend them.” (17:35)
• Heather: “Letting someone save face makes them even more wanting to make it right to her.” (13:26)

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Key Takeaways

1. Refund Policies as Business Strategy: Implementing comprehensive refund policies can enhance customer trust and business sustainability.
2. Empathy and Accountability: Handling refunds with empathy and taking full accountability can turn dissatisfied customers into loyal patrons.
3. Flexibility and Clarity: Offering flexible solutions while maintaining clear communication ensures effective resolution of refund-related issues.
4. Continuous Improvement: Regularly updating and refining refund processes based on past experiences can prevent future mistakes and improve customer satisfaction.

For more insights and strategies, tune into Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing each Tuesday!

Transcript

[A]

Welcome. Welcome to the Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Market podcast. It is Tuesday and it is a rainy Tuesday in the dmv. It is a long stretch of rain that we will be having this week. Great reprieve.

[B]

You gotta.

[A]

I'm gonna. Because I'm making you come up to my Energon.

[B]

I like it, I like it, I like it.

[A]

If you haven't heard of us before, we're actually a spin off from a group on Facebook called the Sugar Cookie Marketing group. There's about 48, 49,000 bakers in there and from there we can see things that are going on in the industry. Topics, trends, anything like that. Which is awes awesome because we can bring it to your ear holes every Tuesday.

[B]

I actually want to tell people. Okay, so you can say a group is however big it is, right? Yeah. But it's the active member metric.

[A]

That is true, true.

[B]

So and this I'm proud of the in the past 28 days which is this, we're entering the slower time for cookies. We have an active membership count of 32 000. That's why that's important.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because a group can be a million people and still only get 1 or.

[A]

2 comments the longer the group is in existence. You have to realize like baking, we've niched it down to baking businesses and.

[B]

The amount of turnover is sugar cookie baking business.

[A]

Yeah. We're so niched down the amount of turnover that happens in the sugar cookie world, let alone the sugar cookie bakery business world is quite a lot. And the group has been around for what five years now?

[B]

Five years. And that's a 67% active user base.

[A]

And you know what you're thinking ratios. That's the same thing, the same idea you need to come to with your newsletter openings. It's never going to be 100%.

[B]

That would be wild. If you're 100%. Please teach us.

[A]

Are you giving money away?

[B]

Does it say you open this and you're a millionaire? So yeah, I think that's when I join a Facebook group you can see a group that's just massive. But it's a lot of scams, it's a lot of mismanagement, a lot of.

[A]

Off topic posts or the same repetitive post.

[B]

And I'm impressed that it's so narrow. Like you know Amy's deleting anything that even has a whiff of being debating question the marketing group. Yeah. And yet it's still such an active user base because I feel like that is how the value added and Cory and I were talking about it like it would be easy to set this group to public and just get a.

[A]

Numbers game for sure. And you have to think at the end of the day when it numbers mean better. And here's the thing, it doesn't mean better. But I want to say what I wanted this group to be is what I wished something existed when I started. And so what this group has become is like, oh man, this is a valuable group because not only are we trying to add value, the members add value.

[B]

I think it says something. Sorry for the tuning our own horns. I saw this tiktoker and she had this Russian accent. She like, if you don't do it, who's going to toot for you? You must toot to get to toot. So when I join a group and people use that laugh react maliciously.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now there's a big thing in this group is that we'll ban you for using that laugh react in an effort to demean somebody or make fun of.

[A]

Somebody or to make them feel less than.

[B]

And nothing hurts my feelings when I go to a group, not cookie related but hobby related, and I ask what I think is a very fair question and I get laughter. Yeah. Like it's so disconcerting. It.

[A]

Well, it makes you feel lonely. And then you're like, well, I won't raise my hand again. And that's the opposite. What we wanted for this group, we wanted every question to be. You can ask any question and get an answer.

[B]

We got. We got 3,000 downloads on this podcast last week.

[A]

Oh, nice.

[B]

So one of those could be Mark Zuckerberg. There's no proof. Never seen him in the podcast. In the same room together. But not saying it's not Mark Zuckerberg. If you're listening to this, the solution to the laugh react bullying is to make the laugh react guy look kinder.

[A]

Kinder.

[B]

Kinder.

[A]

Yeah, because I love letting it laugh react when I'm funny.

[B]

Here's the thing. And if. Here's a ninja level using Facebook. We talked about Facebook groups yesterday.

[A]

What if he hard eyes while he's laughing?

[B]

Oh, you would be untouchable because you're now flirting with everyone you don't like. Love you too. If you are worried about a poorly managed group and you do not want people to laugh, react and bully you insert a joke in your caption. Then they would get funny.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

Moving into today's podcast topic, it's actually an experience Corey had herself and it turned out it was an unfortunate series of events. An Unfortunate colorblindness, Cory. That turned into a. Just a dedicated customer for life. And I want to talk about that because I feel like it's that time of year. It's that time. Yeah. Bakers don't want to refund something that rhymes with that and that. We just gotta break check it. Right. I feel like it's just one thing. And it's because refunds aren't as much as they are a business. A business centric thing. They're also really personal.

[A]

They are.

[B]

And refund acknowledges wrongdoing.

[A]

I know.

[B]

And I think if we can break those two up.

[A]

Yeah. Here's the thing. Refund doesn't mean you're wrong. It just means both people agree that it could have been right. Right.

[B]

It could have been better. I think a refund, to me, is the definition of a just a business savvy person to know when, where, how, how much.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you obviously hear Cory and I say, run for the refund. It's a lot. We annoy a ton of people with that because we've seen the other side of these. Having managed this group for five years, those people who don't run for the refund typically come back and say, hey, I've gotten this really better view.

[A]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

So in terms of a business strat, a strategic move. It is one of those ones.

[A]

Yeah. I think me having a teenage son has allowed me to feel wrong often. So now it doesn't feel so bad to say I'm a little wrong because my son says I'm wrong all the time.

[B]

I would not be able to handle architecture. I know.

[A]

I know.

[B]

It's always allowed me to see, like.

[A]

Maybe I could see it from other person's perspective. Archer has been on this planet for only 15 years. He knows nothing. But you would act like he knows everything. So for someone to always tell you you're wrong, and then, I mean, I've become more accustomed to it.

[B]

The wild part of. And I think that's exactly the issue with refunds is you just brought it into right and wrong instead of business. Like on sale. Not on sale. They would do admin stuff.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And Corey just took it into that emotional thing. Well, if I refund them, I admit wrongdoing. And that's where that kind of creeps in. It's no longer a business thing. It's now like. Well, you're saying I'm.

[A]

It's a morality thing.

[B]

Yeah. So you can kind of see that Corey has brought it into this more psychological space. Is that if you're in an argument with your spouse and you say, well, if I admit that they're right, I just admit I'm wrong. So I have to say that they're wrong. Well, now they've got to defend it even harder.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we get the death.

[A]

You're in the thick of it.

[B]

It.

[A]

The thick of it. That's why I always say asking things with a question allows people to save face and get out. Get out alive.

[B]

Yeah. If you listen. And I'm super into learning how to argue better because I'm gonna win. They're always like. Instead of saying like, you're wrong, say, did I understand that you said it? When you said this, is this what you meant?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

What? You find that often everyone's actually on the same side. The people wanted their cookies and they wanted to pay you. Now, something has caused us to be at odds with each other, but let's be at odds with the problem back on the same side. Tell us what happened.

[A]

All right, all right. The backstory, because we need a good backstory. On Etsy, someone contacted an Etsy cutter shop, Icing Mate Love her, and said, hey, can you make these cookies in your picture for your cutters for my wedding? And Icing Mate was like, I think she's based not in Virginia, like California or something like that. She was like, unfortunately, I am a cutter shop, but if you tell me where you're located, I can recommend a baker to you. Oddly enough, they were right down the road from me.

[B]

What are the odds? In fact, I had a cutter shop, knew you were there. Did you order stuff from her?

[A]

Yeah, she was in the vending blender. So what's crazy is she just recommended to them to me. They were very close. I got an email from these nicest people on the planet. They were like, we love everything you do. Here's why we're upset with you. And I was like, shoot, I didn't even do anything yet. And upset with me. They're like, we're upset because you're already booked out. It was our lack of knowledge of the sugar cookie industry, realizing that I should have been placing these order months ago. They were so nice, and I love to make whoever referred me look good and take a referral. So I said, you know what? I'll squeeze you in. Here's the thing. We had what's popping con coming up. I already had an order. I had surgery. There was a lot going on in that little time, but I said, you know what? If I didn't want to take the order? I'd say no, but I did want to take the order, so I said yes. So I said, here's the thing. I can do three dozen. They're like, great.

[B]

Five dozen it is. What happened?

[A]

They said, you know, we don't want price to hold back our best day ever. These cookies are gorgeous.

[B]

She thought, you're trying to meet her at a price point. So you were like, I can do three dozen at your price point. And she was like, screw, let's go all in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You were trying to say, I can do three dozen because of what my schedule is. Okay.

[A]

So there was a little miscommunication. It was my fault.

[B]

She said five dozen.

[A]

But we had agreed on four simpler designs to make it that her budget wasn't exploding.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So while she did go over budget, the four designs was something that I could do.

[B]

I do like that. So some folks are like, oh, no, I'm out of your budget. You know, if you can't afford me, go find somebody else. In reality, we can work with people to get within their budget by simplifying designs, simplifying size or order quantity. Yeah.

[A]

So even though she wanted the inspiration step from Icy Mate, we ended up choosing four designs that did include metallics.

[B]

That saved a ton of money. Yeah.

[A]

Because there was about 52 steps on that specific cookie. I did not.

[B]

Because it also saves not only time cost, but ingredients cost.

[A]

Yes, it does. So I said I agreed to them. And then she said, great. Our wedding is based on a misty blue.

[B]

So this is the thing. Because it wasn't blue. It was misty blue.

[A]

Misty blue.

[B]

It wasn't kind of. There's about.

[A]

It was 400 types of blue out there, and hers was misty.

[B]

And Corey picks up that the lady specifies that the wedding is based not on bears or flowers. It's misty blue. So the color is important.

[A]

Yeah. So I go. And I'm like, okay, let me get this order. Crank it out. We have five dozen cookies. I'm cranking them out. I realize, like, when you make icing, you run out of icing, obviously. So half of the cookies had the correct blue. The other half had more of a baby blue.

[B]

Now, what you got to understand with Corey is she cannot see purple grays.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And within that color wheel, you're struggling.

[A]

I am struggling. It is. And it's something that I know. But here's the thing. I thought I was pretty close, but when it dried, I could even see that.

[B]

So Corey does the age old check? Ask the husband.

[A]

I did. I said, you know, whatever he Says, I'm going to go off. I truly. Who. Who wants to rebake anything at the.

[B]

End of the day?

[A]

Nobody does.

[B]

If it's close enough, you're good. You can do that. Who like it's. The client likely won't notice. And I see people ask those questions like I don't think the client would notice. And you see a lot of bakers saying, hey, we were our own worst critics. Nobody's gonna notice this. So Corey thought her husband hardly notices that she walks in the planet. Yeah, maybe if he won't notice. But he says to her, it's close. It's pretty close.

[A]

It's close enough. Maybe you could give a partial future.

[B]

Refund if Cory's husband, if you've met this man, if this man thinks it's off, it's.

[A]

Well, here's the thing. I'd already taken this date here. I did not want to rebake the two dozen. It was close. Not close enough, but close. But at the end of the day, I'm human. I was so stinking tired. But I can't charge those prices that I charge and give a less than stellar product. I actually did send the stage photo and I was like, here's the interesting.

[B]

Corey takes a stage photo. It looks phenomenal. However, you can see very apparently that there's two shades of blue within this set. It is shoots it off to the customer. Now, Corey is a huge proponent of the pre photo because if it's staged well people think it looks better but it also catches any issues and if the client sees it can email back before the pickup. But now you beat her to the bunch.

[A]

So here's the thing. I send that knowing full well the colors were not correct.

[B]

It was a baby blue. I'm sorry, I thought you didn't realize it until after you sent it where you kind of look at the photo.

[A]

After I sent it, I said let me go back through the emails and just make sure. And I said no. She specifically said this word misty blue and icy mate had the finished product on her. So I put. Put them side by side and I.

[B]

Said, shoot, this is different.

[A]

This is not the same. Before I even let the customer have to put on that awkward like hey, quick question here. I said, you know what? To put someone in that position, I can't do that. So before she even email I said, hey listen, I actually looked back at our correspondence and the inspo picture. I put it up next against to the picture that I sent you. The colors are wrong on half the cookies. So What I'm going to do is this is.

[B]

And I want to, I want everyone to pay attention to this because I know what you guys are going to say. You're going to say, give me those cookies back and I'll do something. But Corey goes a step further and says, actually keep the miscolored cookies and give them to the staff at your wedding because they're very close. Yeah, but I'm going to re bake those two dozen and with my serious apologies, the cost is eaten by me. Yes.

[A]

So I said, I'm so sorry. I said, you know what? The colors are close. They're not the right colors. You have been planning this wedding day for God knows how long and I, the baker, will not be the person that ruins it. Today there is 30 cookies that are the wrong color. What I'm going to do is actually give them to you. You can use them as thank you gifts to the venue or the I.

[B]

Really like that option.

[A]

Yes. You gave her eat them, throw them against the wall, whatever you want to do, they're yours to do with. What I'm going to do is make an additional 30 cookies that will be the correct color because your wedding day became our wedding day when you hired me. And gosh darn it, we're going to have the best wedding day we' had.

[B]

The lady writes back, she said, wow.

[A]

That honesty in taking accountability. She said, I was so happy with the photo that you had gave you, Grace. She gave me. She allowed me to save face, which made me even more wanting to make it right to her.

[B]

So you may be saying like, oh, what a great story. No, it's not over yet. We're out to lunch. She gets a. Corey gets a text from this client and she's like, I just want to let you know I left you a gift.

[A]

Left me a gift. It was this cute. They were an Asian couple. It was a exclusive Starbucks line of mugs.

[B]

Okay, so Corey went from not knowing this lady to getting a gift from this lady and that Starbucks mug. I know I'm not a Starbuckies person, but it's got to be over 20 bucks. Yeah, so. So even there we've got an additional exchange. But beyond that, who do you think this lady, should she choose to have kids or should she have a mother in law that she needs to buy a gift for? Who do you think she will call?

[A]

Oh, here's the thing. She's going to call me because the confidence with ordering from somebody who's high end, high end pricing has to come with Some high end reassurances because at.

[B]

The end of the day you can say, well, I have the best ingredients in the world. It caps off at a certain point and then you have our profit that caps off and we have a cost cover. Then we have just additional profit. Now that additional profit to me is seen as an insurance policy should things go wrong. Yeah, right. I'm willing to pay you more.

[A]

Did I lose out a little? I. I didn't make on the set set. The set cost me to make it. Which is fine because if you add profits from the set before and the set after, there's enough there. But this set, I did take the.

[B]

L. However did you blaze a trail for future bigger sets with thousand percent?

[A]

Here's the thing. My husband was like just to offer a discount on a future set, I said, here's the thing. I'm going to take off my baker apron. I'm going to put my wedding shoes on. I have to take the place of this customers. People have planned their weddings for years.

[B]

Weddings are bigger ones. And I think that's an side sidebar. Yeah, baker's always like, I don't charge more for weddings. That's disrespectful. No charge more for weddings. They want this level of service. So if you do charge more for weddings, a surcharge for weddings, which a lot of companies do, it's because in the event something goes wrong, they're going to fix it.

[A]

They're going to fix it.

[B]

And that's what the bride wants.

[A]

Yeah, you got to be able to add that. I'm gonna fix it.

[B]

I'm gonna figure it.

[A]

She's been planning this wedding out for years. The color was what this wedding was founded on. It wasn't a theme, it was a specific color. She has probably a million things going on. The baker is not her top priority. You just assume that when you hire someone, they're going to get it done. They're going to get it done. Right. You paid top price to get what you wanted to come to fruition. It wasn't like you were trying to, you know, be less on money. She said, I'll take easier design so I could work with you. It wasn't like she was like, I think your price too expensive. Is there any way that you can come cheaper? She's like, no.

[B]

Well, I see this issue sometimes with bakers. They'll come to the sugar cooking marketing group or I love to stock other groups and see the questions there. And they'll be like, I do not feel like I owe them a refund. I'm already undercharging myself. Yeah, and there is another problem. You made your lack of confidence in charging somebody else's problem.

[A]

That's not fair. It's not fair to put that on your client. When I see bakers say, you know, I took this order. I wasn't even supposed to. I was booked already. At the end of the day, you.

[B]

Took the order from. They have the same amount of respect as the order you took when you had time.

[A]

And to say to somebody, well, you know, I squeezed you in.

[B]

Yeah, here's a problem with problems. It's not a problem until it's a problem. And suddenly it's all these, like, I'm starting to build the wall of defenses. Well, I shouldn't have taken your order. And I was already charged. You undercharged so you could snag the order. Yeah, I did that part of your risk there. You said, I'm going to charge less so I can secure this order from another bank. Yeah, that's a strategy. It's not my favorite one because you don't have a lot of elbow room when things go wrong. When things go wrong. But suddenly things go wrong and it's like, well, you picked me because I was cheaper and this is close enough.

[A]

And because I'm cheaper, you should be okay. When I have a mistake, then we always have that.

[B]

Well, it's in my policies. And I do love putting expectations in policies. And a lot of them include that, hey, the colors will be close but not exact. Now it's. And that's what I always say. The policies aren't the prison guard.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The policies are there to protect you and allow you to bend them. Right. So, you know, like, well, we don't. And I do this a lot. Cookie college, no refunds. It's a 30 day thing. You sign up. But I have people and they're like, oh, my goodness, I just forgot to cancel. Life got crazy. And I'm like, well, our policy states that we don't offer this, but let me help you out. Right?

[A]

Here's the thing. I buy from dealerships that have a reputable brand. It's. It's a little bit more expensive to buy from a bigger dealership. But at the end of the day, I feel like I'm going to be taken care of if I drive off the lot. And AC is.

[B]

Well, that's what the. Okay. You bought from Carvana. Carvana has a seven day return window, meaning Cory could drive his car for seven days. Doesn't matter how many. I'm sure there's stipulation, mileage, but they, they'll take the car back. Now, if you did a private sale, sale by. Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now we've got a consumer. Virginia is a as is state, meaning if you sold the car and somebody signed the bill of sale, they bought the car as is. If the car explodes in seven days, guess what? You have a car with an exploded engine.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now, Corey said, but I'm willing to pay Carvana more. She could have, you know, she could have private sold her own car and then private purchase another car. And it would have been a more competitive deal for you. You would have made more money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And spent less money. Carvana's like, hey, but if you come to us, we're going to pad all these safety mechanisms. We're bigger company, we can afford it. But as such, you're going to pay more for the same vehicle. Are you willing to. And that's the exchange there. So if you're already really low priced, you've got a huge problem coming your way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you're still going to have to deal with problems. They're there regardless of what you charge. You just don't have as much flexibility.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's crazy to see bakers who are like, I charge a premium price, you know, so you charge extra. And customers like, well, I paid a premium price, so I want a premium service. I want what I ordered. But then bakers will turn around. I'm just a small business. You can't play both sides of the coin.

[B]

Yeah. I'm a luxury, but small business. Yeah. Yeah. And you can't, like, you know, kind of darn if I do, darn if I don't. I have to respect that you're small, but you're also luxury. Like, which one do I get? Yeah. So we came up with five of these. And they're going to be reiterations of everything you've ever heard us. But I've had a year to read more refund horror stories. So let's bring them to the table. Number one refund centric. I was actually reading in another group. I don't remember the names. Names have been changed. Protect the innocent and the guilty. And a lady said she sends off this cake and the clients comes back and say, hey, it was actually so salty, we were unable to eat it right. Baker comes back, well, me and my family actually baked a cake from the same batter. I really think those are. Listen, if I'm a liar for calling you a Liar. I don't know. I don't believe that bakers are truly eating out of every batch.

[A]

And you can eat the scraps, but just to discredit someone's.

[B]

She put the client on the defense. Oh. And then she's like, well, we ate from the same batter, so it wasn't salty. So you're a liar, but I'll refund you. I'll discount a future order. And then the client's like, why would I want a future discount when I'm not happy with the present situation? In the comment section, laugh Reacts are flying out at an unprecedented rate in these groups. They have 200,000 figures, which, you know, only a fraction of them are actually business owners. So someone had said, hey, listen, I disagree with future discounts because it's the current issue that needs to be addressed. In fact, I'm so refund centric, this person said, whose name I can't remember. I actually do a hundred percent refund policy stated before they even pick up their order. Because I know future me will have this client for life. Problems exist and problems will happen. And I see a lot of bakers like, I forgot this ingredient or I didn't do this right. That's a guarantee how you handle it. So what? She's like, I'm able to secure this client even though there's a problem. Because I told them if there's a problem, you're 100% made whole.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Now, every other comment was the opposite of that. And everybody was laughing, laugh, reacting. And the only comment I felt was business centric.

[A]

Well, here's the thing. If you're charging a premium price, that premium price in there has you some wiggle room for when the issues do arise. Whether you forget a few cookies, you spell the name wrong, and a few cookies, you can refund it and not feel it at all. As an employee of your business, you're not losing anything. You just take less profit home. That's why we're building a business where we are profit first, so that when issues arise, it's not putting you under where you're no longer going to turn on your lights because you had to refund this customer.

[B]

Now there is a time and place for the type of refund.

[A]

The type, of course.

[B]

Right. There's a recourse where it may be a discount of a future order. It may be that would be a client who returns a lot.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Then they have a small issue here, like, I'm so sorry, Shelly Corey likes to pick a Shelley future next time. I got You.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Then you have the one where it's a new client, like, kind of. Corey, is this lady's big order new client issue? How do I want this to go? And somebody had asked a question in the sugar cookie marketing group, and their question is like, you know, there's a problem with the order. And then it was all the reasons why she didn't think the client should have had that problem. Well, I gave her something for free. And really that was a cookie that wasn't charged for. And I had already discounted her order to get it. And I was like.

[A]

And I wrote her.

[B]

I wrote the lady back. I was like, hey, you sound like you don't want us to give you any forms of recourse. It sounds like you more want us to validate no recourse at all. Do you want this to be a client for life, or do you want to be a client that may leave you a better view?

[A]

Like, you pick.

[B]

Yeah, you pick your own adventure here.

[A]

That's a great thing about owning a business. You run it however you want to run it. What me and Heather are just bringing to you is what we've seen over the last five years and what it seems like a good. But here, a year later, that business.

[B]

Is closing down and ran it into the ground. And so. And that's why I think that I'm so pro refund, because it really puts the power back in your ship.

[A]

The one reason why I didn't refund this lady, you're like, if you're so pro refund, why didn't you refund?

[B]

The question.

[A]

The reason why is because she didn't want to bring the wrong color cookies to this wedding. She'd be like, I wanted to refund her because I didn't want to make the order again. That would have been the easiest thing, but I would put her at a disadvantage because this wedding's perfect, except for the cookies were the wrong color. So I said, instead, I'm going to stay up late, wake up early, finish this set so that she has the correct order. It fit that decision fit this issue.

[B]

Alison had replied to somebody who was asking about, like, hey, we had an issue with the order. What do. And she had said, the age old, definitely keep this in mind. If you were the client, what would you want done to you?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So. And then, you know, put the shoes on of the other person, Walk a mile in the Louboutins and then say, what would I want done for me here? And your answer, what you want done to you? Well, well, that was funny. The poster said, well, I wouldn't have cared. Okay, well, okay, it sounds like you don't want to do anything, so don't do anything. And I told. And I told the poster, you do not have to do anything. We tell you. Yeah, but what do you want to happen here? Right? Do you want to never have this client again? And somebody like, well, I wish I never took the order. Okay, would you never want to have this client again and get the bad review? And that's the part we need to see there. You may not want the client again, but do we want to deal with that bad review? Yeah.

[A]

One I. One time I sent. I'm a big proponent of sending a stage photo to them the day before pickup because that amount of time I can fix some issues.

[B]

You know, it's still a good.

[A]

What I don't want to do is give them that order the day of their party. And they're like, you spelled the name wrong.

[B]

Maybe I'll make every week I ask a podcast and then I put in the Wednesday Wednesday newsletter. Maybe that'll be mine. Do you send the pre photo or do you not? I see arguments for both because you have the people like, well, I think I want to change something that didn't need change.

[A]

Yeah. So I we've done a podcast on it. So, so this gentleman, I actually sent him a stage photo that hit their due date was the eighth and I put the seventh and he was like, hey, the cookies look amazing. The due date is. Is the eighth. But having it on the seventh, that means no one's going to bother us.

[B]

He was so great doing all the heavy. Yeah.

[A]

So I said, no, I'm going to be able to fix this, but I'm also, because it was out of their budget to add macarons to their order, you know, so instead of refunding, you know, I added the macarons into his order that, you know, he couldn't afford because it fit the issue. So I said, while I'm going to be able to fix the 8th and turn it to the 7th on this.

[B]

Well, Corey could have said, well, the client didn't care. The client doesn't care. It's their stuff. So number two, number one is a refund centric company. And I really liked what that person whose name I can't Remember was like 100% refund ahead of time. Now you can build in policies around that. So I like to remember, don't know if they still do it. Harris teeter had the 200% refund policy on spoiled fruit. Now, I think the parameters that you had to have bought it in the last three days case come back with the receipt and brought the product back, they would not only refund you the cost of the product, they would double the refund.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now when that's, that's, that's an aggressive. That's a 200 refund policy, then I'd have these kind of stipulations. I'm not a big. Bring me the half eaten cake.

[A]

Well, I'm gonna say you're gonna bring back the moldy strawberry because you're not gonna eat it. The problem with the cake is you're gonna have to cut into it and bite into it to realize that there was too much salt added.

[B]

If you're anything like me to bring up an issue is just, I'm sweating. I'm sweating bullets the whole time. And I'm like. But I feel so wrong that I need to say something.

[A]

Well, I know when Heather's saying it, it's so insanely wrong because Heather will eat through a wrong order.

[B]

Listen, we'll figure it out.

[A]

We got a wrong order on it. You know what?

[B]

It's not so bad.

[A]

I needed more salt.

[B]

My diet anyways.

[A]

We actually got a wrong order on Saturday. And my words, when we stood up from there, I was like, we shall never be back.

[B]

Where do we go? We went to Dewey's. Oh, yes. Yeah. Corey specifically said, I want no peppers on my quesadilla. And it was actually a pepper only quesadilla. But we never brought it up. And I want to say that a lot of your clients are probably like me. Millennials hate confrontation.

[A]

But what was the words?

[B]

We said we'll never come back. And everything was pretty okay, but it made it look a lot worse when we were like, so you've lost. And this family loves a chips and salsa. Oh, we are going to be a diet once we find a restaurant. This family, we went to Panera so much they celebrated our birthday. We went to Taco Bell so consistently growing up that there was a birthday cake on our birthday.

[A]

Pumpkin donuts. We were buying them baby shower gifts.

[B]

Yeah. So. And my dad goes to Under Armour stores so much he was buying the guys gift certificates to Under Armour store that worked there. It's just a family. We like consistency. We have produced a lot of income for these places that go above and beyond and they water back. So refund centric refund culpability. Now, this is one, this is one where you put your emotion design yeah. And you say, I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Now you and I feel like some people are like, well, you left me wide open here. Like, I have no protection at all. And I see it in the comment section where it's like, never say sorry. Do say sorry. Let's say sorry a lot. Let's take the culpability. Even if you and I like, well.

[A]

You said right here, client, then this.

[B]

Is where you were confusing to me, and I think that's on you that.

[A]

I didn't do it the right way.

[B]

Refund culpability is like, oh, my goodness. When you wrote that, I. I misunderstood it this way. My sincerest apologies. What can I do to make this right? And again, though, what can I do to make this right for you? Doesn't always have to be a full refund. It's case specific. But that culpability. What happens when I put on my boxing gloves? What does Cori have to do? Either take it to the chin, and she's going to put on her boxing gloves because no one wants to take it directly to the chin.

[A]

Yeah. Because when you say that I'm wrong, I have to now defend myself and then say, no, no, no, no, you were wrong here.

[B]

What am I gonna say now?

[A]

Every time there's a issue, I always think there's this hole in the ground, and we could be on the same side of the hole looking down and be like, let's come up with a solution together. Or we can be on opposite side of the hole in the. Our responses make that hole grow bigger and bigger, and we're seeing less and less of each other because we're having. The issue is growing.

[B]

I hate to always bring up that couples therapist, but she was like, you guys both saw a car accident. You both saw it, but you guys were on diagonal corners of the street. So he's saying the red car caused. And I'm saying the blue car caused it. And we're both right. But we're both wrong because we didn't get the full picture. So oftentimes, in Corey's whole example, you both are standing with shovels.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you're arguing about whose shovel's bigger, but you both dug the hole. So when you're business centric, you're gonna save face. Like the guy who's like, well, our baby's actually born the next day, but we love the seventh. He was taking the culpability for Corey. Now, she could have been like, well.

[A]

You don't care that I don't care.

[B]

In reality, we're going to always want to be. We're going to want to take that culpability back from the client, even if they didn't specify it again, because we are saying, if you don't have a great experience and I don't have a great company, how can I make this a great experience for you? Moving on. Refund often. Now, here's the question. I do this every year. I poll the group. I should do that coming up here soon. How? What's the average refund you did the year prior? Like, is it zero? Is it less than one? Is it one, two, three? And I think we go up to 10. And then I do a 10 plus. Yeah. And I say it cannot include the refund. Cannot include sickness or God actions. Right. So like big storms don't really. I want to say clients are unhappy. How many of those you refund? The average of that each year. We've done this for five years. Is less than one order.

[A]

So I'm going to tell you guys, it sounds like they're not just trying to get free cookies.

[B]

Right. So when I say refund often, offer the refund often, you're going to be surprised that people are going to give you grace because you took the culpability.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like I said to Corey the other day, I'd love to give people grace. Oftentimes they don't give me the opportunity to. So we got a battle of the death.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, I wanted to say it's okay, but you said I'm wrong. So now I got to say you're wrong to prove it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then it's a death spiral. So if you offer refunds often, you're going to find that a lot of people don't want them.

[A]

They don't. You know what, they ordered cookies for an event. Odds are they want the cookies.

[B]

I would love for a psychologist to go into the cookie groups and tell me why. Every baker says they just want a free product from you. And that same baker turns around to me and says, I'm so sorry, I forgot to cancel my membership. Can you help me? I'm not like you just wanted free knowledge. You're just trying to get one over and I'll work with you. But it's so funny because when your client asks you for a refund, they're out to get you. But when you need a refund from Target or when you need a refund from Amazon, it's like, Bezos, I ordered this, but turns out I just don't like it anymore. And we're like, that's fine. Yeah, here's your money back. Just send the product. You know, and why Amazon's so fascinating, people sometimes they don't even say, send the product back. And I know what the baker's saying. Well, see, look, you got the product back. Edible products and products that you can resell are different.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I just could not imagine keeping a cake that tasted gross at a party where I had to clean up after the party goers and be like, I need to save this for proof.

[A]

Here's at the end of the day, the cookies, if they didn't have your cookies, even though they were left of center, you forgot an ingredient, the vanilla wasn't in there or whatnot, and they have to serve something. Your thing was a prior. It was a.

[B]

Well, they didn't know it tasted bad until they served it.

[A]

Yeah, but then at the end of the day, you're going to make everyone starve.

[B]

Sorry, guys.

[A]

I need everyone to put the cookies back on the. I've got to bring them back.

[B]

I know at the baker right now they're listening. They're like, but I want to do a quality inspection. Okay, listen, there's a way to word that you can say, oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry. Your refund's already processed. Is there any way you have any of this order left? I would just like to reverse engineer what I did so it never happens again.

[A]

I will stop by. I'm not going to make my client drive out twice, regurgitate it right here next to my dog.

[B]

Scoff it up.

[A]

Cough it up in my hand. I'm going to say to them, listen, my business is based on the reviews of folks. I want to get it right every time. Do you mind if I stop by and grab just a few so I could take it back to the test?

[B]

Oh, gracious. If you haven't thrown. If you threw them away, don't even worry about it. The cilantro. The cilantro argument. Everyone's gonna be like, dear Lion. Okay, we have the one that always.

[A]

I was gonna say, but she's saying cilantro. It's almond extract to some people.

[B]

Tastes like soap.

[A]

Same with cilantro.

[B]

You'll come to a group and you'll be like, my clients has wanted free cookies. They said they taste like soap. And I don't use soap in the kitchen. Never. Like, it's always that. Like, I've never seen soap a day in my life.

[A]

I've never cleaned anything in the kitchen. Dawn, who is she?

[B]

Except for when it comes to the first question. Almond extract. Yeah. You use it. Okay, well, some people interpret that taste as soap. And then. Now, look, you're going to. You're going to have to explain that to the client. It's funny how the soap puts us back on the side of the refund or handling the client. Right. Because otherwise it's like, cough it up.

[A]

Or you just want it.

[B]

If I want it to make money, if I wanted free money, the last thing I do is contact a baker where we had to strategize order details, where I had to come and pick them up, and where I had to serve them at an event and to get free money. I just wouldn't go through that. There's better ways. There's easier ways.

[A]

They're a heist at a bank, probably.

[B]

I would honestly rather rob a bank than talk to a client. Somebody that made somebody like, we'll never go back. Yeah, it was funny. Corey ordered me a cake a couple years ago, and it had the wrong flavor. It was very peculiar because it was just a very specifically not the flavor she'd ordered. And it was a beautiful cake. And we never went back because I don't. And you're like, well, you didn't give the client, the baker, a chance. Absolutely. You're right. I hate that potential. I don't like her to say, no, you're wrong. You taste lemons.

[A]

Yeah, almost.

[B]

You're like, oh, I gotta suit up.

[A]

Because I'm getting ready to say I'm unhappy.

[B]

I wish I had that boomer mentality, like, our mom and us. Her daughters are so different. My mom ordered something incorrectly at Olive Garden the other day. The waitress was our age, and she was like, hey, just want to let you know I did you a solid, and I know you'd asked for that. We actually don't serve it that way, but I would manage to get it for you. And she's like, I didn't want the chicken on it, though. Corey, me, Ash, and some were like, we thank you so much. We love chicken. It's the best chicken in all the world. It's just funny, like, why Our parents are really like, nah. Like. But we're like, hello, thank you for coming to our table today. I know you said this is diet, but maybe it tastes a little like Pepsi.

[A]

Here's the funny thing. Some bakers are listening to this, and they're like, I hate the twins in their little. And that's okay. You can run your business however you want. But when you're like, my Scales are slow. What gives? Don't come to the group and say, yeah, because I'm gonna look through your post history. And I'm like, oh, you did a hostage situation with your refund.

[B]

Yeah, refund swiftly. Now, this one, I find is where the baker knows they should probably do the right thing here. Right. They want to be business focused. They're trying to move their emotions out of it, but they need the client to prove to them a little bit more, you know, like. And then you can see the back and forth with the client. For somebody who's always on a Facebook thread, so we're reading it and I'm like, wow, you're really making this person have to prove it. They're one text away from I found it here. Yeah, right. Because they want this refund. They're not happy. They think you need to make them whole. And you're like, well, prove it to me. You've lost all the kudos and you're gonna lose the money too, because, you know, you should get to the refund before they say they had a hair in it or a baked in aunt. You just don't know. Yeah, but you've lost all the kudos to be that person who like, wow, I hardly mentioned, you know, it's barely like, Corey. The lady's like, I didn't even notice. The color wasn't misty blue. It was noticeable.

[A]

It was.

[B]

But the lady, because Corey went so quickly to the solution, it allowed the lady to be like, I didn't even notice. In reality, she noticed. Even I looked at him, I was like, wow.

[A]

And I said, like, Ethan said, thank you so much for your grace there.

[B]

I said to court, the unfortunate color was at baby blue. And I was like, it's a wedding.

[A]

Gosh, darling, baby blue.

[B]

So refund swiftly. So you're gonna refund often. You're gonna be like, hey, can I make this right? Could I possibly give you a. But you're also gonna be like, as soon as there's an issue, like, hey, I just wanna let you know, five to 10 business days, if I can make it a single business day. I would, but processing takes a little bit. But you're gonna see that going to give people now the space to be like, oh, my, you. You shouldn't have. Yeah, you're gonna be like, well, I shouldn't have. No, they're being Grace. Yeah, they're giving you grace and then that refund generously. Now I see this one's the issue. I had a person and they said, hey, I made A mistake on a single letter. I'm gonna refund the letter. That's not generously refunding somebody. That is the bare minimum to mitigate.

[A]

Here's what I want you to always do. I want you to take off your baker's apron and put on your client's clothes real quick. Put on your client's shoes. If I love to say, if there's a birthday party and you're like, well, I spelled one of the things wrong. I'm just gonna refund that one cookie. Let's assume that she ordered 30 cookies for 30 kids, and let's say they're.

[B]

All five years old.

[A]

Yes. Which kid is she gonna have to look at and be like, I'm so sorry, you don't get one today.

[B]

You know what? Likely she's gonna take it from her own. And it's that kid's birthday, and that kid doesn't get it. Because you're gonna have to be like, hey, listen, we don't have enough now.

[A]

So you've put the client in a tough situation. But you're. I know you. We all assume like, oh, it's just a birth. They ordered 30 cookies. Just take this one, put it in the back. No one's gonna notice. We don't know what these end goals are gonna be with these cookies. Are you handing them out one by one? They're expensive, so I thought maybe Sarah.

[B]

With the missing R. Yeah, the front here.

[A]

So you have to assume the best, and you have to put yourself in as a baker. A letter wrong is not the end of the world, I promise you. People have never spelled Corey correctly. I've been Connie. I've been Corey with an My. My name has been Miss. But you don't know if I wanted to hold everyone to hold up a C, O, R, R, I, E for, like, my 40th birthday.

[B]

Pounding partner.

[A]

Yes. That was my.

[B]

I'll be piping that. So it may not even spell cord. So here's the thing.

[A]

You have to put yourself in the position of your clients, and you're like, well, they'll be fine. No, let's assume that one kid's going to go without a birthday cookie and it's going to be the birthday kid because the mom can't tell the other ones to show up. You've put your. Your customer in a bad spot and it makes you look bad.

[B]

Right. So the refund generously, and I use the word refund. There are times where rebaking is actually the better move than the refund. Right. So Corey will do that one. Like, I don't want to rebake these. I'd rather just give them the money back so I don't have to deal with it. But it doesn't solve the issue that they still need a certain amount for a certain amount of people. The wedding people. Yes. Right. So that one, we needed this five dozen. There's. There's 60 people coming. So that, hey, rebake. And you're like, but I don't want to. That is the solution. So the money one may be the easier one, but it may not be the right solution. Right. There are times in which case the refund on a future order, there's times where a partial refund is still correct when it's married to this personality of a person who is generously taking culpability. Refunds often and swiftly. Those partial refunds actually do make sense for sure.

[A]

Here's the thing. It used to be shameful to say that I've offered refunds. Now I want to say it's not shameful at all. It's if you cost a business. No, it's a cause. It's honestly, when someone's like, I've had to refund four. I'm like, wow, they're a good business owner. Four times they took culpability of it and told the clients, you're right, I'm wrong, I'm taking the L. Whereas I've never had refund ever before in my life.

[B]

Like, is it because the desolate destruction you have in your life? Yeah.

[A]

So now I used to be like, like, why? I don't want to tell anyone where. Where I messed up. No, listen, I've messed up quite a few times. The more orders you get, the more you market, the more orders you're going to get, the more you're going to mess up, the more you're going to have to confront this issue head on.

[B]

When you ride a motorcycle and you go to the motorcycle training course.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

The, the biggest thing is it's not if, it's when you will be in a motorcycle accident. You will. That's. They said you can't bring a, a bike to a car fight, right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You'll be in a motorcycle accident. How bad it is is determined based off of how many skills you have to mitigate it. Right. So with the refund, it's not if. It's when problems are headed your way. You're in business, you're human. It's baked into the process. How you handle that refund determines if it's a high side motorcycle accident or just I tripped over in the garage.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

Tripped over that kickstand.

[A]

It came out of nowhere.

[B]

Right. We that one with enough skill set. Like why you're such a great rider that you can mitigate the worst of an accident and then you still gonna make mistakes your person. Yeah, my motorcycle accident, I dropped it in the parking lot, wasn't even on. It fell on me.

[A]

Is that embarrassing?

[B]

Oh, the sweat, the heat. The heat wasn't coming from the engine. It was coming from inside the clothes. It was coming from inside the house. So just to recap, obviously we're big into refunds. Where applicable be refund centric. I loved how that lady is like. I tell people up front, it's in my policies that, you know, we always pause. She's like, and if you don't like the color, I don't match them perfectly.

[A]

Yeah, I would say it reminds me of my ex husband sometimes. When the days are good, we're like, hey, hey man, how you doing?

[B]

He's a girl.

[A]

Good. When the days are bad, thou shalt not contact me without forethought and a lawyer present.

[B]

So if I read some of these policies and they were like, if you're not happy, we're not happy, we'll make it right. I'm like, yeah, I would almost. With two equal bakers of two equal talent, of two equal reviews, and one had 100 refund policy put in before I ordered, I'd go with that baker. Oh, it mitigates my risk, I tell you.

[A]

Carvana. A seven day money back guarantee. I said to buy a car sight unseen from a vending machine building. It's crazy, but there's guarantees in there that if I'm not happy, I don't have to sweat it.

[B]

What's wild? And I thought this is really. I thought it played onto your psychology really well. I said, buying the car from the vending machine doesn't allow you. We've never seen this car before. You haven't test driven it. What is the test driving policy? Cory's like, oh, I'm allowed to drive it around and then come back and decide I don't want it today. But I'm not going to because I actually have seven days. Have you ever private sold a vehicle? No, it's my. I hate it. I've done it so many times.

[A]

I did it once with you and I was like, wow, this is stressful infinity for mom.

[B]

Oh, yeah. I hate it. I hate because, okay, you go on the test drive and the person's like, I only. We're an as is state. Meaning if they buy the car, they have to keep it. They start nitpicking all these things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We're still negotiating.

[A]

They walk around and they're like licking their tongue.

[B]

What happened here?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But when Corey had this seven day return policy, she got in that car and she never. We just left.

[A]

I said, shoot. I said, let's drive it tomorrow, see what it do.

[B]

She was so protected in the event that in the seven days. And it had stipulations around it, but in the seven days she wasn't happy she could bring it back. It made her care less in that moment.

[A]

It made me confident in the purchase. Did I spend more? Yes. For that ability to take it back? Yes.

[B]

But that was seven days. You never did it.

[A]

It's seven days. It was like that card yours, baby girl.

[B]

So that refund centric 100%. I love it like that. 200%. I've never seen it before. Wow. I loved it. Yeah. I did bring those strawberries back. They were moldy. And then they gave me. And I was like, how's this gonna go? And they're like, so sorry about that. Here's your money. And then we've doubled it. Wow.

[A]

Wow. But you thought you were gonna have to maybe fight it out.

[B]

Do you know what I didn't do? Run back to the produce section to find more moldy fruit. Like, I wasn't out to really. I really just wanted to struggle.

[A]

Right? Absolutely.

[B]

Although I could have made it a whole pass. I'm what Harris Teeter was back then. I have no idea if they do it now. Was like, we're so standing behind the product we offer. You're never gonna have to worry about moldy food with us. And if you do cause fruit molds, we're still gonna make you whole. On the top. Refund culpability. I like it when Corey does this. It removes the onus from the client to fight. Oh, my goodness. And you can still. You can still say, when you wrote this, this is how I read it. And I was so sorry I didn't check with you further to confirm that's what you want. We can still point out and I'll say, hey, hey. We actually don't offer refunds for recurring digital memberships since the access is right there. But let me work with you on this.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I'm able to still point out that, hey, this is you.

[A]

And I want to say, after each issue, I want to say we've been Teaching classes for a long time. Our ability is locked, our process locked and loaded. Rarely do we have people having issues needing refunds with the classes because over the years when someone has brought something up to our attention, we're like, oh, I'm so sorry, here's a discount. We have then taken that experience and fixed it. We fixed the hole, we fixed the loop. So as you're going, you're going to learn from beginning. Corey's is so different from now query sales.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because we've locked and loaded it. From what we've learned, I learned that my form has to do heavy lifting because I'm not asking enough questions by myself. So DM to my Facebook off limits girl, because you're not getting the right information there. Now we have a form there in my, on my website we have the allergy information present.

[B]

Corey also has her pricing right onto the form because she wants you to know what the price is before you submit it. So you're not like, well that's more expensive than I thought.

[A]

These are things that I've learned over the years because with each issue that has arisen over the years because you will have issues, there's two humans coming together on a thing. You're going to learn from it and it's okay to change over your time.

[B]

Well, I see people come to the group and they're like this problem, this, that and the other. And then I'll say, what was your policy?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

At the time that person made the purchase. Well, it wasn't in there. It wasn't in there yet. It's in there now. You've made, you've learned a lesson. But for right now, you're going to make this person.

[A]

You're going to take it now, even.

[B]

Though you don't think you should. It wasn't in your posse. I know I say like posse's are written in blood. Blood. Yes. Somebody suffer to get here.

[A]

I cannot see a purple hue. It looks gray to me. That has to be in my policy.

[B]

I am not, not like, don't order gray from Corey. It's going to say a color, a color policy. And now Corey, knowing that she has this deficiency in seeing the color purple with a gray mix into it, can say to the client, hey listen, here's the color I'm coming up with. Do you approve this?

[A]

Yes. So I did. I said here's the mauve, here's what it looks like on Americolor. This is what your cookies are going to look like. And it protected me in the long Run.

[B]

Run. Because the client can see the correct colors. Cory's taking a little shot in the dark. She can ask. I think sometimes I get a text from you saying, what does this look like?

[A]

Sometimes I go down, my husband are.

[B]

Like, are these glows? Yeah. And it's just, you know. So Corey can either say, well, the client, well, I have a color. I can't see that specific color. It's your fault. Or I can't see that specific color. It's my fault.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A refund often refund swiftly. Those are two different things. Meaning we're not going to make them dance for it. It you lose all great. You lose all the benefits of a refund when you make them.

[A]

Imagine giving, taking the L, giving the refund, and you don't get any Kuda.

[B]

Yeah. Then. Well, then you've done two wrong. You mean you've done a right in the wrongest way possible.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then refund generously. I don't like that whole like, I'm gonna refund you the half of the cookie that has the wrong flower color on it.

[A]

Yeah. Or I will refund you on a piece.

[B]

Future order of like, that's kind of the same thing. Like I did the right thing the wrong way.

[A]

Well, if you had a bad interaction with me, odds are you don't want me back. To, to assume that you want me back is crazy assumptive on my part.

[B]

Did I finish the salt story? The salt cake story I was reading.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

So the lady said, well, it's, you know, we ate every meal has been with that same batter and we haven't had any problems. I'll discount a future order for you though. And the lady said, why would I want a future order with you when this one isn't good? And I said, I agree. I gotta agree. But the lady was like, but I offered the discount. I offered the recourse. You did it in a way that wasn't beneficial.

[A]

It wasn't the right. It wasn't the situation didn't warrant that. You've got to read the situation. They're going to be different recurring clients.

[B]

Clients I've come to a lot are more apt to want that future discount.

[A]

Oh yeah, for sure. Because they know a mistake.

[B]

I'm gonna ask you though this. Your opinion is not wrong. Would you ever choose a future discount or a current refund? Current refund, yeah, same. I want to be made whole today. Yeah.

[A]

My issues today. I need the solution today. I get the future thing. But here's the I Have to assume I'm thinking on behalf of my clients. They typically order once a year, my average person. And it's usually a birthday. So they get a refund in one year. They get to be made whole. They're gonna hate me for one year.

[B]

They didn't have to find other bakeries.

[A]

How many times could they have recommended me in one year?

[B]

That is a money asking question right there.

[A]

But if that last taste of mixing bowl cookie company was a bad taste, the last interaction was not a great interaction.

[B]

You'll never see me again. I'm the Chewy's chips and salsa.

[A]

They're going to stop recommending me. Maybe try someone else new start recommending them.

[B]

That's even worse.

[A]

They never get that little future dip. Well, if they just came back to me, I'd give them.

[B]

I prove to that it wasn't the salty batter after all.

[A]

At the end of the day it's opinion based. Refund is opinion based. What we can tell you is what we've seen over and over and over again.

[B]

Somebody had asked just this past week about an issue with the order and then she had lined her entire post with the reasons why she didn't think she should have to. And I'm like reading between the lines, you don't want to offer recourse. She's like, well I didn't even, I don't even want this client again. That doesn't solve the fact that maybe recourse is still due here. Yeah, due process, right. So I said, I say, I sent to the, I said if do you want to make this go away or do you want a client for life? Because my answers are going to be different. But you need to choose here because I can see you don't want to do any of this. She never replied to me, but then somebody else did and I said, if you want this to be a client for life, we're going to refund this whole order. And somebody else who offered opinion I did not ask for in my own opinion was like, well I think it should be a future discount. And I said a future discount doesn't guarantee a client for life. Nothing does does.

[A]

No.

[B]

The odds of somebody being so overwhelmed with good vibes when the refund is processed today versus when that future discount. And right there, the future discount is in a free order. I know, because you're adding a future partially paid order.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's the other issue with the future discount is they had the option for this one to be fully refunded, but instead you Offer them a partial cheaper cookie in the future. You made sure that you didn't lose anything here.

[A]

I do not know that they lost all of them. I, as a client would think that you would. My next order would be like, done fast and haphazardly. Because you were making the same amount of money.

[B]

Not right.

[A]

You know, just as human.

[B]

Have you ever. Well, I'll say sometimes. Oh, here's an interesting thing. I use quad lock cases. They're ugly as sin. They worked well on the motorcycle. And so I just stuck with them. I had bought this battery adapter. You can plug it on here. Charges the phone. Right. Okay. It turns out those were exploding. So by law, they had to refund the product. And in exchange, they were like, please dispose of it appropriately. Okay. Am I going to throw it away or not? Okay. But they absolve themselves of liability because they offer. But it was interesting what they did. They said, we can refund you 100% of your purchase price. I've been using this thing for a year. Yeah. I'd been using it a lot. It did get hot. And I did look it up and they're like, it's supposed to get hot. Turns out it wasn't supposed to be getting hot. Interesting. Or they said, or if you don't want a full refund today, we'll give you $100 store credit. This thing, the battery pack was $30. Wow. They gave me a future triple free things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, they have the business model for it because I'll need to buy another case. But I said, yeah, let's do the 100 bucks. Yeah, I'll throw away the battery.

[A]

And look, they made on that.

[B]

Yeah. So they gave me a store credit and that's when I think that future thing. But again, they went above and beyond. Remember, it cost them less because remember.

[A]

These schnuckling my hole in the shoes.

[B]

Corey walks with her toes up. Right.

[A]

My on clouds. I got a new pair of shoes.

[B]

Lifetime warranty on them. And then they. They honored it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And Corey has been an on. She has been on cloud nine. On clouds. Walking on clouds, man. And they. Cory will recommend if you ask what kind of walking shoe you're going to sell them. It's an on cloud shoe. Yeah.

[A]

And it's because I felt taken care of in my moment of like, you promised me something and it wasn't that.

[B]

Here's the thing. That shoe cost you. I think it's 160. Like, the shoes are very typically price. 160 is ridiculous. Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous. But They've baked in so much customer service into that price that Corey's like, I'll still buy.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You and your big toes. Two thumbs way up.

[A]

We got four thumbs straight up in the air.

[B]

Two toes as high as they'll go. So that is the. And the name of this podcast is luxury returns.

[A]

Luxury prices have to have luxury returns. It's if to have someone and say, you have to support my small business and pay me my word, but when.

[B]

I do something wrong, you have to give me forgiveness because I'm small.

[A]

Because I'm small.

[B]

I can't do that.

[A]

You can't talk out of both sides of your mouth and expect your business to flourish. Talking out of their bungee, Talking out your bones.

[B]

Just something to consider. If you are very anti refund and you're struggling with sales, maybe something to bring to the table. Mentally work it in slowly, see how it goes. I think you'll find very few instances and unfortunately, bakers aren't making massive. What are you looking at?

[A]

Dough, myself. Same as dollar Corn. Corn.

[B]

Are we. We're still there. You guys can watch all of these episodes on our YouTube channel where the virtual assistant clap dude has finished uploading those past Facebook lives. Now, not all of them made the cut. Not all of them are still active.

[A]

But he did what he could with what he had. Yeah, he did great.

[B]

So if you were like, well, Facebook's deleting all Facebook lives. If you're like, man, I wanted to watch that. I'll be updating that spreadsheet, but they are all on YouTube. That's great.

[A]

I think June 28th was the day. Yeah.

[B]

And he was like, do I have time? I have this family emergency. Rather go.

[A]

Tons of time.

[B]

You are one of the best people.

[A]

I've ever worked with. Now take us to the stupid questions. There is no such thing.

[B]

The cookie College.

[A]

Oh, girl, my bad.

[B]

The cookie College. I did my get to know your membership 101 live last night, and I'm always impressed. You know Kristen, Heather Campbell, Berkshire, Rona. They were on there, and I'm like, you've been around here. You've been a member of the cookie college for literal years. Yeah, we've been doing that for four years. We've been doing this, the sugar cookie marketing group for five years. Would you believe. Would you be astounded that we still have members from day one? Yes, Paid members. They pay every year. Tiffany had posted the other day, she said, you'll never get rid of me.

[A]

She said, I saw a big charge come out of my thing because I am yearly. And first my heart sank because I was like, I don't think I bought anything. She said, I realized it was the cookie college. And I said my heart grew 20 sizes because if there's one thing that I'm going to do is pay to be in the cookie college. And I thought that was fantastic.

[B]

You'll see me in the sugar cookie marketing group and I'm often locking threads or telling people, you gotta post that over there. You gotta post over there. When you see the content in the cookie college, it is business centric. How do we make money? It is like it's the stuff we talk about in this podcast, specifically refunds. We're all in there doing it. And you'll see that the energy there is slightly different because it's more petite.

[A]

There's no laugh reacts. It's truly people being like, what is your goal here? Because I want to help. Help. My answer is going to help you get to that solution.

[B]

Right. And it is. And I'll see people like, I don't want to refund. And it's a lot more like they just want something. You'll never see in that group somebody saying the client just wants something. Yeah, it's all strategy. So yeah, I did my Facebook Live. It's just an hour I do on the second Monday of each month so that new members, if that wants to. If that is going to be. You can get the most juice from their cookie college. Berry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Corey and I are going to run a promotion. She hasn't agreed to it yet, but I'm going to do it anyways. On the last week of July, we're going to take it back to that grandfathered pricing. However you want to sign up today, you get all that content and then you can actually switch to that grandfathered pricing on that promotional week.

[A]

Here's the thing. We're going through the downtime of cookie.

[B]

Orders instead of big holidays.

[A]

We're really wrapping it up. Father's Day is really going to shore.

[B]

Us up here because we've got. Graduation's always a hit or miss graduation, last day of school does well.

[A]

That is. But we're coming towards the end because school, some people have one week left of this.

[B]

Crazy. Yeah, it's insane.

[A]

So this summer is the time to plan how you want Q4 to go. Do you want to be in above your head, burnt out, tired of your customers or do you want to have everything in place so that when you do hit an issue, a little bump in the road, you're able to take care of it.

[B]

Corey and I mostly. Corey telling me Corey at Heather is saying, this is where we plant what we harvest. So this slower time, you may be tempted to take this big break. I'd suggest that you use this time to streamline workflow to get the website up and updated, to get the autoresponders dialed in to talk to the form that talks to the spreadsheet that emails you, that connects to Asana. All stuff we talked about in the cookie college. If you do that in the next three months. Months, your Q4 will be the most impressive you've ever seen. And I want. I know you guys want to blame the economy. It will be the most impressive Q4 you've ever seen.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because people are still buying cookies. Yeah, people are still selling cookies. People still buying luxury cars. People are still buying Ford F150s every three seconds.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The money's still there. If you want to blame the economy, cop out. Great, take it. I can't. I can't compete with you. Right. I can't convince you of it. If you want to fix the issues, the internal issues, and be more confident, competitive in a competitive environment. It's so funny. Like, people are like, nobody's buying cookies. The market saturated of cookie is like, it can't be both. Yeah, it's either there's nobody buying cookies and there's no baker selling them or the market saturated. So many people are buying cookies, there's so many bakers. Yeah, but those two cop out excuses are the ones we can't touch because we can't fix them because it's a perspective issue. But if you say, okay, I'm done with my perspective excuses, girls, I know that money is to be made. I know there's money to make because I see what these people are posting that they make. Make. I know there's money to made. I want to streamline it, I want to fix it, I want to optimize it. I want to be the baker. I want to be that girl. Yeah, I want to be that baker. I think the cookie College. Sign up TheCookieCollege.com I'll hold your hand. I'll do the Facebook live. If you guys want to jump in next month, we'll do. We will have that promotion for one week only. Yeah. Last week of July. So it brings us into the first two days of August and then it.

[A]

Is, oh, see, see on the other side, friends, take it a check because.

[B]

We are heading into Q3, which is the launch point to Q4.

[A]

I know it truly. I excited. I love it every year. It's my favorite time of the year.

[B]

Can I just say I'm sorry. Isn't this year flying by? It's. Corey said it was May 13th today.

[A]

Yes. Flying, flown. Flu. The coup.

[B]

Yeah. It's going by quickly. Every Monday meeting Corey and I have I. She doesn't never seen the spreadsheet a day in her life, but I reference a spreadsheet every Monday. I update all the things that we track and I make the sell the row before gray so I can move through the year.

[A]

It just felt like I had just made the spreadsheet. Yeah.

[B]

Now I'm halfway through my spreadsheet because we're gonna go on now speaking of.

[A]

The week podcast where we say, like, group admins are bribable. And I was like, yeah, teachers are rival. Yesterday my son got braces. So we missed the school day because it was smack dab in the middle. The principal. There's a primary principal and a secondary principal. Never. I only met with the primary principal once. Man has never been in my inbox. I got an exclusive email that said, I hope to go today. Goes well for you and Archer from this. It works, kids. It works well.

[B]

Cory and I were talking about it. We were at the mall. And Sunday you wanted to go to him for Mother's Day. So I took my husband out tomorrow. I mean, my wife, I'm the husband. And Cory and I were saying, okay, so the waiter was good, good. But we watered. We emotionally watered. And we're like, everyone loves the feeling of being appreciated.

[A]

Yeah. Because he was good.

[B]

He was good.

[A]

And we just said, you're really good.

[B]

And then he gave us free desserts. And Cory and I are like, it's funny because our family finds it very annoying, the watering, because we do it everywhere. Because who doesn't like to do it? Feel it? But I was like, to Corey, I love to be told thank you. Even if it's contrived, even if I know somebody made you like Archer. Her son gave me a honey bun. Like, he really put some effort in this honey bun from the vending machine.

[A]

You gave him the money to buy the honey bun?

[B]

I did, but I got a gift of a honey bun. And I was like, wow, I feel very appreciated.

[A]

Yeah. And you took a picture. He felt very appreciated by your appreciation.

[B]

Cory and I were saying if we could appreciate Arch, a future woman he marries will be thankful that she gets gifts from.

[A]

Yes. Yes.

[B]

So that was that. Moving on. Thecookiecollege.com if you want us to appreciate you, we will. It's funny, in that group, we also do like a. And I tried to do it for Easter. I couldn't get it to work. The Starbucks card.

[A]

The Starbucks shared Starbucks card works during the busier time.

[B]

Well, the problem is Starbucks thinks it's a scam.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

For me. So it freezes my account because it's like. Who would put $400 on a Starbucks card? Me. Let's go to stupid questions. I think today, yesterday or today there was stupid card tray. Yeah. Sponsors this section.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And they send out a stupid card tray every week.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They also. And I told them they didn't have to do this offer 15% off because they want to know if you're buying it because you heard it on this podcast. It's how they're tracking performance. So when you guys buy stupid card tray using code sugar, you're actually signaling the stupid card trade that you like this concept. So thank you.

[A]

Thanks.

[B]

Weren't you going to buy anyone?

[A]

I know I was for mother's day.

[B]

Well, you could have stacked the code. So he did even an extra. He's like, all the code for the 15% off is stackable. For our other promotions. They're running promotions constantly. Just sign up for their newsletter and you'll get those promotions. So we actually only have three texts. And I blame the fact that the podcast was so late last week because we were at. It was. Yeah.

[A]

We were out of town.

[B]

So of these three chances that these people have. Three, two, three. Hi, twins. Here's my stupid question to try to win a stupid card trick. Well, winner from Sam, Angelo, Texas. San Angelo, Texas, not San Angelo, Angelo. Hi, twins. Here's my stupid question. I win a stupid cartridge. When you're in a community group that allows you to join as your business page, do you make the value building post as yourself or the page? Thanks again for the top in the groups. Last week it gave me something else to try. Kelsey from Texas, email [e-mail] and I'll get you connected with Phil from Stupid Cartridge. This is a great question. I'm gonna let you answer that because.

[A]

I know you have a strategy behind there.

[B]

We talked about it, Corey and I actually before we taught this class because I think it's a bit opinion based, but I feel like mine comes from a place of strategy. I was in a group myself and somebody had asked for some recommendation and the page of a company responded and for some reason I felt slightly detached because the community group is mostly profiles.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Personal profiles. When the page responded, I was like, well, I don't know who that is.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

There is a benefit and a detractor to this. When the page responds, it's a single click or it's still two clicks to get to the page, to the page profile to message it. However, the value added post would be very odd. It would still seem poor coming from a page. Like, I don't want to see that. A cupcake shop needs personal landscape. Right. So I would say, Kelsey, you're joining the groups as yourself. Great. If you can join as your page. I'm only joining as a page so I can tag the page within the group, which still gets us back to the same two clicks to the page in the profile. Right.

[A]

And I think, yeah. When it can.

[B]

If you're.

[A]

You got your logo as your profile picture. It says mixing bowl cookie company. Someone asked for a recommendation to a baker that makes custom cookies. And my page comes in comments. That is a great way to build brand recognition. Name recognition.

[B]

Answer your question. Yeah. It was interesting because you did that the other day in the Nova foodies group. You responded as a page. Right? Yeah.

[A]

Cause you told me to test it out.

[B]

Yeah. I would say my theory, my current strategy would be respond as the person.

[A]

Yeah, I agree.

[B]

Tag the page. Yeah, I agree. Yes. If somebody recommended me in a group as my page, I might respond to the person.

[A]

I agree that for sure.

[B]

Most groups I find that don't allow pages just join.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you don't have to worry about that. But that's actually a great question and a lot of strategy there. The value added post would solely be me. Thus my sales pitch post would still be me. So I can correlate this active profile. Because if I build all this value as Heather.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But sugar cookie marketing page is the one making the pitch. I'm still not connecting the value there.

[A]

People who have learned to like Heather's content who like Heather Heather.

[B]

And they're going to see this like, let's pretend it's Corey mixing bowl. They're going to like, who's that?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I don't know who that is possibly though. And I've seen this and I do like it. If you have a page sign off as your personal name. So we'll do dash Corey. Like it'll be mixing well, like, thank you so much. Signed by Corey. Yeah.

[A]

Weird.

[B]

Not typical on Facebook, but as a page with the anonymity. So my suggestion, post as your profile solely yes. Tag your page. It's so funny. That is the winning text. But we actually just got a text while I was sitting here. That's so funny. I just want to see what it is.

[A]

Does it go to the next one or does it go to the this one?

[B]

That's the next one. Because the pocket. Leave it, then. We don't have a lot to read through.

[A]

Well, I'm just saying if they're texting in, they could win next week.

[B]

Text in again. Clinton, New Jersey. Dude, you're very. You're very close to this one. There's only four texts. Hi, twins. Just listen to last week's episode and had to chime in on the Pump your own gas a bit. I'm a native New Jersey and. Sorry, I thought you said, like, pump yourself up. She's talking about pumping gas. I'm a native New Jerseyan and we do not not tip the gas attendant. If they're waiting by your window, it's probably your out of state plates. And then playing off your uncertainty.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I would be uncertain.

[B]

I haven't gone to New Jersey. I hate that. Weird wishes. They're playing off of my tag.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

I will not fill up in New Jersey. Yeah, I'll be like, we can barely make it to the next stage. Okay, that is good to know. From Clinton, New Jersey. And last one, high school twins. I'm the Douglas, Georgia texter currently living in Alaska. My husband is. Is military, so I'm very pumped you guys read my text.

[A]

So funny, because we thought she was actually driving from Georgia to Alaska for a class, and we said, that class, she's going to take an L on.

[B]

She was like, competition. Not in Alaska. When I did a roll call and I asked, there's still some people in Alaska. The roll calls I got next to no responses were Montana and Nebraska.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah. And I think one Dakota. One Dakota. Yeah.

[A]

One of the north, south ones.

[B]

Okay, last one here. It's an actual question. I want you to answer it. Hey, stupid question. Here's a stupid one. On the last podcast, you said, ig, quote unquote, got rid of hashtags. I've been living in a rock. What does this mean?

[A]

It's not that they got rid of hashtags. They got rid of the ability to follow a hashtag. A great way to build your brand and to get more people is to actually follow a hashtag that was local to you. So it ended up in your feed and you're interacting with local people. People who are on the platform currently oftentimes the sugar cookie marketing hashtag has about 300,000 mentions.

[B]

If you are.

[A]

That means people are using it all the time, actively on the platform, using it. A local hashtag like Lakeridge, Virginia has 10,000 mentions. But Lake Ridge has been around for 30ish years, so it's not used quite as much. So to have it land in your feed when someone was on there inactive, allowed you to create a relationship with someone without having having to in your backyard.

[B]

Your. Your ideal client. And they use the hashtag which meant they wanted to be surgical. Yeah.

[A]

So they did away with that. Like me liking a real estate agent's post about their open house, as my mixing will allowed me to create a little bit of a relationship with the real estate agent who could buy from me by just ending up in my feed. Because I followed the Lake Ridge hashtag.

[B]

Now you have to like not the real estate agent. Now you throw off your farm. I know.

[A]

So you can't follow hashtag. You can still go look at the hashtag and see people that are using it. It just doesn't end up in your feed organically anymore, which kind of sucks.

[B]

I find that when you see these bigger companies peeling back on some of their features, like I. I've been saying to Corey for the last year, something's going to happen to Facebook Lives because they do don't reach anybody anymore. When we first started this, Facebook Lives were in their heyday, Covid. We could have somebody go live. And within minutes, hundreds were watching it.

[A]

Yeah, hundreds.

[B]

I said to Corey, you know, I go live every second Monday. I get two people.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was like, that just wasn't. Nothing has changed except for, I think the algorithm has disfavored that feature. When we see them peeling back the hashtags, I think personally it's because their algorithm is replacing that recommended content. I think initially it was like, if I follow hashtag Lake Ridge, I want to see content from Lake Rich. Now I think it's like you engage with a lot of content from Lake Ridge. We're going to show it to you on our own.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the hashtags became almost, I want to say, like bogging down.

[A]

I want to say people misuse things. So lives were great at the beginning because it was a way for you to connect your audience. And then people were doing like streaming of lives and there was nothing happening. They were just trying to get people in there to get regions misusing the feature. So now Facebook degraded it.

[B]

I think about this. I don't know that there was Enough knowledge put into the telling us what the hashtags were for. You can see people like, I don't know, hashtag, pink cookie. Hashtag samples are good. Like what? And it created this whole new like, like hashtag to follow. And people are like, you know, when I. When I go to Facebook planner and I start typing hashtag, it's populates. What's popular.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'll pick from there. But some of them are weird. Like hashtag, if I start typing sugar cookie, it'll be like sugar cookie peach. I don't know what it means.

[A]

Yeah. Like one big one has always been follow for follow. There's no value in there.

[B]

Right. But it's that, like, I don't know, maybe I'll get some followers. I think depreciating it because it's been so mischievous, used because it was so confusing is actually a better bet. Yeah.

[A]

I think hashtags now they're using it as like a way to group content. So I'm using hashtag sugar cookies so that I end up in the feeds of people who prefer sugar cookie content. I'm telling face. I'm telling meta. Listen, here's what's in this. So please put me into the space of people who enjoy that type of content.

[B]

Big takeaway. We're not saying don't use hashtags. Cory gets yells at me when I don't do it. Oh yeah, she says.

[A]

I can honestly see the difference from a post with a hashtag and a.

[B]

Post without, however, the ability, the access to them is being cold.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And there's probably a reason for it that's above our heads. Yeah, great question. So if you guys want to text in and have the opportunity to win a stupid car tray stupidtech.com code sugar for 15% off if you want to try to win that. We pick a winner for as long as Stupid Cartray is with us. 571-55-65644. I said that. I've said that in the number so often. I called to reschedule a haircut.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I gave them that number. So if you guys want haircut people, if you win the Steve card drink.

[A]

We gotta thank our sponsors without the sponsors. And you know, we've had sponsors come and go as their businesses have transformed and they've moved in different spaces. We thank each and every sponsor that we've ever had the opportunity because without them, we wouldn't have this. They truly. This podcast started off as like literally labor of life.

[B]

Well, I want to say it's Both a thank you to the sponsors and to the people listening who order from them. Because the sponsors will leave if you don't order.

[A]

Yeah, I know. So thank you for supporting them and thank you sponsors for supporting the podcast.

[B]

Because we.

[A]

It's like simpatico. It's the circle of life here.

[B]

Yeah. Jazzy work.

[A]

Speaking of our sponsors, we have the Backers Co. The Backers Co is like a done for you in home photography studio in a smaller, more palpable, easy to store way.

[B]

I am always, always mad about the lack of space in my life. Oh, if I could live in a warehouse and have nothing in it, I'd finally have enough space. Maybe.

[A]

Yeah. When she's walking around this little space, she's like, it's just not big enough.

[B]

If my hip catches a corner, I'm gonna have a back.

[A]

You're gonna have a bad day. What the Backers code does is transform your little tiny living space into a photography studio. So I actually buy the 23 by 23. It's perfect for what I need. And I do the L bracket. So a crochet creates this whole studio.

[B]

Feel, the L bracket connection. So it makes like. If you're looking at the YouTube channel, it creates this shape is the magic piece here. Because a white box limits the access to a single point to get the product. When you can backup and use crop.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You can actually have a camera lens function as more different types of lenses because. Yeah, for sure.

[A]

Yeah. And I absolutely love them. They have different colors. You can do very vivid colors. You can do just white matte finish. They have marble, they have woods.

[B]

What is that discount code, girl.

[A]

The discount code. It used to be 20% off. Now it's 25% off. It's a code sugar cookie, not plural. Just at checkout.

[B]

You will I.

[A]

We had someone in the college buy one. They were like, I've used it once.

[B]

I love it. Well, it's hard to not love it. It makes your products better.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

Speaking of making products better, if you are in line to try out a new meringue powder.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You want to consider Royal batch by Bakey Bake. And that code is twins for 10 off. That is Corey's favorite meringue powder. We actually gave it away at a class last week and two people left their goodie bags. And I thought they just left them and would be okay with it. But no, they so badly wanted that meringue powder, they asked us to mail it to them.

[A]

I know, it's great. It already has three Ingredients already in it that you would typically get. Someone asked me on TikTok, why is your cookies, why are they so shiny? I don't care what you need to know. And it's because Royal batch has corn syrup in there. When you dry cookies under a fan that has corn corn syrup, you get the extra nice shine on your royal icing. Typically, royal icing will dry matte if you don't do anything with it. If you add corn syrup and dry with a fan, you're going to get a nice little sheen on there. And royal batch already has that vanilla extract and white food coloring as ingredients already in the bag.

[B]

I know you've learned a little bit about vanilla extract recently. Talk about that in your 20s. Oh, I did, I did. Next up, we actually have rolled on finally. My apologies. Is the cutter creation website for beginners, but also for people in a pinch? Yes.

[A]

So I'm a pinch.

[B]

Yeah. What was the name of the website again?

[A]

So sorry, you have to look it up for me.

[B]

You keep talking.

[A]

So if you're wondering, I think you could do it. Yes. Okay, here's the thing. I'm a busy person. I'm busy. I don't have time to learn new things. I don't want to learn new things. But I do want to save money because saving money is how a bakery business does grow. You want to use software that helps you do that. So we don't need big softwares that help build actual houses and like bridges and skyscrapers. We need something that is for cookie cutters for bakers to use. So when you click print, you're going to get a cookie cutter and you can go to the kitchen and start making and breaking those.

[B]

Now. I. I built, built. You barely have to build anything when you get a bamboo studio. The Bamboo Company Print 3D Printer Company is coming out with something massive. But it's probably for the people who are actually printing for. Sure, sure. Cosplay and car parts. Right. So I put together Corey's bamboo A1 mini. Yeah. And I told her Cookie Design Lab would be all you'd need. Yeah. It cut me out. And that's all I needed to hear that workflow. So Cookie Design Lab. And I'm just reading from their website because she's still getting me her list of things to say. Cookie Design lab is fast and easy. Cookie Cutter Design Studio. And that's a tagline. And I gotta agree that it is fast and easy. So what you do is you log in. You can create the account with a Google profile, Gmail, that's all you can do. So it's no nothing, no extra password, and then you just upload your png. Now, you could upload a jpeg, but you're gonna just drag the dots around to just trace out the jpeg, which if you're not into Canva or Photoshop and converting files around, although I think there's some free converters online, you could still use this. So let's say the customer says, here's my wedding invitation. Here's a special flower on it. It's misty blue. You're like, I'm gonna make a cutter that's in the shape of this flower.

[A]

Listen, my goal, I'm gonna call you this week, send out my name.

[B]

I believe it when I see it. Okay? Yeah, I know what Cory's gonna say. She's gonna set up the Bamboo A1 mini use cookie design lab and make it cut her own.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I'll believe it when I see it.

[A]

All right.

[B]

All right. Okay, Go on.

[A]

Next up we have Eddie. Eddie is a direct to food printer. So you're like, what does that mean? Instead of printing on things like wafer paper, what you're going to actually do is in the printer, you're going to put your royal iced cookie. You've already iced it. He's ready to roll. You're going to print right on top of the royal icing. Eddie is the coolest thing since sliced bread. I absolutely love it.

[B]

Ready?

[A]

Since last Betty, I absolutely love using him. He's replaced my airbrush. He's allowed me to do more corporate orders, which has grown my bakery business. He allows me to take a lot more last minute orders because you can throw an image on there and be good to go. He's great for graduation sets. So if you're thinking like, I really want to grow my business and I'm not sure what direction I want to add, think. Is it corporate orders? Are you trying to alleviate time in the saddle? Because this Eddie can definitely help you. There is no discount code because he.

[B]

Definitely knows his website worth.

[A]

But you can join the Eddy Printers users group, see what people are doing. See, people are using him in just fascinating ways. Printing on M&Ms, which is great for graduation gifts. Printing on Mentos chips, Royal icing, buttercream macarons.

[B]

It's fascinating. Get the Mentos Dre. If there is one, there is print on it.

[A]

Just the word mo and hand them to men. Mentos.

[B]

No, it's momentos toe say. Yeah. It was a wild shtick to get them. It Was men's toes. Yeah, that's if you print a toe on a mento and it'll be men toes. But I want to be a moment. But now I'm back onto the men's toes. Please get the mento tray and we'll print men's on it. Are they going to be like my toe straight up? Are they going to be down the coral stick in her shoe and blaze a hole? Daisy makes. She is the creator of what's Popping Con. And she said after what's Popping Con is over, just roll into Daisy Makes. So I just pulled out the website. Have you heard of this? It's Daisy Makes dot com. Don't have a discount for you. Maybe I'll ask her for one Fake pops.

[A]

Oh, I just saw these. Okay.

[B]

These are so funny. It says, say goodbye to wasted dough and display pops that need to be replaced. And say hello to fake pops. This girl's good with her pop. They're reusable 3D printed pops that perfectly match original popper system sizes. So you can test out your pop designs and make a display version of your pops without needing dough. Now Daisy makes the Amy behind it. She has a brick and mortar store if you've ever been. Cory and I went to a crumble the other day. Yeah. Are those real cookies or fake cookies?

[A]

They're real.

[B]

Okay. If when we went to seasons 52, they have display. They do desserts, meaning. Yeah, the guy bent the Reese's cup on the top. So you would do that to create these display cake pops. Anyways, check out Daisy makes. Corey just got into cake pop discs. Is that what it's called?

[A]

That's what they are.

[B]

Yeah. So see, it's a new approach to cake pops and Corey said it does make it a lot easier.

[A]

Yeah. Her what you're like, oh, I could use a cookie cutter. It's her trays. The trays allow you to keep the form of the shape when you put in the stick. Used to be like you would just kind of like squish it down. Her trays allow you to keep the form of the stick. So when you push the stick down, it makes it super a lot easier.

[B]

Looks like they've rolled out number poppers, which would be great for birthdays. Addition there a balloon popper and she uses some plunger system. It's very unique stuff that she's come up with. So you can check that out at Daisy Cute website. Her husband is a web designer and this is cute stuff.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What'd your twin twist?

[A]

My twin Trust. Okay, I'm going to say last year I made my first batch of vanilla and it did work out. The vanilla smelled great. It looked great. I used Everclear when I went to the ABC store.

[B]

I said, lady, ABC stores are our liquor stores. Here it's by the government.

[A]

When I went to the liquor store.

[B]

When I went to the kids kindergarten, ABC saw. Last time I went to the Leca.

[A]

Stove, I said, what are people using for vanilla? She recommended Everclear. One is 151 proof is what it was.

[B]

Okay. I posted.

[A]

I posted an Instagram reel yesterday and God forbid I angered the vanilla gods.

[B]

I saw that the non comments.

[A]

Listen, I'm always willing to learn. So someone was like, you have to actually add water to Everclear because it's such a high proof alcohol, it'll dry out your veins.

[B]

Do you know what proof means? Half of that is the alcohol content. So if it's a 70 proof, it's 35% of, you know, 10 proof. Yeah.

[A]

I saw a lot of 40 percenters there.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Then when I went.

[B]

So 40% would be what? Proof?

[A]

80.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When I went to the liquor stow yesterday, I just been lick stowing it up. The lady actually made vanilla that worked at the store. So I said, what you using, girl? And she gave me a whole lesson.

[B]

She was like, not Everclear, not Everclear.

[A]

She said you needed to do something that is £100.

[B]

Now, in your defense, the Everclear is used for painting on cookies.

[A]

It is. And that lady did tell me that it was also seeds for vanilla.

[B]

So all you guys that got out your panties while.

[A]

No, but I'm willing to learn. I want to have.

[B]

There's got to be a better way to do it.

[A]

I want to have good vanilla. And so I remade it all yesterday.

[B]

And you used what it was called.

[A]

Is rain a form of vodka?

[B]

Not a clue. Yes.

[A]

This is the one she used. She's like, you don't have to do the highest cost vodka. You just want a pretty good one.

[B]

Because at the end of the day, we're.

[A]

We're working with vanilla. Not a good vodka.

[B]

Right. Like you don't want to. It doesn't care if it burns. I don't to want down. Yeah.

[A]

So what we want is a vodka that in your right does not burn the beans.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

They said everyone was like, everclear fried my beans.

[B]

So Everclear wood. It's so high alcohol. Yeah.

[A]

So you can either add distilled water to it. You don't Want to use filtered water because it will give it a cloudy look. You want to use distilled water, which has already been.

[B]

You're asking me why the glass is stained on the snake's cage? It's because I didn't use distilled like distilled water.

[A]

Or you can use a little lower proof good vodka that still works and you don't have to add any water to it. It'll just be time and settle.

[B]

So you. There's different types.

[A]

She was doing a bourbon based vanilla. She said it takes twice as long, but you could do something like Madagascar beans or Tahitian beans. She was doing a Hawaiian bean, so more of a floral scent too.

[B]

Oh, this lady was deep in.

[A]

Yeah, I loved that she was there to help me and she was so willing. So I was like, oh, my gosh, thank you so much. I said, you will be seeing me again.

[B]

So I am.

[A]

If you want to have this ready for as a client appreciation gift or to sell it in your bakery during December, Remember, May is the six months time frame.

[B]

Oh, girls, dial in, baby girls, get dial in. My little Vanillians.

[A]

Yeah. So they were a hit last year. And I will say, even though I used Everclear, it did work for me. And it could just been beginner.

[B]

Maybe it'll be 10 times better.

[A]

And maybe it'll be 10 times better. And it's gonna steep in the quietness of me kitchen. You shake it each week to get it to get it going.

[B]

If you guys have any vanilla tips, you can text us in a podcast. You could possibly win a stool. 5, 5, 6. 5, 6, 5, 4.

[A]

So that was my. I'm learning. Always learning. Always be learning.

[B]

My twin dress is. Did I mention the garage sale on this? Did you? I think I did, but maybe not. So did I.

[A]

No, because it happened on Saturday, right?

[B]

So we even my cousins were like, you guys just come up with weird stuff to do on Saturday? Yeah. What is life, man?

[A]

What is.

[B]

There's only. So we have time.

[A]

But flying by us, we gotta do weird things to keep.

[B]

So this is what we decided. I have four. I have three sisters and my mom. So there's five women. We are all. You know, you go to Sephora, it's pummeling you. You buy this one product.

[A]

I want to tell you, at this age, the gifts that people buy you is skin care. Do I need a spatula?

[B]

But here's the problem. At this age, if I put the skin care on my face and a pimple shows up, I'm going To just blame. I'm not going to blame the fact that I pummeled a whole bag of sugar Skittles.

[A]

No.

[B]

I'm going to blame this product. So I'm not going to use it again because who wants to the fight the battle.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we had. I said everyone has bring 5 or 7 to 10 skincare makeup based products. There is some flexibility there that just aren't working for you. Yeah. They can't be extremely used because they were working for. You just got.

[A]

It'd be half or more.

[B]

It had to be half or more. Ideally a fresher thing that you just tried and you just didn't like.

[A]

We didn't want something that was like so expired.

[B]

We didn't want somebody to trash that you found. So. And then we, we. It was funny. We had had Cory's son mix up all the products that we bought.

[A]

So you didn't, you didn't know who there was?

[B]

No.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then we rolled the dice. This is getting crazy. But we rolled the die and whoever got closer to six got a start. And we went around for each round. So there's about 10 rounds.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So the funny part is everyone got the products they wanted the first five rounds and the last 10 rounds is truly the trash. The trash. But we, we're gonna give those away.

[A]

What was your favorite thing that you got from your thing?

[B]

Probably the thing I picked first. I like that little blanket blush, you see.

[A]

Oh, Heather got to merit beauty blush.

[B]

Yeah. My little sister had bought a pack of those. He had given me one already. And when she came with the other one, I was like, yeah, I'll take that. My sister.

[A]

You're like, did she not like the blush you had to give a little snob. Why it was on.

[B]

I loved the explanation. She was like, turns out I just don't find myself.

[A]

She buys so much blush. I knew that a blush was going to be there because she has such a collection of blushes. Okay. I did get an archon now.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. Our older sister wanted to get into some kind of product with a photography. Didn't like the archon mount.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Corey said it's better. It's not as great for phones. It's great for projectors.

[A]

It's great for a projector. So I said, even if I. I could get this and give it away to another baker because I already have one, I couldn't let it go.

[B]

Yeah. It was meant for you. It was meant for me. Right.

[A]

So I said I have. I tell Heather, maybe if I just give it Away because someone actually I gave away. What was that? That fly catcher? It was the little toy that. It's a projector. And sending it to someone who's just starting it out. Yeah, that was the brand.

[B]

I can't remember. The sketchy school ply.

[A]

I can't remember.

[B]

I think it was sketchy sounding. Okay.

[A]

Yeah. So I give it to another baker and I was like, oh, I feel so much better. Instead of tossing it, I would actually gave it to someone who could use it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I was like, I'll get this Archon mount. If I don't use it, I'll just give it to someone who can use.

[B]

Yeah. So I really liked the vibe. It was fun. Probably only do it once a year, but that's my twin dress. So if you guys have sisters or you siblings, you can do a yard sale. One man's trash, another man's treasure.

[A]

It will keep you from spending more money on stuff. You got a new thing.

[B]

Summer had this skincare line that I actually was thinking about, but I didn't want to buy it and be stuck with it. I like it. So I got some of those to test them out.

[A]

Yeah, it was good, right? Guys, thank you so much for tuning in.

[B]

We appreciate.

[A]

We know it's opinion based. You might agree with some of them, not agree with all, but we appreciate each and every listen and giving a little ear go. Yeah.

[B]

At the end of the day, I can like you as a person and I agree with everything you say. I can pick and choose the things I want to partake in, or I can table that and say, maybe one day I'll try it.

[A]

Listen, I've been a womb mate with Heather for nine months of my life, and I know I'm good with everything she says. We're.

[B]

We were raised the exact same way. They were never called individually. We're just called the Twins. The twins. Get over here. You get over here. That one. You know what I meant. Heck, right? You knew what I was saying. You know, I meant you and me and we're still very different.

[A]

Our other aligned more in life than most. And I don't agree with everything she says, so for sure you're not going to agree. But what me and Heather just bring into you is just ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

[B]

Most of this is stuff we've tried that works well for us because we tried another way that didn't work as well. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And we just appreciate that you give it the listen that, you know, we're.

[B]

Not professional podcast people. But we enjoy that you listen amazing. Sometimes singing our hand.