240. Baking it Down - Burke Lake vs Everest

Summary

Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

Episode 240: "Burke Lake vs Everest"
Hosts: Heather & Corrie Miracle
Date: December 16, 2025

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode takes on the classic “New Year’s Resolutions” mentality—specifically how small, incremental, unsexy goals (“Burke Lake”) ultimately serve bakers better than giant, intimidating, headline-worthy ambitions (“Mount Everest”). Heather and Corrie use these metaphors to break down practical strategies for bakery business owners. Throughout, they share personal stories, marketing tactics, and an upbeat but honest exploration of achieving meaningful progress without self-sabotage, guilt, or overwhelm.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Trap of Mount Everest Goals vs. the Value of Burke Lake Habits

• Big, Lofty Goals Feel Good But Rarely Succeed:
  The sisters critique the tendency to set huge annual goals—like doubling sales or posting daily—that look good on social media, but aren’t effective or sustainable.

  • (06:11)

    “It’s so much easier to get back on when the hurdle is small. Giant goals just increase guilt and the temptation to give up." – Heather

• Burke Lake Mentality — Small, Repeatable Actions:
  Instead, they champion small, incremental improvements that are regular and achievable, like walking Burke Lake (a local park) instead of climbing Everest.

  • (13:04)

    “156 new local followers? That’s my Burke Lake. If they all showed up to a pop-up, I'd sell out in minutes.” – Corrie

2. Practical Examples of “Burke Lake” Approaches for Bakers

Social Media Growth

• Meaningful, Local Followers Trump Vanity Metrics:
  Rather than chasing 1,000 new followers, focus on 3 local followers per week—people who can actually become customers.

  • [10:25–12:22]

    "Three local people who could order from you is far more valuable than a thousand people you got through a viral reel that reached everyone but your actual buyers." – Heather

• Local Marketing Tactics:

  • Post about a local business each week on your page and share it in a local group.
  • Example: Corrie gains 25 local followers by posting a cookie decorated with the intentionally-misnamed sign of a new restaurant, getting involved in a local in-joke.
    • (18:00–18:54)

      "That post... you did move quickly... but now Corrie has this one extremely strong lead from a local group, from an extremely hyperlocal joke." – Heather

Email Marketing

• Small steps:
  • Instead of “monthly newsletter,” just gather and organize customer emails into a spreadsheet and send one email per quarter.
  • Supporting Quote:
    • (23:33)

      "If that's all you had to do and you're like, well, that only takes me five minutes, congratulations. You went to the gym, you scanned your card. That's your goal." – Heather

Website Creation

• Start Simple, Then Build:
  • Use JotForm for order intake before worrying about building a complete website.
  • Supporting Quote:
    • (27:05)

      "It's simple, it's bare bones, but it's something—it's Burke, not Everest." – Heather

Photography & Packaging

• Iterative Upgrades:
  • Buy a white matte backdrop. Use one consistent style. Begin post-processing gradually.
  • Find a “workhorse” box style for orders, get a professional business card, and add simple brand-colored ribbon.
  • Supporting Quotes:
    • (31:30, 36:39)

      “If every photo you take is on one plate with a white background, and every picture is that way and incrementally gets better, you'll see a difference." – Heather
      "If all that came out of your bakery this year was a white box, matching ribbon, and a business card, you’d have improved your packaging monumentally—Burke Lake style." – Heather

Skill-Building (Lettering, Techniques, etc.)

• One class at a time.
  • Supporting Quote:
    • (37:14)

      "I'm going to source just one class focused on basic lettering. Take it three times, practice, and then maybe get a projector. That’s my Burke Lake." – Heather

3. The Psychology of Goals & Habits

• Why Massive Goals Fail:
  Missing a huge goal feels devastating and leads to quitting, while missing a mini-goal feels recoverable.

  • (04:02–04:29)

    “My goal was just to walk in the door and scan my gym card. If I turned around, so be it! That’s success.” – Heather

• The Power of Habit Tracking:
  Forget “goals”—track and build habits.

  • (40:19–42:42)

    “I don’t have goals. I call it a habit tracker... Did I drink water? Did I walk? Did I wear sunscreen?... The more I check off these, the better I feel.” – Heather

• Small Steps Multiply Over Time:

  • (43:21)

    "If I increased every experience today by 1%, after 30 experiences, that's a 30% improvement. Incremental adds up." – Heather

4. Measuring the Right Metrics

• Likes and Follower Counts Don't Feed You:
  The focus is on true engagement and conversion—local followers, actual orders, quality email list, etc.

  • (14:31, 48:14)

    “I'd rather a group of 25,000 really active bakers than 50,000 who never post. Quality over quantity—always.” – Heather
    “I see local bakers with a quarter the followers but turning clients away. That tells you it’s not the number—it’s the quality.” – Corrie

• Set a Success Metric That Matches Your Goal:
  If your goal is to reach specific local zip codes, prioritize local follows and watch time over global views.

  • (56:14–58:25)

    “My metric is to look deep into insights and see where my local followers are coming from... Watch time tells me if the right people are sticking around.” – Corrie

5. Adapting to Algorithms and Trends

• Algorithm Awareness (Reposting Content):
  Reposting identical copy can kill your reach—make each post unique.

  • (79:52–80:14)

    “Reposting the same copy kills reach. The algorithm sees all... The more unique your content, the better it performs.” – Corrie

• Leveraging New Tech & Tools:
  AI can now “see” your content.

  • (81:06–82:12)

    "Now gone. Now you have visual—AI can see things. It’s learning from us and we’re learning from it.” – Heather

6. Modeling Relatability & Community-Building

• Personal Touches Make Brands Memorable:
  Corrie shares her Burke Lake–sized 2026 goal: Be relatable so people think of “Corrie” when they think of cookies, not just “Mixing Bowl Cookie Co.” Her steps: attend local events, make relatable local content, show her face, and track actual local follower growth as the success metric.

  • (54:15–57:44)

    “My goal is to become your local bestie. I want you to say, I found this restaurant from Corrie, you might know her, she runs Mixing Bowl...” – Corrie

• Social Proof & Vulnerability:
  Sharing personal stories and small wins builds authenticity and customer loyalty.

  • (60:47–61:46)

    “When bakers pull back the apron and show like ‘we just had another baby’—the likes go astronomical. People want to know about you, not just the cookies.” – Corrie

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Realistic Resolutions:

  “Nobody cares if you walked around Burke Lake. It’s not sexy. But maybe Everest was never the goal anyway. Maybe it was just hiking more.” — Heather (06:28)

• On Goal Psychology:

  "Missing a smaller goal brings less guilt and it’s easier to start again. Massive goals just increase the guilt when you fall short." — Corrie (04:05)

• On Genuine Community Engagement:

  “25 people who open their wallets and pay me beat out 118,000 who won’t.” — Corrie (18:58)

• On Comparing Social Metrics:

  “There’s quality and quantity. Three local people a week who buy? That’s everything. 1,000 random followers? That’s nothing.” — Heather (11:12)

• On Incremental Learning:

  “Small improvements over a long period of time—Berke Lake, Berke Lake, Berke Lake, then Everest.” — Heather (32:32)

• On Knowing Yourself:

  "No one knows you better. You know you like lofty goals, but maybe you’re not the 1%-er. And that’s actually great if you own it.” — Corrie (45:01)

• On Letting Go of Ego:

  “Mount Everest goals are for telling other people. But Bruke Lake is for me—I just have to walk through the doors. I can leave if I want!” — Heather (39:14)

• On Starting Small, Tracking Progress:

  “If you only get 7 likes on a post, but 7 people order, are you a failure? Absolutely not.” — Heather (20:22)

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Practical “Burke Lake” Steps Outlined

Social:

• 3 new local followers a week via featuring a local business (+ sharing in a group). Email:
• Gather current emails, organize spreadsheet, send quarterly. Website:
• Collect orders via JotForm, test simple web builders later. Photography:
• Buy a matte backdrop, one white plate, take identical shots, upgrade tools as needed. Packaging:
• Pick one workhorse box, simple brand colors, standard business card. Skills:
• Find and complete one practical class, repeat it, invest in one tool if needed.

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Listener Q&A & Community Segment [70:29+]

• Goal-Setting for Military Spouses:
  Advice to a listener who wants to run classes but moves often:

  • Start with a small, 4-person class (even if break-even), get content, then leverage military spouses groups at each new location. Focus on learning the ropes, not immediate profit.
    • (72:15–74:44)

• Thoughts on Online Course Platforms (School.com/Udemy):
  Digital products can be a great passive income, but focus on dialing in your bakery first. Be aware: margins are lower, competition is high, and platforms take a cut.

  • (76:04–77:47)

• Best Practices for Reposting Social Content:

  • Avoid copy/paste reuse—algorithms notice and suppress reach. Edit, personalize, and update every post for best engagement.

• LinkedIn for Bakers:

  • Build local relationships by commenting on actual people’s posts, not just company pages. After networking events, connect and engage individually as your brand or personal profile.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:25] – On the “shoot for the fence, possibly hit the stars” mentality
• [06:11] – Everest vs. Burke Lake: Making your goals smaller and sustainable
• [10:25–12:22] – Focus on acquiring real, local followers
• [18:00–19:10] – Local viral post case study (First Watch sign cookie)
• [23:33] – Practical Burke Lake email marketing
• [27:05] – Stepwise website building
• [31:30] – Consistency in photography and packaging
• [37:14] – Skill-building: tactical way to approach lettering classes
• [40:19–42:42] – Forget goals, build habits
• [54:15–57:44] – Corrie’s personal 2026 “relatable local baker” goal
• [79:52–80:14] – The risks of reposting identical social content
• [81:06–82:12] – The evolving role of AI in marketing

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Overall Takeaway

Big flashy goals (Mount Everest) often fail and discourage. Instead, small, consistent, and highly relevant steps (Burke Lake) tailor-made to your business and market will quietly build momentum. Focus on incremental improvements, habit-building, and true connection with local buyers—and your bakery will grow, one attainable hike at a time.

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For more resources, marketing classes, and community:
Explore the Sugar Cookie Marketing group on Facebook, join their membership (“Cookie College”), or check out upcoming bootcamps and resources at sugarcookiemarketing.com.

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Fun Sign-Off: Heather & Corrie are off to eat at Rosemary’s Thyme—a local restaurant with sentimental value, soon to close after 18 years, closing the episode with a bit of nostalgia and reminder to savor small moments (Burke Lake style), both in business and in life.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome. Recording from when I.

[B]

Is everything recording?

[A]

Recording. It's recording. Welcome to the Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing podcast. We are your host, Corey and Heather Miracle. Oh, go ahead.

[B]

That was it. I was waiting to buy a car and watch at the end of that. It's the podcast. It has snowed here in northern Virginia.

[A]

So snowed and then became 16 degrees.

[B]

And now it's gonna be 55 degrees on Thursday. So welcome to the nature swamp.

[A]

The swamp, but frozen right now. A frozen tundra.

[B]

And then it will be a slushy car wash killer.

[A]

It will be a car wash killer. I do say, let me be grateful for something this morning. I live in a townhouse, and we do not have a townhouse with a garage. Garage, but remote start.

[B]

Whoa. What a first world problem. First we were about to pity you, and then you're like, no.

[A]

I said, let me be grateful for it.

[B]

I did not have remote start. Can you have remote start on manual transmission?

[A]

Can you?

[B]

Not sure. What if you accidentally left it in gear?

[A]

I don't know. Wouldn't you have the E brake up, though?

[B]

What if you forgot to put the E brake on? Left in gear, it would fly away.

[A]

Do you ever leave it without the E brake on?

[B]

You have it with the E brake on and in gear. But now you can choose to not.

[A]

Oh, interesting. I'm an automatic girl with remote start.

[B]

Thank goodness. So jumping into today, I see. Okay, I'm not a. I'm not a 1-1- girly. I can start any goal at any random Tuesday at 2:45pm that's amazing. Yeah. So. And yesterday I said I need to go to the gym, and we went to the gym at 1:45pm yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Really?

[B]

Because I understand the goal isn't the the goal. It's the habit. It is. It is.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And, uh, yesterday I started my transition from my 2025 spreadsheets to my 2026 spreadsheets. And I do this every year, ceremoniously closing the chapter on one and opening the chapter for the next. But every time, I dial in my spreadsheets. So every year I'm like, use. I use my spreadsheets religiously.

[A]

You do?

[B]

But I'm like, oh, you know what? That's last year. I wish it was like this. So in my 2026 strategy, I fix those little nines.

[A]

You're building up on it year after year.

[B]

Building up. Oh, every year, my spreadsheet gets a little stronger.

[A]

Last night in the car, in the darkness, as we go by the Lake Ridge, Red lights. The glare of the red on our faces.

[B]

Nate, my husband asked, do you remember.

[A]

Your January New Year's resolutions?

[B]

Did he remember them?

[A]

He said he never has one. He said he's never disappointed because he never starts it. And I said, I know I had.

[B]

Couldn't tell you what they were.

[A]

Didn't jot them down.

[B]

We should jot them down. We should.

[A]

But I'm saying so this whole podcast is on these big, ambiguous goals that.

[B]

We love to make, right? Who doesn't love. Who doesn't love to shoot for the new Year?

[A]

New me.

[B]

I'm gonna be honest. I am exceptionally inflexible.

[A]

You are as I am, too.

[B]

I know, because we did the presidential fitness test in high school, and the one I could never win. Almost had to ask people to push my back forward. The one where you had to touch your toes, they put a ruler between your legs. I said, well, they. I could see my toes.

[A]

It was this weird contraption that you put your toes on your feet and.

[B]

It, like, measured your.

[A]

Your stretchy distance. Could you touch your toes while in a seated position?

[B]

I don't remember if you remember this. To Kristen, we said, don't shoot for the moon and hit the stars. Shoot for the fence and possibly hit the stars. Like, shoot low, get possibly high.

[A]

So you're not disappointed.

[B]

And I think there's something to that. Granted, it was a joke, and no, I can't touch my toes nor the stars, but I think there's something to bite off very small pieces and be successful. Not because we're trying to be like a psychology mind trick, but rather smaller goals, smaller pieces with smaller supporting things are actually attainable.

[A]

Well, I want to say smaller goals. When you don't reach a smaller goal, it's less guilt. So a lot of people make these big goals in the new year and when they don't meet them, like, say if I'm going to go to the gym every single day in 2026 and then you miss a day, you're more apt to just quit.

[B]

Well, it's a devastation because the guilt is huge.

[A]

Because you had this massive. I'm going to be at the gym for 365 days. A more palpable goal. My goal is to make it to the gym once a week. More palpable. If I don't make it to the gym on one of those weeks, let's say we made it to April, one of the April weeks, life got in the way.

[B]

I'm allowed to double up the next week.

[A]

Yeah, but I'M saying it's so much easier to say to fall off the horse and get back on when it's a small hurdle than if it's a diet hurdle.

[B]

I said to myself yesterday, I go to the gym, I use my beep. You know, you check in. I was like, I'm surprised nobody tackled me for identity tests because they're like, surely you're not Heather. She hasn't been here in months. But I said, all I have to do say to myself is walk through the door, scan the thing. If I turned around as odd that would be. That's my goal. It's such a tiny one.

[A]

Of course.

[B]

You walk in there, so many people, right? And I'm like, on new faces, they think I'm a loser. A little baby, right? So I went to my little baby.

[A]

Kwana and I did.

[B]

Little baby.

[A]

Did you lose your mommy?

[B]

Yeah, I put as a little baby weight on here. Is anybody using this little baby set? Do you want me to tell you.

[A]

How to do it?

[B]

But I went and I'm like, wow, I feel great. My legs hurt, but I hardly did any weight. I was behind the eight ball and everything. But I. Right. So okay. Gam's like, are you gonna go every day this week? I said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I will be taking myself out to lunch every day this week.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But my goal was that today I said I was and I did. And I think that that applies to these things. Incremental improvement is far better than massive improvement with massive fall off.

[A]

And it's not even saying massive improvement. It's these massive goals. The massive words. It's so easy to blah, blah, blah to say words.

[B]

I'm going to be double my sales.

[A]

Yes. I'm going to double my sales. Juicy Love. It sounds delicious. Delectable. Let me chew on that a little bit longer. It's so hard to turn that and the fall off when you don't double your sales.

[B]

Well, it's so easy to fall off.

[A]

It's so easy. So instead of making your goals so big, such a giant Mount Everest, if we make more smaller goals, not as juicy to say, but more attainable, we're going to have a lot better shot at this whole thing.

[B]

I like the Mount Everest approach. I'm going to climb Mount Everest. Could you imagine how nice that would be to post a Facebook? My goal in 2026 is climb Mount Everest. You know what's a lot less sexy to do in 2026? My goal is to hike around Burke Lake three times. Berkeley. But I Want to say down the.

[A]

Street, to get to Mount Everest, you.

[B]

Have to do Burke Lake thing. I think we kind of fall in love with. Nobody's going to want to see that. I walked around Berkeley. No, nobody want to see. You're not going to get a lot of social media like. But if I don't walk around Berkeley. But maybe Everest was never the goal anyways. Maybe it was me hiking and then I get to Old Rag, which is Virginia's little mountain or something, and then I go that and I go to somewhere new.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Maybe in 2030.

[B]

And that would be the applicable time. But it doesn't matter. I'm a person who hikes. Yes. I'm not a person who won. And you see the Mount Everest. I'm not sure why. I'm obsessed. And I'm sure most of it's AI now. I know. But the Base Camp one, Base Camp two, Base Camp two, Crazy, crazy. And I'm envious of those people. But I'm also scared that I ever find myself there. Um, I think it's a good time to bring up a story about my ex, because it feels like I didn't talk about them today. Rob would just come up with these massive goals. They had to start at 12am on New Year's at the beginning of the year. And if at any point there was a gap in the goal, the goal was no longer in existence.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right. And I would tell myself, I would say it to him, of course. Tell myself, bo, I would say to him, why can't you just go right now? It's 2:43 today.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It was obviously going to the gym or going to meal prep or something. And I said, can't you just go? I'll go with you. No, I've got stuff to do right now. I got to start it on a Monday. The first Monday of the month. The first month of the year. The first half years old. So it's just. And I was like, frustrating because the person you want to be is at 2:43 right now. Okay. So now you're like, okay, guys, I guess got to sign up for Mount Everest. No, that's the point of today's podcast is sometimes we reach the new year, you can get so distracted with massive goals. You actually lose the whole point of them.

[A]

And you are sitting with Nathan in the car not remembering what your goal was.

[B]

So one of my spreadsheets that's actually pulled up right here is my calendar countdown. And that's how I used to kind of Cory and I Meet every Monday, and I tell her what's coming down the pipeline. And it's based off of this calendar that I've used for a couple of years now. This year, I didn't say, let me from the ground up, make a calendar. No, I said, let me take last year's. And what's some three things I didn't like about how the spreadsheet was structured last year? Let me just change this. Yeah, I made the headers bigger. I made a blue color across the heading. And then I think I reorganized how they do so they actually fall in line better with how our meeting is structured. That's three things. That's three exceptionally small, like changing the color of a cell. Nothing. But it's a better spreadsheet than it was last year. It functions better than it did last year.

[A]

A lot of bakers listening to this have things in place already. You're not starting the business. The business has been started. You have things in place that have been working for you. It could be the spreadsheet of yesteryear that might need some tweaks. But instead of being like, I'm going to overhaul everything. Massive, massive undertaking goal.

[B]

Small incremental tweaks is actually the goal.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Because, you know, Cory and I were saying, like, what do you tell a person who is doing all the things and none of them are working? It's easy to tell the person doing nothing. And Corey is the same. When we onboard a new client, we're like, they're doing nothing. So everything. They're going to act like we descended from heaven. But what do you tell a client who. Who has experienced us for years, and they're like, how do we improve this? Well, it's now incremental improvements over time, and that's what this is. Now we're going to start off kind of with basic goals here, but you kind of get the gist that you take this way too chunky, this. This bone in ribeye with all the fat on it.

[A]

You're Mount Everest.

[B]

Near Mount Everest. We're going to take the trimmings, we're going to take the small hike, and we're going to bring it back down to reality. It is exceptionally easy to meet these goals, which is great, but they will improve your current status.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So that's the whole thing. Like, it's not. I'm not going to post about these. They're not postworthy. No, but they are. They're exceptionally valuable because I'd rather have 1% improvement every month a year, which turns out to be 12% than 10% improvement one month of the year. And for the rest of you, I see nothing. And then come Christmas you're like, where are my orders? Right. So the first one.

[A]

Social media.

[B]

Everyone wants to be on social media. It is the current marketing flavor of the past couple of years. If you're not on social media, you're not making as many sales as possible. Great.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I'm going to add a thousand followers this year.

[A]

And I, I see a lot of. You're like, why? Didn't say. I see a lot of bakers being like, help me get to 4,000. You know, 4,000, 4,000.

[B]

I can't even imagine there's a room full of a thousand people. You'd be shaking in your. I want to get a thousand followers a year. What a nice lofty goal. Thousand divided by 12. It'd be a 120. I can do that. Okay. Would you rather a thousand people and none order from you or. Here's one and we're gonna, we're gonna walk it back. I like to grow my page by three local followers each week.

[A]

Three people a week.

[B]

Right. That is nothing. That's nothing but three people. And Corey and I have a. I made Corey do a case study for me yesterday to talk about it. Three local people who could order from you is far more valuable than a thousand people that you got through a follow train or going viral through a reel that reached everybody rather than reached three local people.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

So 52 *, 3156 people is all we'd be looking at. You're not going to post on social media. It's not going to roll.

[A]

You. Listen, we're not going to make. My goal is to make, to have 156 new followers that I had a.

[B]

Rough. That your whole 20. But if I say to Corey, if you had 156 orders at Christmas time, you, you'd be saying, whoa, Whoa.

[A]

Whoa. If 156 people show up to my December 2026 pop up, I'll be sold out in a matter of.

[B]

Minutes. And these aren't just 150. Hey guys, I'm looking for three followers. No, you're saying I got these people they followed. They found me through this group post. They said I'm interested in cookies or I met them through a cookie class or they stopped at my vendor booth and I told them, would you go follow me on social media? I actually sell very similar things and stuff like.

[A]

That.

[B]

Yeah. So you're going to do that. And this is how you're going to do it. Now we've taken this. I want to get three local followers each week. What is two supporting goals to get to that? I will post one local featured.

[A]

Business each week to my.

[B]

Page. Stepping Stone 1. Stepping Stone 2. I will Stepping Stone 2. I will cross post that featured business to one local group. So we're now we're making one post of the page. Definitely one post about this to a local community group that will lead to these three people who can order from you. Yes. Yes. 156 is Brick.

[A]

Lake. It is Brick Lake. And my goal in 2026 is this. This is my.

[B]

Goal. Everyone knows I live in Burke. And it's. They're like, and you can go for free if you live in Burke, but you can't go for free if you live anywhere else. Uh, so what is this is the Burke Lake approach to the Mount Everest.

[A]

Question?

[B]

Yeah. Imagine you get to Mount Everest and you actually can't reach the top. Just as devastating as.

[A]

Not. It really.

[B]

Is. It really. I walked around perfectly. I got around all five miles. Uh, so yeah, instead of that big, chunky, ambiguous goal of a thousand followers, which is lofty. I love it sounds juicy. It sounds wonderful. And if you do it, look at all, you'll be able to say, I'm. I've got 5,000 followers this year because I rolled up from a thousand because that was my goal. Wonderful. How did you get.

[A]

This? Yeah. I want to say, and Heather will tell you about what she made me do yesterday against my mom. But I did. It was great. Our Facebook page, Sugar cookie marketing's Facebook page has a juicy 118,000 followers. 118,000 because I made some reels that were ambiguous. It didn't say, are you a sugar cookie baker looking to go? No, it was an ambiguous decorating video that went.

[B]

Viral. And the viral chooses what it wants. Right. So it's not like, oh, shoot, let me take viral. It just happened. But now we have an 118,000 non realistic people on paper. To say we have 118,000 followers.

[A]

Sign up to advertise sounds great. And you're like, oh, what I wouldn't do for 100. Let me tell you, they're not valuable.

[B]

Followers. They're great, probably great people and they like great content, but they're not buying the cookie college and they're not joining the sugar cookie marketing group and they're not shopping at the venue Blender. So they're not.

[A]

Yeah. So I'm telling You break up with that Mount Everest because it ain't what it looks like. You like. Well, with 100 to 18,000 followers, they're probably seeing more of your content. Yes, they see a little bit more of the content, like the average rate of the page post. But it's not. It's not converting into.

[B]

Anything. Right. I asked Corey this question a couple weeks ago. I said if you could press a button, a giant red button on the folding table we have from Walmart and half the members in the sugar cookie marketing group, only removing people who haven't posted in three years, would you press it? And course I did press it.

[A]

Twice.

[B]

Right? Because there's. I have a group of 50,000, but I'd rather a group of 25. Really. 25,000 really active bakers because there is quality and there's quantity. So back to the goals here. Three local people are willing to buy. Now here's my funny story. There's a local community group. It's actually a public group. It is my arch nemesis, which means it doesn't matter if you're in it or not. You preview it. It turns out I'd been seeing it, but I wasn't in.

[A]

It. Oh.

[B]

Really? Yeah. So I had been seeing if you guys in our area. IHOP's gone. Denny's. Get outta my way. It's these things called first watch. Never been.

[A]

Diners. My sis, my little sister loves.

[B]

It. Yeah, our mom and our. Our mom and our little sister go all the time. But even they've said it's too.

[A]

Expensive. It's like a breakfast brunch.

[B]

Place. Yeah. So first watches are taking northern Virginia by storm. If something close, it's the new mattress factory. But it has eggs in it. So I've not been. I should go. It's just the thought of paying that much for an egg and I love.

[A]

Eggs. I.

[B]

Don'T. I love.

[A]

Ihop. Listen, I just went to Cracker Barrel this week. You'll never. You'll pry it out of my cold in my.

[B]

Hands. I love a.

[A]

Cracker. Cracker.

[B]

Barrel. I love it. So there's this first watch they're opening in an area called Manassas, which is just a little south of D.C. it's where I.

[A]

Am. It's the next little town.

[B]

Over. Next little town over. So the first watch, it's in construction. However, it seems like it has a stucco finish. Stucco finish. And the F keeps falling out of its little hole. So it looks like erst watch. And the F is swinging down. I don't believe this is the first time the F's fallen out. I think it's the second time the F has fallen out. It's at a major intersection and.

[A]

One the business is not even open to that.

[B]

Yet. And it sells eggs. So I Cory, we're having a marketing meeting. I said, I think this would be fun, but you have to act super.

[A]

Fast.

[B]

Yeah. In this group called Manassas, Talk is the first watch. The F is falling off and people keep posting about it because it's at the stoplight. So they're sitting there now. It's become a weird, tiny group joke. And then the comments are super funny. Someone's like, where's Vanna White? When you needed to push the F back in? Because the F hasn't fallen out completely. The comments, hilarious. So Corey's like, I actually have all the colors ready to go. So I sent her one of the pictures from some yes. Member took at the traffic light. So Corey calls me and she's like, okay, I got the cookie. And it's just the F is a little off center. She's piped the front of the building. She goes to the group and she was like, I don't know. What was the.

[A]

Caption? I said, I don't know what all the hype is about. I'm really excited to eat at Erst.

[B]

Watch. But it's on a cookie, Right? So she posted, of course, I'm in there joining the group and hyping up a comment.

[A]

Section. It does say at the bottom, just, you know, this is my submission for Marketing.

[B]

Monday. Here's my Facebook, which it was required by the rules. Right. Okay. So first of all, the admin's like, this is super funny. The admin who approved your post said, this is very funny. Yeah. Then the guy who took the photo said, this is very funny. And I said, this is very funny. And then I would see a lady and she was like, it's so funny. I was looking through your page. This is so funny. It got my attention. I'd love to just have you on my Rolodex to place, order.

[A]

Show. And I get that.

[B]

Yeah. That post, granted, you did move quickly and I was impressed by it. You had to move. I said, cory, you had to move quickly. This.

[A]

Is. You either do it today or don't do it at.

[B]

All. Inside jokes only last her so long. But now Cory has this one extremely strong lead from a local group.

[A]

From extremely hyper local.

[B]

Joke.

[A]

Yes. Unfortunately, that cookie is not going to do numbers outside in the world. No, it will only numbers In Manassas. In Manassas is the bordering town to where I actually service.

[B]

Okay. Right. Now, you've said you've tabulated it. How many likes in.

[A]

This? So on the post itself, 300.

[B]

Likes, which is impressive for that.

[A]

Group. Great.

[B]

Yes. It matches the other erstwhile watch.

[A]

Posts. It does. It surpassed the.

[B]

Others.

[A]

Right. And for me specifically, 25 new local Facebook.

[B]

Followers. So, of course, halfway through her 2026.

[A]

Goal. I get.

[B]

That. But do you understand that 25 is not nothing, but it's also absolutely.

[A]

Everything. 25 people who can open their wallets and pay me by far beats out 118,000 people who will.

[B]

Not. It's funny. We even have a local group called Northern Virginia Foodies. If you've ever been to Northern Virginia, you understand what sprawling suburbia looks like. It is tremendous miles of the same shopping center over and over again. So this group is actually Manassas, only it's highly more valuable in terms of Corey's target demographic. However, her likes are tremendously much lower than if it had been in Northern Virginia.

[A]

Absolutely. And even then, and I want to say in the Manassas talk, it's a public group, so anyone can see in it. And they do let anyone with a pulse in.

[B]

There. Okay. At the end of the day.

[A]

Heather doesn't live Manassas and she's in the group. So I'm going to say now, me and Heather have a local ladies group. That is where I live. There's only 4,000 women in.

[B]

There. But talk about that. We're hyper local buying.

[A]

Hype. And me and Heather check. We make sure you are local.

[B]

To get into the.

[A]

Group. So I want to say I made another post. Noelle. It was a little punny.

[B]

Cookie. I did.

[A]

Yes. Very.

[B]

Funny. I saw this test with my.

[A]

Goals in 2026 on there and I was able to attain seven local ladies where I.

[B]

Live. If you guys said I made this post and only got seven likes on it, you would be like, I'm a failure. But if you got seven people interested in something and they place an order, would you think you're a.

[A]

Failure?

[B]

No. And that's why we're coming back down to the big flashing big numbers. I'm the first person to take a picture of my odometer when it rolls over to the 000, whatever number that may be. I'm about to hit 40,000 on today's lunch drive. But that's just. It feels good to the psychology of roundedness. Oh, yeah. Seven odd number. Don't like it. Yes. But it's a great number in terms of marketing. Three a week. Odd number. Hate it Small. But three local people that came from a local group because you featured their local business.

[A]

Yeah. While a big following feels good and it feels important at the end of the day I see people with big following saying I don't have any orders and that tells me or my engagement or. And that's the biggest thing I want to come down to. Three people. Three local people who laugh at my first watch joke because they live in Manassas is so much more valuable than zero people commenting. Because I got this explosion on a viral post and I fall into their feeds. Me and Heather talk about it and I know we are at length on this point. Sorry. TikTok followings when going viral on TikTok because you made and it's often time hear my worst date story ever.

[B]

Okay. Immediately that little picture they're grabbing.

[A]

The charger cable so a lot of people will follow them and they get a huge following from this once date story. Okay. This. The date is over. The story is now over. So this creator goes on and posts content like here's what I'm doing today. People who followed you for your horrible dating story don't. They didn't follow you for your day to day so they fall off. So they might have followed you but they no longer engage with your content. Now your. Your engagement ratios are way.

[B]

Off.

[A]

Yeah. And I see content creators who have big accounts creating new accounts and they're starting from zero and people what give you.

[B]

That? How are you going to abandon a million followers? Because there are a million followers from who the erst wash did I.

[A]

Mean. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Hypernetic. Okay. Email marketing. The big Mount Everest goal. I'm going to send out a newsletter every month. Doable and you mean the girls. That's pretty.

[A]

Doable.

[B]

Yeah. It's only 12 emails. Okay, let's. Let's Burke lake this bad boy. I want to say at the.

[A]

End of the day we know.

[B]

Ourselves. We know ourselves. We know that 12 sometimes I'll be like yeah, I know we're gonna work out. Okay. I will organize my client emails into a spreadsheet. Well Heather, that only takes me two clicks. I use.

[A]

JotForm. But listen, last year 2025 you didn't send out 12 emails.

[B]

Why? Probably because you didn't organize. You have to walk around Berkeley and the first half the first mile around Berkeley is getting those client emails wherever you storm. If you use Jotform, if you have a Website. If you take them through Facebook, you're have a much longer task here than the rest of us. And you can put them in a spreadsheet. Yeah, you're gonna put first name, last name, email. That's a bare minimum. I'm not even gonn mad and I saw it. When I said it to you, you were like glazed and confused. I used to be cream glazed. Okay, that's it. If that's all you had to do and you're like, well, that only takes me five minutes, then congratulations. You went to the gym for you walked in, scammed your.

[A]

Wow. Your goal, your New Year's goal's looking good.

[B]

Girl. You're not gonna post about it on social media. We know that. Then imagine that.

[A]

Post. Guys, I am putting my emails in a.

[B]

Spreadsheet. What email did you get me? You are now in a spreadsheet. Thank you so much for coming to my TED Talk. A second one. I will sign up for mailchimp, which is free, and I will import this.

[A]

List. Okay. And I want to say that even what Heather just said sounded easy. I'm going to sign up for mailchimp. There's a learning curve to, to designing.

[B]

Your. You get to. You tell me how to export a CSV file because they only accept.

[A]

CSV. Okay. Because that sounded good. There's. There's work and knowledge behind even that.

[B]

Sentence. But imagine if you. The person who remember the big chunky one was, I'm going to send out a newsletter every month. Unless they do this, they ain't sending out the newsletter. They can write that. I know, but they're not going to do it. So we organized my client emails into a spreadsheet and with that spreadsheet, we imported into mailchimp. And now I'm going to just send out one email each quarter. If you want to do more than that, you can. But the goal, the Berkeley is I'm going to send out email. That's four emails. That's four. That's four more emails you sent last year.

[A]

It. It is. It's not 12 emails.

[B]

So. And you're.

[A]

Like. But here's the.

[B]

Thing. Quantity and quality. This is a hybrid approach. It is good enough to go out, but great enough to.

[A]

Open.

[B]

Yeah. Here's the thing. In those emails, you could feature that one local business you featured because everyone's like, hey, but you guys didn't say what I put.

[A]

In. That's what I. We're making art. And I in the cookie college, we do a Monday morning roll.

[B]

Call. I really Enjoyed watching this, by the.

[A]

Way. Thank you. And it's a topic I bring to you guys. And they kind of build off, but instead of making our content, instead of working for our content, our content's working for.

[B]

Us. I think you're gonna feature the urge to watch Case Study, which is still going. Cause you posted that yesterday. It was very interesting. It was the sales pitch. I wanted to read that that whole group after I joined it was littered with Monday morning sales.

[A]

Pitches. It.

[B]

Was. But I'm like, the only one that's funny is this.

[A]

Earth's. I know. And we said, local groups gift.

[B]

Those moments to you and you have to run with them. You have to be quick. And you'd always have done the Eddie. But it funny to see it piped and.

[A]

It. It made the sales post without the sales. Like, I didn't have to be like, and I make cookies. Like, obviously this is.

[B]

Done. I'm gonna tell you guys, it's not just like, I posted it. Corey's like, call like, what should we do? H1 tag. I was like, no, scrap the H1 tags. I don't want it to separate. Should I do a line break? Let's. Let's concise it. Can we change out this? Listen, strategy's always gonna happen. Okay. Three. Website.

[A]

Okay. Oh.

[B]

No. It's that little thing sitting on our shoulder. I know. I need a website. I'm going to get a new.

[A]

Website. I see. Was say it all the time, guys, look out for a new website coming from me this.

[B]

Year. Then you come to the SEM group as a normal Everest hiker would and say, guys, what website should I sign up for? That is. You're going to have a confirmation bias. You're going to sign up for the one I use because it's the one I use, it's the one I like, and it's the only one anyone should.

[A]

Use. But I want to say, what website should I use? Broad. People shopify. Square.

[B]

Broad. Like we're broad, broad, broad. Let's go back to Berkeley with website. I'm going to start taking orders through draft forms. So if you don't even have a website, if you're still taking orders through Facebook. Message. Yeah, Instagram.

[A]

Helen. I see a lot of people comment, claim.

[B]

Okay. Right. I see a lot of people saying, I can't access my messages anymore. Okay. We're going to pipe them through Jotform. Very simple. Jotform is actually free as well. You can see that I've removed a lot of the barriers to financial Entry. I'm going to start taking orders through Jotform.

[A]

January.

[B]

January. That's it. That's what we did. We set up a job form. We learned a new app. We asked 10 questions. First name, last name, email, phone, what do they want? And we didn't even integrate payments. We didn't even do that. Although it's included in the free.

[A]

Plan. You. If you want to get lost in the sauce of the Jotform sauce, keep it simple.

[B]

Stupid. Just keeping it.

[A]

Simple. We just need the basic information. Because when we get the basic information, we can make the order before.

[B]

Everyone thinks they call you stupid. KISS is an acronym. Keep it simple, stupid. Let it be your guiding principle. Because the shorter your form is, the more conversions you get. I used some app I was using. I was like, just so you know, the less. Oh, Eventbrite. I was looking through Eventbrite to change some settings and check something out and it was like, yeah, you can ask custom questions, but why ask custom questions when you could make a.

[A]

Sale.

[B]

Yeah. And then ask questions later after you have their money. So it's really.

[A]

That.

[B]

Yeah. A very simple job.

[A]

Form. Okay. And.

[B]

Then. And then maybe in February, maybe in March, when I have the time, I'm going to test out my custom bakes versus square. I see people talking about them. One's a little bit more involved, one has a little less flexibility. I'm going to try two of those.

[A]

Out.

[B]

Yeah. Then I'm going to pick one. Guess what? I have a website. It's simple, it's bare bones, but it's.

[A]

Something. It's.

[B]

Something. It's.

[A]

Burke. Like, we got some branding colors, maybe not some brand fonts. You know, it's.

[B]

There. It's able to convey a message. It can rank. I'm not even telling you. Get a domain name and custom and then add the dmar. We're just bricklaying this.

[A]

Thing.

[B]

Right? Right. Everest will come and maybe by the time, in 22 more years or three more years. It's not the biggest braggadocious thing, but you got there. Got to base camp.

[A]

One. If you said to yourself, I'm going to have a website anytime in 2025 and you do not have a website yet. This point is for you because it's so easy and juicy and great to say those words, but it's so hard. There's so much work behind website. There's a lot of work behind it. So let's break it down into something more palpable, less flashy, less braggadocious.

[B]

Doable. Tiny goals are great because I don't have to tell anybody about them. But that's the fun parts, but that's the juicy part. And that's what I'm gonna say. Rob. So sorry. Rest in peace. I don't know where he is. He's probably destroying somebody girl's life. But I want to be like he was. He would love to write on social media. I want to learn how to fly a.

[A]

Plane.

[B]

Yeah. And everybody like, oh.

[A]

This. Let me know when you take your first ride. Let's meet up at the airport.

[B]

And we're gonna take off together. But I was like, why don't we watch some YouTube videos about what it takes to fly a plane? Turns out it's like $15,000 in this area. Upwards of 25,000 just to.

[A]

Invest. Not outside of the time investment. The financial investment and the potential.

[B]

Of death is right there. So. But how fun was that to type in? Oh, it felt good. We'll fly.

[A]

Airplanes.

[B]

Enter. Oh, I'm drowning in, like, somewhere. Okay, so another one. I see people bite off more. They can chew overwhelm. You're trying to climb Mount Everest. Photography. I'm going to improve my photography. Well, Heather, that's. That's fair. That's not an Everest. It's an Everest in that it's not defined. Yes, because. Well, what are you going to. How are you going to improve it? I'm going to get better at it. How are you going to get better at it? I'm going to improve it. Why do you keep asking? So, Berkeley, mile one. There's five miles around four and a half corn. I know. I'm going to purchase a matte color backdrop. Yeah. Little white. One little white drop or. Well, I think I got to then make it. Just make it. Have one by the end of January. Have something by the end of January in your hands that we can take a photo on. Well, then I need to get this camera in the stand, just making a backdrop. Right. Because. Because that's going to vastly improve your photography, regardless of which camera you.

[A]

Got. Sure.

[B]

Sure. Then we're going to buy one white, simple plate plate.

[A]

Because. Well.

[B]

Then. Because you get lost in the sauce of the Mount Everest of props, then you get overwhelmed. You're not going to do it. We're getting one plate. Cory and I were talking about this as we were setting this storyboarding this podcast. Would rather you have one consistent style that makes a ton of sense and sells than every style that feels discombobulated and unmatched.

[A]

Yes. I've Been doing photography for years. Specifically every cookie I've ever taken probably has one photo attached to it. At the end of the day I do grab a plate very.

[B]

Often. I think you grabbed a nursed watch plate. If I can remember the.

[A]

Staging. It was a little marble, little marble.

[B]

Square. It was very.

[A]

Simple. It's very simple. It's white on white on.

[B]

White. If every inquiry she does the propsing or whatever but she's been at this. She's been at the bottom of Mount Everest for years climbing up. If your Berkeley is one plate, a cookie on the plate, a white backdrop and an overhead. And every picture you took was that way and incrementally because you're going to hear that the next step is downloading Lightroom and figuring out post processing. Incrementally it got a little bit better. At no point could you be like here's what it was and here's where I am. You're going to be like, I can see a.

[A]

Difference. This past weekend I decided to declutter my digital.

[B]

Footprint. Corey brought a computer to my mom's house and never looked up.

[A]

Once. I never did. Okay. I. What was crazy. It was the funnest journey from my first photos. My very first photos. I was clearing them out because you were right. You only need.

[B]

One. You only need one and you're not using it and I'm not using.

[A]

It. That was just more from memory sake. But to see where I started to where I am.

[B]

Now. Incremental improvement over a long period of time. Berkeley, Berglake, Berg Lake, Berkeley, Everest.

[A]

Yes. Years I went through years of how my photos were too bright, too.

[B]

Dim. Yeah, I remember you're over cluttered. I know you're all cluttered. Yeah.

[A]

Right. And that's taken years. It wasn't that I just bought something and it was like bam.

[B]

Great. It never will be. Once you make peace with. You're bad at everything, but you can get good at.

[A]

It. Exactly. So it was crazy to see how that incremental thing and I saw year after.

[B]

Year. But you don't see it frog in the pot. Which they disproved, I guess. But frog in the pot comparison is small. Incremental improvements are hard to notice until you realize you're at a massive.

[A]

Temperature. Oh yeah. If you looked, if I showed showed you a photo from when I first started to a photo now you'd.

[B]

Be like two different.

[A]

People. Who's the beggar behind this.

[B]

One? Who did you donate? Packaging. I see this one a lot. I'm going to improve my packaging. What an honest, simple. Yeah. Not ever sounding tensions. Right. But actually behind that because it's so ambiguous, it could actually lead you to over purchasing trendy packaging and then you feel overwhelmed and then you have to do that awkward decluttering where you're like, is, I may want these. I know I'm losing money on.

[A]

Them.

[B]

Yeah. Instead, consider the Burke Lake approach. I'm going to source my workhorse customs box. If you have one box or your house is burning down, you just grab these boxes because these are it. These are at least the bare minimum that I'm going to start to work with. Instead of having 50 different styles of customs and I have 25 of these and it's only three of those left. And you are like, oh, wow. It's hard to track what I've got. Even if you needed to donate those or use them up as DIY kits, which Cory kind of does. Get that stuff out of here and get your workhorse customs box.

[A]

1. The workhorse custom box takes up a small square.

[B]

Footage. I'm sorry, asterisk, customs orders box, not a box that is custom printed. We're talking about simple Amazon brown or white. Yes. Window, if you want.

[A]

Yeah. The footprint of just having your heavy hitters is so much less than having.

[B]

Everything. Everything's a.

[A]

Wrong. Everything takes up all this.

[B]

Space. It takes up everything. Everything is everything. It costs everything and it gives you nothing back. It's the Everest mountain of boxes. If you feel like your box or packaging collection is a mountain, you need a Berkeley kit. And I'm not even opposed to you going to one of those cutter buy yourself trade groups and offloading some of that packaging to free up the mental space to walk around.

[A]

Berkeley. I told myself, if you dare, I stiff lifted just like I am now. If you dare buy another ounce of shred, that's there's a big box.

[B]

Of shred here you need to go. No, I.

[A]

Know. I wanted to have colorful shred, so I started collecting colorful shred. Here's the thing. Shred takes up a ton of.

[B]

Space. It's.

[A]

Shred. But all I truly need is white shred in my white bakery.

[B]

Box. Lena said you guys said improve packaging if you want to charge more money. And now you're just taking this back to nothing. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm going to experiment with tulle and bows that match my brand. Very simple. Right? So we're taking it back to the basics. We got a white box, window, white shred. So we got nothing conflicting with the thing and now because the packaging is so simple, the accoutrement can be a little bit more zhuzhed.

[A]

Yeah. And she says packaging is simple. I want to say pack. The packaging is now.

[B]

Universal. Yes. It's guaranteed there. It's my, it's my.

[A]

Work. Whether it be. Whether it's on a retirement party set of cookies or a bright birthday set of cookies. The white bakery box on the white tread matches it.

[B]

All. But you're like, what about that cute box from BRP Box Shop? That bag that has the win time? Yeah. I'm not telling you. You can't do that. We need our basics handled. We need a Burke Lake so we can go to Mount.

[A]

Everest.

[B]

Yeah. And then you're going to say, I'm going to get my business card professionally printed so I can attach it to each box. So not only do we have a white box full of cookies. Wonderful. We've added a tool that matches our brand colors. Corey's would be orange, that orangish reddish color. And then a bow if she wanted to, depending on how she likes to look. And then now she's going to take a little bit of ribbon, her professionally printed brand matched business card and attach it there. If that's all that came out of her bakery this year, she would have improved her packaging monumentally Berk Lake style.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. While it's not custom, flashy mixing bowl, cookie company across it. It looks very much.

[B]

Professional. What's going to happen is these workhorse approaches, these Berkeley approaches are going to allow you to pay for that custom box if you want to down the.

[A]

Road.

[B]

Absolutely. Skill.

[A]

Set. Skill set. This one you probably won't post. I have seen some bakers be like, this is a class I'm gonna take. This is the florals. I'm gonna make love that for.

[B]

Ya. Everesty. Great post, Everesty. But what if we say, okay, I'm gonna add lettering to my.

[A]

Customs.

[B]

Great. Love that. It opens a huge channel for more money. Upsells those elf things with the names on them. Doing great things. You put a name on a cookie that kid's teacher gets. Parents are okay, but that's a little bit. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start in lettering. Post that. Delicious. Likes fun flying planes. Rather. I'm going to source one class of focuses on basic lettering. So you're going to go to sugar cookie marketing. Then you're going to realize it's a baking group question. You're going to be frustrated. I'll get you over there. Don't worry about it. And the baking group. You're like, guys, I'm just getting started in lettering. Do you have any beginner classes? I don't care if they're on YouTube or if they cost money. I'm taking just.

[A]

One. One. Just.

[B]

One. So you're gonna get 50 people saying a bunch of different links and you're gonna find the one. One. You're just gonna find one. Yeah, you're gonna take it. You're actually gonna take that same class three times. Each time practicing with the instructor to see if you can improve your thing. And then finally, you're gonna realize you need one projector in one stand. You're gonna go back to the baking groove. Cause it's definitely not a marketing question area is what projector are you guys using instead of a Seiko one? What stand you're using? It's an Archon mount. And now you have been able to incorporate lettering now for the rest of the mountain wrist year, you're actually burking, getting better at.

[A]

Lettering. Yeah. Types of lettering, bubble lettering, you know, fine lines where it's super.

[B]

Thin. A lot of it comes down to icing consistency, which is a part of this, which. That's the thing about those Mount Everest goals is there's tons of little, tiny, massive goals hidden behind. Well, you got to get the consistency right. Getting consistency right in icing is a challenge. It's a struggle. It's a whole goal in of itself tucked in behind. I'm learning lettering. These are examples for how to approach as you start, as you start winding down. 2025, we start winding up. 2026, we get that invigorated new Year, new me, or I'm burnt out from December and I want that to happen again. And I need to create a strategy. What does that strategy look like before? If it feels real broad and you know, you and you know that you and real broad don't get along, kind of take it back to this. It will be the goal. Like, I'd be embarrassed if anyone saw it, that they don't.

[A]

Mind. Yeah. I went three people.

[B]

Gym. All I had to do in January is go to the gym. But I can leave if I want to. I would never post that, but that's my goal, is just to get my buns between those doors and I can leave if I want to. That is because the goal is for me, it's not for anybody else. Mount Everest is to be able to tell a lot of people you climbed.

[A]

It.

[B]

Yeah. Can you imagine someone climbing Mount Everest and never saying it to Anybody.

[A]

Ever. Then I don't think you climbed Mount.

[B]

Everest. In fact, you see so many people, I'm climbing it the fifth time. I'm the first woman to climb it without oxygen. All these things. But that was done for other people. Imagine that you can go to a TED Talk and be like, I've climbed Mount Everest five times with no supplemental oxygen. But I won't be able to say I went to Burke Lake. But you best believe I'm going to be able to walk Burke Lake consistently. And then I'm going to be able to do whatever old Rag is or the Great Falls Trail or something. And then maybe you'll find me at U70. Whatever. I can get.

[A]

There. You can get there. It's these small, unassuming, unlikable, unviral.

[B]

Steps.

[A]

Yes. That's going to get you there. And it's. I want you to have lofty goals. But I don't want to be your lofty goals is what holds you back from reaching them. If that makes.

[B]

Sense. I was wondering if you can't remember your goals because they were too.

[A]

Lofty. I'm sure.

[B]

Was. Here's the one thing I do to keep myself honest. I don't have goals. I call it a habit tracker. Because I do believe that goals are just trying to create habits. Just branded in a way. So I have a habit tracker and it's just lame. Get to bed by 10:30. Did I do it? Oh, all I do is have to have a head on a pillow. Even if I'm still.

[A]

Alive. That would be late for.

[B]

Me. Did I wear.

[A]

Sunscreen? Did.

[B]

I? But actually, let's say I want to improve my skin care. I want to improve that skin's texture. But it's sunscreen every day. Yeah, this one I'm really bad at. Did I leave my phone on? Extra dim lighting. It makes me not want to use my phone. That's why I don't do it. Oh, that's right. Did I take fiber every.

[A]

Day? Easy. I not.

[B]

Postable. Not gonna tell people I hate.

[A]

That. Definitely.

[B]

Compostable. What? I'm exceptionally badass. No sugar. I almost have to delete it. It's not a.

[A]

Goal. I want.

[B]

To. That green drink. Yeah. Did I drink it every day? Sometimes I pour half of it out. But did it get into this pie hole? Procreate. That was a rough one. Did I walk or go to the gym? But I don't have any. If it's a 10 minute walk, it's a walker. Yeah, it is. I gotta remove this one. Hair oiling. I saw somewhere that it's actually not helping your scalp grow.

[A]

Hair. I'm sure next year it'll.

[B]

Be. I still have the hair oil. I'm not oiling it. Did I take my supplements? Very.

[A]

Easy.

[B]

Easy. The red light.

[A]

Mask.

[B]

Oh. Back to skincare. You can see that skincare is a couple of.

[A]

These.

[B]

Yeah. Did I drink this one of these a day? I'm supposed to actually drink five of these a day, but did I drink one?

[A]

How. How did you do. Is it telling you how many days you got.

[B]

It? Yeah. This is one. It's like super simple. When I click on it, it tells me my average, how often I do it and then what my I see when you purchased it. You can see when I download the app. Seven hours of sleep. That's my minimum to feel good about myself. This whitening mouthwash that helps with cavities. For some reason, I can't get it into my pie hole. I don't know what's wrong. It's the easiest one. Did I use tretinoin again? Supporting Mike Berkeley skincare thing. And did I get ready? Because I feel like my almost my 30s. I didn't.

[A]

Shower. Did you get ready a lot this.

[B]

Year? This counts as getting.

[A]

Ready. Oh, putting makeup on. I got ready every day of the.

[B]

Year. And that's not a goal you need. So moisturize my ashy.

[A]

Legs. Oh.

[B]

Interesting. For some reason, I don't like that because I don't like sticking to my veggies. But anyways, that's how I would never. It's almost embarrassing to have this.

[A]

List.

[B]

Yeah. But I say, I tell myself the more I can check off these every day is the better I feel. I just feel so much better when I do as many of these as.

[A]

Possible. One of mine that I do remember was I wanted to walk more, so I forced.

[B]

Myself. I think you walked a lot. And you also went to the gym a lot this year because you had a hitch too. I want a better marriage. Yeah, I.

[A]

Know. I had to hook it onto that one. I need the better marriage. I hooked up working out my walks on average from this year to last year. And this is great. This is not something I'd post. I walked an average of 1,000 steps more per day in 2025 than I did in 2024 more. And it's an.

[B]

Average. It's an.

[A]

Average. But that's a thousand more steps this year per.

[B]

Day. That's.

[A]

Great. Yeah. So my average.

[B]

From. What was the baby goal? Just.

[A]

Walk. Just walk more. So until I finally have the average. As we come to the end of this year, last year, average walks per day, steps per day, 5,500. This year.

[B]

6,500. Congratulations. Yeah. Feel free to post that. I like it. It's not flash. 6,500 is a lot. It's because I know somebody's like, Well, I walk 10,000 steps a day. Absolutely, you do. But she's increased her output. But for me.

[A]

By. For me, I would love to say I walked 20,000 steps a day. I would love to say that. But to me, 6,500 was a.

[B]

Lot. I always tell people this. If I could increase this experience by a percent, you'd be like, it's almost not even worth the effort. But if I increased every experience I have all day long by a percent, and let's say I have 30 experiences, a 30% increase is massive mass. We're almost at 50. We're almost at, you know, more than a quarter percent, more than a quarter increase in experience, whatever that is. If it's like, you know, if I have too much clutter decluttering experience. But to be able to walk into my closet and see exactly what I have. Wonderful experience, for sure. Anyways, you can apply that same thing to your business. It's not fun. I mean, it's not, like, awe inspiring. That little thing. Fiber every day. Come on, girl. You gotta write that down. Yeah. Do you get a. Every day? Okay, when I check it, a.

[A]

Little. Little.

[B]

Party. So, yeah. So, yeah, just a small, Small, small, small, small, small. You wouldn't even brag about it, but you would come to the sugar cookie marketing group and ask for a little assistant. I'm looking for one lettering class. Yeah, guys, I just need to find a simple plate. Where do you think I could get this for my photography staging? Not. And then you're gonna be like, wow, look at this person. They posted their Mount Everest. Good for them. We are now on we're brick liking it. We. And.

[A]

It. It comes down to knowing yourself. No one knows you better than you do. And you know that. You love to say a lofty goal. And you also know you're not the one to lofty goal it. But you do know you. So if you can say I'm actually better. And it. You don't want to be that. We don't want to be like, I identify as the 1%, but the bad. The bad guy. I only move everything up by 1%. If that is who you are and you know who you are, and you can have a Come to Jesus moment. That that is who you are. You're going to be so much.

[B]

More successful in terms of if you like how, you know, you kind of attract what you are. If you like listening to us. We're incremental small fiber check off your list. People, however, you may look at Corey and be like, well, her photography is my Mount Everest. Well, I want to let you know I saw it when it was Berkeley. Yeah, every Mount Everest person also has their Burke lakes. They just have been at the Berk lakes longer than you have. And you think, well, if I don't reach that, I'm not even going to try. They, they are saying my I've put my hands in the cement at Berkeley. That's how many haven't been.

[A]

There. And you know what's the craziest of all this? The people who have summited, which is the word summited, Mount Everest, are trying to now summit Mount Everest without auction. Like even their Mount Everest wasn't their Mount.

[B]

Everest. But you were like, well, now you'll never summit Mount Everest without oxygen. That wasn't it. Just be Berkeley. If you were just Berkeley in your bakery business, I think you're going to be wildly impressed with the incremental small successes that build up the Mount Everest business over time. Okay, so the big takeaway of this one is figure out what your goals are. Pare it down to be something. If three, three local followers a week sounds horrifyingly low achieving to you, but it's more than you're doing now. It's actually the perfect goal for you. It is. Corey was stoked to get.

[A]

25. I. I'm gonna tell you, having now done this for six years, I, I cringe when a post for me goes semi.

[B]

Viral. A real in the real.

[A]

Ecosphere. I, I cringe. And you say why I am guarding my page growth so tightly because I only want local.

[B]

Followers. Sometimes I'll be like Corey. I use mixing bowl as an example for this. I'd like to put a screenshot in the newsletter, but I know you do you want me to blur out the name so no baking from the newsletter can find.

[A]

You. Listen, the bakers who do find me and engage. Thank you. My.

[B]

Customers. And they're there. I.

[A]

See. And you are there. And.

[B]

I'm just giving you.

[A]

Kisses. But I am guarding. I don't want ginormous growth there because that doesn't pay my bills. I want such slight specific.

[B]

Growth. I tell you guys, if you think 118,000 likes on SEM is great I want to do the swing will be like, we lost 68 followers this week. We gained 100, 125 this week. We lost. Oh.

[A]

Yeah. Big numbers means big growth, big losses, big.

[B]

Swings. Yeah. So it's. But I'm like, how many people sign up for the cookie college? Yeah. How many people are pending for the.

[A]

Vending?

[B]

Plenty. Like, that's where my. My numbers. And you'd be like, I have a group of 50,000 and the page has a hundred thousand. The Vending Blendy had 7,500 that day. And that was my value number. That's my.

[A]

Berkeley. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. And that Berkeley started. This is her fifth year. That was a really tiny brick lake at the beginning. I only did one.

[A]

Mile. I love. I see local bakers, to me, my competition air quotes because they're just other people doing the same thing. They're not competition. They have a quarter of the amount of followers but are turning clients away right and left. And that tells you that it's not the amount of followers you have, it's the quality of the people. And that's the quality of each one of these. The quality of your email.

[B]

Newsletter. There's a baker out there who's doing absolutely everything we say and is still not seeing results. And that I would be so frustrated if I was them. I'm frustrated for them. But I want to say you're doing everything Everesty without the Burke Lake, and I don't think you can make that jump. What if we pare it back down to. Instead of. I'm going to do everything they've ever said on these 240 podcasts they have to post each Tuesday because that's what the whole thing is. And I'm going to focus on five concepts like they talked about in today's podcast. I'm going to send out one email, and that email is going to be worth.

[A]

Reading. Worth.

[B]

Reading. Right. I'm going to get an email list. Like, sometimes people will be like, I have a subscriber list of a thousand. And I'm like, but do have you sold a thousand? So where is this list coming from? Because it's not going to be valuable to send it out to a thousand people who've never heard from me.

[A]

Yeah. What it is is I'm going to go and I'm going to segment my audience. So the people who ordered customs are going to get one email. And the people who signed up for classes, they're not the.

[B]

Same. They're gonna get it. When you do, like a vendor market Sometimes they'll be like, here's everyone's.

[A]

Email.

[B]

Yeah. I delete that because a vendor market, let's say they got a bunch of pre sold tickets. Let's say they sold 300 tickets. But you had 30 people stopped by your booth, which is what you.

[A]

Wanted.

[B]

There's. There's 270 people who've never heard of you. And now you're sending them email. They're bogging down your open rate. They're bogging down. If mailchimp does charge at a certain time, they're bog. If they send click report spam. It just decimated your.

[A]

Deliverability.

[B]

Yeah. So that's where that did I add 30 people to. Let's say 30 people stopped in but only got five emails. Five people wanted to.

[A]

Hear. Five.

[B]

People. Yeah. Instead of 300 people who didn't want to hear from you. And now you've got the issue on deliverability. Just something to keep in mind.

[A]

Yeah. When. When I hear Baker say I post every single day. Where's my.

[B]

Leads? I gotta say, what are you posting then?

[A]

Yeah. And on paper you're doing it right. You're showing up on your social media. But if we can say that's Mount Everesty of you to post every single day. What is the Burke Lake of.

[B]

That? What is the one local featured business because it requires you. I can post. I can post every hour of the day. Oh.

[A]

You. I've seen you do it.

[B]

Girl. I seen you. But what if I posted something curated it's long form copy. It's about this very specific marketing aspect and it gets five likes. But it was five people who were like, I read the whole thing. Would I rather post every hour of the day a funny meme which I obviously like to do, or would I rather post something that a couple people were like, wow, that definitely helped me. And ask yourself where that value lies. Because posting one really solid post a day or a.

[A]

Week.

[B]

Yeah. Featuring a local business. So much better than I posted. I said I did every day and nobody's ordering. I know. And it could have.

[A]

Been. I posted my sense every day. I love that for you. Your caption isn't captivating, compelling or.

[B]

Captivating or another C.

[A]

Word. Cool, cool.

[B]

Crazy. It's kind of.

[A]

Cruddy. There's so many things that I. And that's what me and Heather were talking about. Someone who's doing everything but nothing's working. But you are absolutely doing everything it comes down to. You got to pull the onion layers back. And we got to say, okay, let's incrementally. Incrementally do something a tinge bit.

[B]

Better repetitively over a long period of.

[A]

Time.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Forced to be reckoned.

[A]

With. Forced to be.

[B]

Reckoned. What do they say? Tidal waves start as like little lumps in the water and bring them out of the.

[A]

Way. I think be the tidal wave.

[B]

Then wash over Mount Everest. Take Mount Everest. Okay, that takes us to that. We're going to be implementing the new structure of the cookie college. The cookie college of the podcast in 2026. Cory and I said and that would be different stuff that's better for you guys. However, not today. Today everyone seems pretty focused on getting their Christmas orders out. It is the 16th. Next week is.

[A]

Christmas. I have. My DIY kits are due on Friday. And one custom.

[B]

Order. And then we already taught our cookie Christmas classes. We did.

[A]

That. We.

[B]

Did. Because we've been doing it time and time again over years. We're able to sell them out ahead of time, definitely in money. So we do them on the 6th. The. The farthest from Christmas.

[A]

Day. We've done.

[B]

Them. We've done them all through the end of.

[A]

December. Over the years. We've done them throughout.

[B]

December. Oh, yeah. The closer you get to December. So somebody was asking, could I do them the 20th and still sell out? I think you'd be stopping a line of people. Grandma's in town by the.

[A]

20Th. Kids are off out of college. Off.

[B]

School. Okay, wait, thank. Christmas is on the 25th, right? Yeah, that's the theory. It is. So now we have this awkward.

[A]

Friday. That's what people are like. I hate that.

[B]

This. This is the worst one. Next year will be what on.

[A]

Friday, if you did your PTO and took.

[B]

That. You want to take off on a day nobody's.

[A]

Working. But what you're going to go.

[B]

Into the office, sit around and make sure that's. If you're remote, my friends, remote. It's almost the best day to go in because you're definitely not having to do anything. But what a waste of a. You said.

[A]

Christmas. You're sitting.

[B]

There. If you're an employer, you should give Everybody off the.

[A]

26Th. Let's say that to our bottom lines. Okay. Let's see what our numbers look like before we allow employees to.

[B]

Not. I'll be working on the 26, but everybody else shouldn't be working on the 26th. You will be working. So do you have anything speaking of this? Because we're just doing it a little bit more. Goalie 1 what goals are you thinking of setting My little Burke Laker.

[A]

In. Okay, I'll tell you because I actually told it to the cookie college on Monday. My goal is to become more relatable so I can have a better relationship. So when you think of cookies, you don't think mixing bowl. No, you think.

[B]

Corey. Okay, I love this ambiguous goal. What are your Berkeley steps.

[A]

Here? My Berk Lake steps are local content. I'm going to your dumb rug tufting class on.

[B]

Friday. I'm going to rug tufting class on.

[A]

Friday. I guess making little rugs is what the goal.

[B]

Is. We'll be at the.

[A]

Mall. But here's the.

[B]

Thing. The.

[A]

Mall. And while. And Corey, you don't sell rugs. No, I don't. But where I do my cookie classes is right next to the.

[B]

Mall. Oh yeah. It's within probably 10 minutes to 10 minutes of the traffic. Lakes are red. Two minutes of the traffic. Two.

[A]

Minutes. Right. So what it's doing is tying me to the local area, tying me to the mall where people go to and putting my face in front of the.

[B]

Camera. Now what she also is going to do because we strategize this. Your. Your team voiceover. But we think moving your mouth in front of the camera on location, beating. So a voiceover heading there. But there you talk to the camera.

[A]

Directly. Yeah. So. And because I know who I am, sometimes I want to make a video on the go. I'll just be at a place asking someone to hold the camera for me. I made Ashley do it in my wreath.

[B]

Class. Just.

[A]

Just. I said just hold the camera while I go get an.

[B]

Acorn. Like made me do that in our Christmas cookie.

[A]

Class. Yes. And I did. So I want.

[B]

To. Instead of you, you're putting.

[A]

Yourself. Myself is going to be in.

[B]

There. I want you to see me. I have seen that. I haven't noticed.

[A]

That. And let me tell you, I hate to be in front of the.

[B]

Camera. Did you. Have you seen that tik tok trend where you say, hey, could you hold the camera real quick? I'm just going to do a quick video. But when they're holding, they're like, get.

[A]

Away. Why are you recording.

[B]

Me? Why are you recording.

[A]

Me? It's hilarious. So my goal is. Is to not only create local content. I want to become your local bestie. I want you to be like, I found this off. I found this restaurant out from Corey. You might know her. She runs mixing.

[B]

Bowl. Okay. What's the metric at which you're grading success on this.

[A]

Goal? My metric is going deep into my insights and seeing where my local followers are coming from. Right now, my number one area of followers is, you'll never guess Lake Ridge where I.

[B]

Am. Great.

[A]

Great. So I have a good foundation there. Right. Right around Lake Ridge is an unincorporated part of Woodbridge a little bit bigger. Haven't tapped into that so much question theorizing.

[B]

Here. I've noticed in some of your videos, what if your ex husband texts me? Oh, what if at the end it's like. And follow me if you want more. Like, yeah, I'm a local baker, but I'm also your local money spender and I will find somebody fun for you guys to.

[A]

Do. Yeah, I should tie it in there. Whether I hold a cookie up that says mixing bowl, whether I introduce myself, it says mixing bowl on.

[B]

There. Something like that. I think you did this great content. But if you say like guys, it doesn't compel me. I see my own watching habits, especially on TikTok. They're like, we went to this. Follow me. I find more holes in the walls. Yeah, I would like more holes in the.

[A]

Wall.

[B]

Yeah. Call to action. Okay. And that's great feedback, but I can see your Berkeley gets dissuaded because you're like, why I put my face in front of the camera and I got fewest lights, like fewer fewest watches I've ever.

[A]

Seen. I know, I.

[B]

Know. So Cory and I also argue that when you come up with a goal, you have to also decide the metric by which you will make decisions. Because if you say, okay, well, viewership, well, then Corey's going to completely restructure this if her views are low. But if she's saying location, like sourcing location, then she's going to be like, that's going to guide me. I mean, if I had only five viewers, but they're all from a local area, I need it, then it's the.

[A]

Best. That'd be.

[B]

Great. Yeah, you got to kind of match it there. A lot of people like to. To say likes on posts. I see what they're saying is the. Is the reward is the metric on which I do this. But you could also say different things like lead gen page likes. There's just a lot of there to choose from. And it's your job as a business owner and marketer to choose which one of those metrics which is going to be more than.

[A]

One. And your. Your metric that you choose will dictate your content. Here's the thing. If I make local content and it's a video, my one that I want to see is the watch Time. How long did someone stay in.

[B]

There? To me that's, that's indicative of content that's interesting enough to stick.

[A]

Around. So only a local is going to tune into this restaurant. We're going today for a Mary.

[B]

Time which is about to close, which is why we're closed. I'll tell you guys, it's not.

[A]

Evergreen content because it's not gonna last. They're closing. But what it's doing, if someone stays around locally for that and I can keep their attention and they watch till let's say 45 seconds or 90 seconds, that tells me that content is. It is doing well with my audience. It is. What is the word I'm looking for when it connects with my.

[B]

Audience? They are.

[A]

Relatable. Yeah, relatable. Something they find.

[B]

Valuable. Well, another one if you want me to throw out there. Eataly is opening in.

[A]

Tysons. I would be interested and that because my classes are in Tysons, showcasing things in Tysons for people who live in Tysons or go to Tysons who don't mind. The drive to Tysons is going to benefit me through my.

[B]

Classes. Very interesting. And then you may say, well, they're only people who are following you are interested in what's going on. That's a part of it. So then she'd make a more cohesive thing that's for every one local thing to do with your 2 year old. She's going to add, here's my pre sale line or something like.

[A]

That.

[B]

Yeah. And it's going to come up with a strategy that you're constantly going to be tweaking because you're going to have to keep tweaking it because the algorithms. And I was saying to Corey, what we did five years ago, you could never do today. My algorithm changed the marketing. The reels weren't even around. Lives were.

[A]

Favored. Things were.

[B]

Chronological. Yeah. It's going to be in a never ending state of Berkeley step.

[A]

Improvements.

[B]

Yeah. It is.

[A]

Crazy. I want to become. I want to build a relationship more. That means I will have to get in front of my camera more. While I love a staged cookie photo. That is almost the end of a sentence. And she posted another cookie.

[B]

Photo.

[A]

Period. Now the relationship starts over. But you're never getting to know.

[B]

Me.

[A]

Right. You're never getting to know the baker behind that. You just say mixing bowl makes cute.

[B]

Cookies.

[A]

Right. But you're never being like Corey, man. I'd go to bat for.

[B]

Her. And that's gonna be putting yourself more in front of the camera. I would say if you could think about it this way. If every baker posted the same thing, a custom set, how could I stand out just a little bit more? What would that be? Would be the caption is funny? Would it be the set is funny? Yeah. Would it be I. I took the photo a little differently and that's how you're gonna have to edge out your competition. Yeah. I love competitors. Keeps everything sharp. But it keeps sharp because we have to keep upping the ante. From the.

[A]

Other.

[B]

Yeah. From the.

[A]

Others. You know what not saying go have a baby for this. When bakers. Guys, when bakers pull back the apron and show like, look, we just added another friend to the family, another child. A bun in the oven that the likes astronomical. But you have let them into.

[B]

Your Corey and I say our worst traits is the wall around our personal.

[A]

Lives because we think it's boring. And it.

[B]

Is. But everyone I find myself saying I don't know you what you're telling me about here. Your husband. You caught him cheating on you with 50 women. I will now write away.

[A]

Even. Not to even that degree. There's this girl on TikTok. Me and Summer are obsessed with her. She literally has done a cleanness.

[B]

Blog. Clean Ms. She cleaning her house. I love when people start.

[A]

Cleaning. It's a 10 minute cleaning.

[B]

Video. But if they were only showing me pictures of their Windex bottles, I'd be like, I don't like this. But she's doing.

[A]

It. Yeah. And she's voiceovering and saying like I'm cleaning my pantry.

[B]

Day.

[A]

Here's. But that's something that while that content. Cleaning content you would say is.

[B]

Boring. She. The Kardashians are billionaires because they didn't realize people wanted to watch their. I know they the Kardashians. Like people want to watch how I live my.

[A]

Life.

[B]

Yeah. I'm going to show them how they live my life. I'm going to make money from it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's all interesting. So that is taking us to this one. The cookie college. I think we can start flirting with this announcement. We're going into a boot camp style in 2026. Small goals. Right. Building that out step by step.

[A]

Okay. I want to tell you why to say sign up for the college. There's 90 courses. That is.

[B]

Lofty. I want to tell people, we heard you. We're listening. Overwhelming wasn't the feature, it was the warning. So what we're going to do is big, chunky, long courses. Each time a bootcamp comes out. We're scheduled 12 next year 10 if we hit our goal. The December, November time frame gets a little crazy with your schedules and ours. But we're doing them and they're going to be between four and six hours. The way that they're going to work has been very interesting, just kind of narrowing it up. But it's going to replace any old outdated content. So the first one is going to be in person cookie classes. It's going to consolidate any of those old courses. And the current member said, Heather, we'd love to just hear your lovely voice played over hours. We don't want to do modules anymore and that is what we're going to do. So if you join a bootcamp, which I'll be talking about the beginning of January, you now have the ability to join the cookie college where that boot camp material will then archive accessible to the people within that membership. And it's a deep dive of every aspect. And we're talking a boot camp on photography, a boot camp on in person cookie class classes. Corey is strategizing the bootcamp on pre sales and pop ups. Yeah, it's going to be a boot camp on Facebook ads. It's going to be these big chunky boot camps and within it you're going to get everything you needed. And then.

[A]

It'S. But I want to say, I got to say to you, tell me a great job to say join the cookie college and grow your business. Lofty, Everesty, very Mount.

[B]

Everest. Take this bootcamp on in person cookies.

[A]

Class. Take a bootcamp on in person cookie classes and now know how to teach an in person cookie class. Palpable, chewable, definitely.

[B]

Doable. And I think a lot of people have been saying like we're, there's so much here. And I think that after four years of doing this, there is so much here. Yeah. So having it consolidated. So every time a bootcamp gets out, comes out, the people who are already members can have obviously have access to that included within their.

[A]

Membership. And it's so much more in.

[B]

Depth. In depth. So I think we can kind of really drill down a little bit deeper, really cover that. I know you guys, we want to know about tech in the class. Right. Can include that in this module and you can just let it play all the way through. Now you guys will have access to this boot camp and you can sign up for the bootcamp and then if you join the cookie college, your bootcamp fee, which is nominal, but it's to get you actually there will be refunded back to you and you can join the cookie college which will doors will close at the end of each bootcamp.

[A]

Yeah. And then all these beefy in depth, more updated things will live in the college. So the college kids, you get a more updated beefy long every month.

[B]

And it'll be a lot more hours long content. Not, not overwhelming. It's definitely going to be segmented in a. In a way that you can digest it step by step, step by step. But then you're going to know exactly what you're getting into. So I think it's going to clean up the membership. It's going to be very structured and it's going to be a fun little way to have to actually be able to see the college without having to sign up for.

[A]

It. And then it's updating the membership. So what worked for teaching classes when we made the.

[B]

Course? It's quite a bit.

[A]

Shifted. Shifted. Eventbrite been bought out. You know, features have come and.

[B]

Gone. Yeah. So this will be interesting. And I think that the cookie college students are in there now will love the content heading their way. They have asked for it. We have been working tirelessly behind the scenes. Yeah, we will be doing that. The first one will be in January. It will be at the end of January, but you have all January to sign up for that. And then at the end of January the cookie college doors will open and you could sign up and get that bootcamp fee refunded and then join us forever long you.

[A]

Like. So question. The doors are opening meaning the doors are.

[B]

Shutting. The doors will be shutting in the beginning of January to move into this money where your mouth is. And then each month you can join a boot camp where at the end of the boot camp, which is only the boot camps will be three, two to three days long. You have the option the next that weekend to sign up for the college or wait until the next boot camp.

[A]

Yeah. So the thing is signing up the college easy Mount Everesty, you know, you just put your credit card information in there. What our goal is is when you sign up, we want you to be successful. Because when you're successful at something, a small goal. I want to teach a class and we can help you teach that class. You'll be more apt to come.

[B]

Back. I also feel like some. It's kind of hard to be like guys sign up for this thing but don't look behind the curtain. You can't see it until you sign up. It's kind of hard to do. Well then they have the option to preview a membership. But then, then why Would you sign up? So this bootcamp will tell you how we work. If you like what you see, you can either sign up or sign up at a later time for a different bootcamp. But you're looking at 12 very in depth topics that we've come up with. And then those will launch at the last. I've decided. Yeah, last Wednesday of each.

[A]

Month. Listen, I'm super excited about.

[B]

This. Yeah. Corey and I spent about a ton of hours kind of retooling, saying, what are they? What are they asking for? What can we do to freshen this up? Even, you know, time in, like, how can we make this valuable today and then make sure that everybody wins? Current members, we want to keep you there. We want you to really be excited about what we're talking about. And then future members, we love for you to be able to see what you get before you have to.

[A]

Shell. Pulling back the apron a little bit, it's hard to say. Sign up for the college, you'll learn photography. What does that.

[B]

Mean? But sign up for this boot camp, which is a nominal fee that will be refunded to you if you choose to sign up for the college. If not, you'll have the.

[A]

Knowledge. Sign up for the photography bootcamp. You're going to learn how to do photography. If you like how you learned it, it. You'll learn more in the cookie college, but other.

[B]

Things. So that is the Very exciting. So look for more about that coming. If you are a current member, you're like, oh, no, you're gonna love this. So change. Love it. You're gonna love this one. It's our. It's already designed because of the feedback you've given us. And I think you're gonna really like a fruit refresher for a lot of this stuff. Refresher, refresher with a boot camp that forces you to work Bricklake, bricklay style. Yeah, I would love to be able to because Cory and I said, said, where could you go? And be like, oh, yeah, I'm getting into rug tufting. And now I'm. I'm a little baby deer fawn and I'm tripping over myself. And I'm like, wow, there's so many options. Where do I go? And a guy was very generous. It's so funny. Heather Campbell Berkshire was like, you did post that in a public group. So I read the whole thing. I said, I'm willing to dox myself because that's how clueless I am. But he was like, I see that you bought this. I actually think this is where you're gonna head. So you didn't need to buy that at all. So try this. Great. Now, where could I go that somebody. It shows me for four hours exactly what I need, what materials they use, and.

[A]

What. See a baby Bambi going all in.

[B]

All. I'm going in Hobby. I am going all.

[A]

In. Listen, this is how I. I almost look, you know, like where they have the mom, and she's holding the cup and looking at her proud child opening a. Yeah, come to mom. Because I did the same thing.

[B]

When I started cooking, and I know I'm going to be terrible at.

[A]

It. And I was like.

[B]

I. My villain origin.

[A]

Story. Yeah. Will.

[B]

Be. Last year, this guy joins Viper Group, and he's selling a viper tufted rug. And I said, oh, I'd love to buy this, but I'm not sure you're real. And he's like, you be my guinea pig. And I said, absolutely. Paid him through PayPal Business Services. He ends up never. He ends up coming up with every suit. Literally, at one point, the power's gone out. He can't power his gun. His little rug. Tufting gun. So I tell him, hey, I'm gonna have to file a PayPal dispute here. And he said, remember, he called me the guinea pig. He called me a.

[A]

Rat. Oh, you've changed.

[B]

Rodents. He changed rodents on me. Okay, buddy, listen, I'm gonna make my own Viper.

[A]

Book. I want to tell you, if you're anything like me, which you are.

[B]

But you are a little bit more.

[A]

Like, perfectionist, you're gonna be.

[B]

Bad. But yet, before you're good, I'm willing to be.

[A]

Terrible. Okay. You know, because you'll be.

[B]

Bad. Exceptionally, for a bit, redefining the word.

[A]

Bad. When I looked through my beginning photos of the cookies, I said, wow, the.

[B]

Pride. The.

[A]

Beast. The pride I had of the beast. Absolutely. But now I'll look at a set, be like, gosh darn it, that corner. You know, like. But the bees for.

[B]

Sure. My rugs uneven. The guy was like, you'll tear corners. I don't even know what that.

[A]

Means. Yeah, whatever. I will tear corners, tear corners, cry a lot. I'll cry a lot. But I was appreciative of looking back on the pride I. The pride that I had on.

[B]

This. We don't Everest before rebirth. Like, we must Burke before.

[A]

We. Like, now I'm looking atop Mount.

[B]

Everest at my beginner cookies and say, oh, you catch our. I will be that with rug Tufting, the sponsors of this podcast. Thank you so. Oh.

[A]

Stmi. About it. Goodness, you just are just boobling and.

[B]

Bobbling. Get out of here. Get out of my way. I gotta go. Stand by. I'm too busy getting.

[A]

Mine. The STL me about it segment is sponsored by Cookie Design Lab. If you've ever wanted to make a custom cookie cutter yourself and you have a 3D printer is the software you need. It is actually web based, so it doesn't take up a ton of space on your.

[B]

Computer. You get seven text in questions all from Callfire to 571-5565-644. Again, that's 571-5565-6-44. I can't believe. Let me do.

[A]

That. I was gonna stop.

[B]

You. Wide eyes. 6. I have a 6. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 6 is a double texter. It's also about goals. Oh, wow. Okay. The text and number. 318. What do you think it.

[A]

Is? 3, 1, 8. Hold on. That is.

[B]

Georgia. Yeah, Louisiana. But kind of in the same. Not even on the same. My goal for 2026 is to do cookie classes and get more orders. Maybe you'll love this boot camp, but I'll be moving again and I just moved in August, in October. Military. Lots of movement. This is a hard thing to work around, but I like that your head's here. I'm not sure where I'll be after this year and I have a seven month old that doesn't go to daycare. I feel like I'm in over my head and I don't know the best way to go about this. Do I do a class a month and then try to redo my customer group when I move? I need to bring in this extra money, but I'm terrible with marketing. Thanks for the help. Yes. I'm in the cookie college, but December has been quite chaotic. So I'll do more with it in.

[A]

January. Love that. Love that.

[B]

You'Re. Love this bootcamp. So the thing is, if this is your first class and this is what I wrote into the curriculum is that's where a lot of the cost comes in. Now there's some cheaper cost. You can definitely source some of this from the $5 below. Especially if you're moving. Like we don't want to take. We don't want to take a ton of stuff with us as we get into January. Your classes will be small.

[A]

Regardless.

[B]

Yeah. Because this is your goal. We're going to burk like.

[A]

It.

[B]

Yeah. If we can just get four people to pay you.

[A]

Money.

[B]

Great. Especially for a dry run class. And you may Be looking at more of a Valentine's Day set. So maybe do it the first of February. That way you can source your material. You obviously are in the cookie college. We have all our beginner classes which I there's super cute. Two Valentine's day ones. A Galen's day and a Valentine's Day one. The we go together.

[A]

One.

[B]

Yes. That was a little bit more complex than the Galentine's day. So possibly I'd go with the Galentine's day class. I would watch that. By the time you go to teach that class we will have this boot camp up. But we're cutting a little close. So you still have that material in the cookie college. What I would do is shoot for four.

[A]

Attendees.

[B]

Yeah. That is way small wasteful. You may even if you have a room fee you may be breaking even. But that first class is the dry run class. We always tell people if you could even do it with family but you're military so assume you're moving.

[A]

Okay. Just because I'm prior military family myself on base there's these military wives groups. That's a great thing if we're doing gallons. I know maybe they're the husbands are deployed Galentine's it's women on base. You're hosting.

[B]

It. They're also looking for community because they're moving just as much as you.

[A]

Are. The military wives group is great because it's base specific. So it's always changing ever flowing, always new.

[B]

People. I would say Berke lake it by posting in the military wives groups and getting for.

[A]

Attendees. See if you hosting it at your. At.

[B]

Your. At your home even that on base if you are base living find that kind of niche there. And then I would do. I would say I'm not going to make money. I'm not going to make a massive profit this first time. I'm not going to lose money but I'm going to get the drive run out of there. Once you've kind of figured that out now you've started creating strategy which is going to be the military wise groups on base.

[A]

Yeah. But I want to say from that first four person class you're going to have now content that photos you're.

[B]

Taking.

[A]

Absolutely. We're going to have the content that we're going to take with us. That's a very digital digital moving. So that's very easy to take with you for when you go to your next.

[B]

Station. A lot of things keep it real. I know we use trays but you could just use the parchment corn. I Use a trays to keep everybody's sprinkles in line. But if we're trying to keep cost and weight low, maybe it's.

[A]

Not. And when there's people, there's a lot more.

[B]

Space. Plastic trays, very lightweight metal trays. We have great workhorses. I've had them for five years. But not if we're moving a lot. They're tremendously heavy for some reason. So I like where your head's at. You can absolutely do this. Don't overshoot the goal here and be disappointed. Mount Everest wasn't climbed. You're just getting started. January is a harder time to sell, but it's a better time to create a control group that's very.

[A]

Controllable. Sure.

[B]

Sure. I like this. But she also sent another text. But you did win. So now you get the cookie design lab. Email me at heather sugarcookiemarketing.com and I'll get you set up with that. She said to add, my goal is to own a brick and mortar bakery boutique. And I don't know how I can do that with all the moving. Probably not until you're done.

[A]

Moving.

[B]

Sure. And we will get to your Everest in.

[A]

Whenever. Yeah. What's great while you're moving, you're discovering new areas. So while you're there, find see, is there a bakery there? Has a bakery closed down? Why did it close down? You're shopping for your future here. And it's great because you.

[B]

Can. I told Corey I spent the last week in Indiana and I said, you don't understand. It's not what it is.

[A]

Here.

[B]

Right. It's just the cost of living is different. The space there is tremendous. Versus an acre of land here is going to bankrupt you. You have the ability to kind of see these areas more, especially if you're moving so.

[A]

Frequently.

[B]

Yeah. But yeah, we're going to put that Mount Everest. You'll know it'll be your goal when husband or wife retires. Yeah. Gets out of the military. But right now we're going to make sure we have all those pieces brick laked until we're ready for.

[A]

Everest. Yeah.

[B]

Right. I like that. And then like Cory said, you can actually see the cost of living in different areas before you make the decision of where to.

[A]

Nestle.

[B]

Down.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Another text in. Have you heard of School.com? it's a platform for people teaching skills like cookie decorating virtually. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I love. I've seen that.

[A]

Ad. It is. It's the ad that's Being served everywhere. It's newer so they're really sourcing the people you.

[B]

Know. A master class. And what's.

[A]

This? You new to me is what it.

[B]

Is. Right. If you want to do that. I think your margins are exceptionally low. You're just teaching a decorating skill set. You're not teaching. You're not creating the DIY kit and sending it off to people. You're just teaching them that passive income. Yeah. I'm sure you're competing with a lot of other players in that game. I would just make sure that your margins are there. But with digital products it's pretty great because you set them and forget.

[A]

Them. Yeah. If you're not familiar with Udemy. Udemy is a great online place where you can learn to do anything. So the person teaches the class and then hosts the class on Udemy. Udemy is taking a cut of.

[B]

Every. It's not live. It's pre recorded too. Pre recorded?

[A]

Yeah. Udemy gets its cut from everyone. That and then the person who makes the class is actually marketing the class. You know, know it's. It's almost Etsy for classes if I would have to say, you know, you market your own shop and then people go and buy it.

[B]

There. And Etsy takes wonder like specifically with masterclass, who gets some math like Kim Kardashians teaching a masterclass and like past presidents. Yeah. Okay. How are they getting paid on this? But I'm curious to know like Masterclass is a subscription. It's a.

[A]

Subscription. So Masterclass would probably have.

[B]

To. Does it pay them based off of user class? Does it them? But yeah, I'm not afraid of passive income at all. I would focus on having your bakery dialed in before I incorporate passive income because eventually you could be like. Or maybe your thing is like get rid of the cookies. I'm going to just do these classes. I just think it's a high competitive.

[A]

Space. It's a.

[B]

High. Give.

[A]

It. You'll find that bakers who teach classes to bakers end up hosting their own classes because they.

[B]

Don'T. They want to make the full.

[A]

Cost. Yeah. Because at the end of the day you're doing all the hard work and then you're hosting it.

[B]

Unschooled. But you have that eventbrite concept where if they give a commission do they bring in new leads? I know something to consider. You just would have to see if they allow you to keep your class and sell it yourself and also sell it on there. It be something I think about. But no, not a post. If you Post a recurring thing on social media. Is it okay to use the same copy week to week or will that be detrimental to the all knowing algorithm? Spooky mystical noises. I my personal take on this reposting the same copy kills the reach so and the reason why I'm using this from groups specifically but I think you're talking about pages but when you create a Facebook group Facebook has this thing called admin assist. Yeah Admin assist can make recurring posts. It's constantly trying to shove it down my throat. You know what they look like when it's always an admin saying welcome to the group and it lists tags all the people and it's the same or here's our group rules just running it by you. You'll see the engagement on those specific posts is tremendously low and it tags all the people. My thing is if it's not uniquely written it's so if you guys actually check out the Wednesday wins for 2026 I put the date in.

[A]

Them.

[B]

Yeah. To kind of differentiate the.

[A]

Copy. Dare can I dare say this and I have no proof saying when you right click save as something from social media it's it's tag in your phone will be it'll have like how it's saved on Facebook like what.facebook blah blah. When you go to repost it. I do believe the algos can see that what do you call it the the text, the ID behind the metadata it knows it's a repost well.

[B]

That'S what they're saying is that Google reads metadata while it strips it out the way you uploaded it it read it. It just doesn't let you save it as that. But it knows when you they say they say and I I do think there's merit to it if you if somebody asks you to leave a Yelp review and you take the photo and post it where you're in proximity of the business it has more likelihood to take rather than be filtered out. If you took the photo from social media and then reposted it on.

[A]

Yelp. Yeah. So I'm saying the more unique the more unique you can make your content. The better it performs, the better it will.

[B]

Perform. How annoying though because it takes so much more effort. It does but it's to the point where I almost think recurring posts are a root killer. Here's a great example. It takes me a ton of time to do the weekly countdown graphic. I've done it for years because when I don't do them people riot but they don't like it when I do them, but it's so repetitive that I think it gets.

[A]

Depreciated. Oh. For some odd reason, even though your copy is different because the dates.

[B]

Are. The dates are different and the photo is different because the dates are different. It's also the psychology of. Heather's been posting these for years on Monday, so what do I.

[A]

Care? Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I think it's a great question, in my opinion, from the small test I've run. Spooky mystical noises. The algorithm sees all and knows all. They want you to put in a.

[A]

Little. Now that Instagram doesn't even let you put more than five hashtags. What that tells me is it's reading, listening, knowing your content now, so it doesn't need your hashtags. It already knows.

[B]

Hashtag. There was a wall between what the algorithm could read and what it could see. Basically, it couldn't see. It could only read your caption. And from there you're kind of indicating. And then what people are interacting are indicating what this video might be.

[A]

About.

[B]

Yeah. Now gone. Now you have visual. AI can see.

[A]

Things. Not only is AI seeing things, it's translating me into 22 different languages every.

[B]

Video. The future is now. And it's also in the future. I accidentally. I accidentally pressed a button on my phone, which now had an AI update. So it's everywhere. It's like wishing me good morning. Pissed me on my way out to work, but it was like, hey, you can turn on your camera and show me this and we can talk about it together. In fact, the other day, I needed to replace the light bulb in. In a fan in the.

[A]

Bathroom.

[B]

Yeah. And I was like, I don't see how to get to the light bulb. So it said, take a picture. And it's like, oh, I know what this fan is. It's likely a G, E, something, something. He said, grab. He said. He wrote. It wrote grab a prong and shove it in this section. It should dislodge the COVID and you should see that. So then I took a picture of a light bulb, but I was like, this light bulb is old. What is.

[A]

Walmart?

[B]

Yeah. And I was like, here's a comparable bulb, an LED bulb. That's. To that halogen or.

[A]

Whatever.

[B]

Yeah. That we can find a replacement for, and it shouldn't cause any circuitry.

[A]

Issues. I think AI is doing so much more than creating your copy. Copy that. You guys love to do a sparkle analyst. I think it's doing everything.

[B]

Now. We're in a transitionary period. It's been wild it's learning from us, and we're using it to learn from it. Yeah, I love it. It's like. But, you know, before you go and do that, we can make.

[A]

Mistakes. Go.

[B]

Check. Yeah, okay. I have to buy the light bulb. So, yeah, back to what the original question was, is I think that AI can say, oh, this is very similar to what you said. And when. And you know, I tell, I tell my grandmother. AI is not a person. Like my, My mom is very, very convinced that nobody would guess her password. She resists 50 times because she's thinking a person's like henpecking the keyboard. And I'm like, it's not. It's. It's a script. It runs faster than you can even think. It breaks these very complex passwords, and your cat password ain't gonna cut.

[A]

It. I.

[B]

Know. So it's just funny. I think AI is omniscient in a weird digital way. And you're like, how could I know? I post this twice. I think it's does. Yeah, I think something and smarter people than me have done it. Here's a question for you. Hi, ladies. I've watched the Live and the cookie college on LinkedIn, but I still don't understand how you use it beyond posting. You've mentioned needing to give, give, give before you take. But quite frankly, the posts from companies I've worked with are boring. And I don't know how to engage in a meaningful way. I don't understand connecting with people. How do I connect? I'd love a course or live one day on how do the workings of LinkedIn are its best.

[A]

Practices. I love that and I have some tips for you. You're right. So the post from business pages on our LinkedIn are snooze fests. So what we want to do is we know that necessarily the big conglomerates, Microsoft isn't going to, you know, they're posting something broad, boring, and then there's about a million comments underneath.

[B]

It.

[A]

Right. What we want to do is those people that we know, maybe someone who works at Microsoft who's making a post on their thoughts on AI, and we connect and we comment with those. There's probably like 5 comments on that little person's.

[B]

Post.

[A]

Right? That's the person. That's the relationship we're.

[B]

Building. Also local, you go to, you go to a network. 100% of people are at a network event on LinkedIn. Yeah, great. So you say, hey, I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn. You say that verbally or I'd expect to go to a networking event. I would expect a connection request on LinkedIn so now we can go there and now I could see Corey and Summer. They're both on LinkedIn for some reason they're always on they're always liking their networks posts. Yes they're commenting on know so okay it's boring. It's boring. Even what you said there where like everyone's posting boring stuff so how am I supposed to connect with.

[A]

That? Unlike Facebook where you can like privatize your feeds or whatever. LinkedIn's wide open. Wide open. So me as mixing bowl cookie company can go and comment on the person who was at the networking group earlier today's on their post about 5H vac tips and tricks you didn't know because I met Joe at the meeting today as mixing bowls LinkedIn profile I'm gonna go comment on Joe's thing. I did not know that. I did not know that fans had two directions now I do. Thank you so much for sharing that Jo. Do you see now Joe and me have a relationship going.

[B]

On. Here's what I would do for a LinkedIn question for you pitching this. I would say hey guys on LinkedIn hey LinkedIn friends. So funny. There's this local community group and my twin sister tasked me with cookifying this funny first watch that was falling off anyways here's what it looked like. Here's the followers I gained. It was a great little case study study would that land there business Okay I want to say cookie.

[A]

Content. Here's the two separate things. I have a Corey Miracle LinkedIn.

[B]

That'S been growing for years and years.

[A]

And then I have mixing bowl A lot of people are starting off both at the bare bones bottoms. You know they don't have a network of 5,000 plus like I do because of how long we've been working so they that for me would perform very well on Corey Miracle. Right. So if you don't have necessarily the audience behind you yet because you.

[B]

Just got on there get a Corey Miracle post which I'd be like he were connected. I didn't know you did cookies. Very interesting. You have a pay jacket. So there's there's two there so.

[A]

It, it's where you are at in your LinkedIn journey. But I I behoove you too if you have local in person networking groups they're happening all the time. You've got to get out and start growing your social network on.

[B]

There. I would connect I would say the same way where you're hell Bent. Heck bent on getting the local network even on LinkedIn. So it's a local employment network, but still local. Because that's way when you're like, hey, guys, I'm taking corporate orders for cookies. Here's what that would look like. I could even put a QR code to land people on your website. Now that even is posted as Corey and not mixing bowl does numbers. But Corey can always tag mixing bowl, which lists her website order.

[A]

Form. Your biggest benefit will be commenting on other people's post as either, your branded LinkedIn page that says you're a baker or your business page that says.

[B]

I probably for this one. If they're my local network and they're connected to my network, I'd post it.

[A]

Myself. It depends how you met them.

[B]

And how you presented yourself. I.

[A]

Agree. We always want to keep it. Did I say I'm Corey Miracle and I do part time bakery baking, or am I Corey Miracle the baker? You know, because it'll be.

[B]

Funny. Random idea. Let's say you go to network event. 30 people.

[A]

There.

[B]

Okay. You want corporate Eddie.

[A]

Orders.

[B]

Okay. You give everyone an Eddie QR code.

[A]

Cookie. Love.

[B]

It. You said one. Everyone scan them right now. Half of everyone but one of you will go to my. My LinkedIn profile. I'd love to connect with you. One of you guys. One of you guys who scan this, you're gonna get a free.

[A]

Dozen. Love that.

[B]

One. Everyone's gonna scan it and they're gonna be. So they're forced to end up at your LinkedIn profile. One person gets a free dozen and Eddie. Talk about. Listen to the. You're gonna go to a networking.

[A]

Event I went to in.

[B]

2026. I'll go with.

[A]

You. Oh, I'm gonna hold you to.

[B]

It. I.

[A]

Listen. Listen to Heather right now. Every time I sign you up for something, I love to bend the time Everest. Okay. Because there's a Mommy and Me.

[B]

Coming class coming in February. You already said yes. Exactly. Okay, back to our sponsors cookie design lab. Thank you so much. Baking me crazy. Thank you so much. Daisy makes got their patent. That's really cool. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Eddie, the edible food printer has Freddy. I think eddycon tickets are sold out, but you could find people reselling them in the unofficial Eddie group and the Eddie printer users group. So definitely check that out if you want to go. It's in January and Bakety Bake. Thank you so much for being a sponsor. And then Bosch, who is running a sale and we got to give a Bosch makes their way before January 1st, they're still on sale right now. Use code SUGARCOOKIE. All those sponsors are listed at sugarcookiemarketing.com you can either click on the podcast link at the top or scroll down to the bottom and get their discount codes they've graciously given us. Yes. For you guys. And when you use them to get something at a discount, you're actually signaling that this podcast is great sponsorship for.

[A]

Them. Nice. Nice. Do you have a twin beyond your rug.

[B]

Tuft? If you Food. Okay, Dossier, dossier. I got this. It's supposed to smell like some fancy 300 perfume. Corey. I had my grandmother smell it and she's like, it smells like when you go to Macy's. I said, and go to the expensive perfumes. This was $30. But I think on the website, if you don't get it through Target, it's on sale right now. Corey didn't like it. I could tell.

[A]

It. I just like a.

[B]

Gourmand. This is not.

[A]

Food. I know. That is the.

[B]

Point. It is not food. It is a little.

[A]

Heavy. Heavy. It is.

[B]

Heavy. If you heard this in a car, you're getting a.

[A]

Headache. The old throat.

[B]

Lar. But it smells like. Corey said it smelled like romantic man. I think it smells like demure woman who knows her lot in life. Oh, woman. She's on her second marriage and she doesn't care. She didn't need the men.

[A]

Anyway. Spray me right.

[B]

Now. Speaking.

[A]

Of what's yours, what is my twin ture.

[B]

Best? Cory's in a.

[A]

Purging. I am. I am in a purging mood. What's so funny is my husband's coworker loves to order. Not order. I can make it for free. He loves my sourdough bread. And when he's making like a roast, he'll ping. My husband be like, can Cory make me some.

[B]

Sourdough? Cory's husband is a police officer. This is his best police officer, Betty. Yeah.

[A]

His. His always has.

[B]

Six. His back. Weirdest. Yeah, so. So the sixth buddy is single and doesn't have family around here, all in.

[A]

California. So he's buying his.

[B]

Love. Corey had an impulse Dutch oven buy, but instead of donating it to, like, a thrift store that's going to resell it, she has created a sourdough starter kit in this Dutch oven and gifted it to this man with plenty of time on his hands to get into sourdough. That was very.

[A]

Creative. Yeah, it was very nice. Nate says he was so excited, and I wrote a little Merry Christmas note. And then I threw in some sourdough goodies for him to taste.

[B]

Test. So for some reason, Cory has become Six's.

[A]

Mother. I.

[B]

Have. And his.

[A]

Matchmaker. I. I just feel so bad for.

[B]

Him. I know you do. I just. What are you doing taking care of your other.

[A]

Son? Well, you know, he's well fed.

[B]

Now and he'll be well feeding his sourdough starter. I do like the thought. So Cory, come up there. There's a bunch of stuff she's giving her. One man's dress, another man's hoarder. So she's giving my mom heated gloves, which I didn't know you had. I know it's a good one for on walks. So they need.

[A]

It. She said she need it for bike rides. Her hands are getting.

[B]

Oil. Give it to somebody who can use it. That's just as valuable.

[A]

As. Oh, it's better than getting it and having to just donate it to a random.

[B]

Person. If my family wasn't so weird about regifting, we should have a re gifting white elephant like something. You did this in the mid garage. That's why I'm seeing white elephant with the cuz. Oh yeah. Like, hey, here's something I bought. I had a lot of energy behind the purchase, but I've never used it. And the problem is somebody's going to bring some. Some trash. Yeah, now you've ruined it. Nobody wants your.

[A]

Crap. What's crazy is these heated gloves. I had the best of intentions. Best of intentions. I don't like to walk the dog in the cold. I let my husband do that. So you know, the gloves are too small for him. So my mom was like, ah, my hands are really good for me. I said, I don't buy anything. I've got.

[B]

It. We've got.

[A]

It. And they haven't been.

[B]

Used. It'll be used by.

[A]

Mom. I and I said.

[B]

That'S. I couldn't ask if you're. If you're like, I listened to the podcast last week and I have all that stuff. I don't need any the of of it. And you want to get yourself something. My favorite thing I own is the Ororo O R O R O I just call it wet shirt, zip, full zip, sweatshirt.

[A]

Hoodie. It's heated O r O r.

[B]

Okay, listen, I know it's 100 bucks. You can do open box if you can find them. Yeah. It is the one thing you will find glued to this boy. Yeah, you I have repurchased. Here's the.

[A]

Thing. You can wash it. Heather Will wash.

[B]

It. I have a German. A phobe issue. I wash it every time I've drawn. Unfortunately, I've tried to get into two. But here's the thing.

[A]

There's. There's heating elements in it. So we were always wondering how would it.

[B]

Wash? Because I only use it from fall to early spring. Wash it, you're looking at one time a week. And the last one lasted four years of that level. And I'm turning this thing on and off every minute of the day. That to me, I owe them money. That's the.

[A]

Delightfulness. This. Heather's once.

[B]

Broke. She's had this for.

[A]

Years. It's once.

[B]

Broken. After all this last year. And I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. Olive Garden. You ain't turning over this cold table. I'm here. Yeah. Turn this bad boy on. I'll use it. I was even in the. Going to the gym yesterday. I was like, oh, the walk is so long. I have to bring my jacket. Turn it on. It just makes a little bit of difference. It lasts on low, it lasts about five hours. On high, it lasts about an hour and a.

[A]

Half. Yeah. So if you're in a like, I thought it'd be great if you went to a movie.

[B]

Theater. It's always cool. I only bring it at a movie theater. I bring it to every restaurant. I bring it to every time. It's my favorite thing. And then I don't use it all summer. I don't even look at.

[A]

It. Right.

[B]

Right. But it's one of those things I'll keep.

[A]

Repurchasing. They have.

[B]

Unfortunately. Don't tell me about something else from.

[A]

Them. Years ago. I have the scarf. Mom loves it. I.

[B]

Know. Give it to.

[A]

Some. I think she has one. I think. Go on. Bought it.

[B]

For. I think they share with you.

[A]

One. No, she got something for.

[B]

Christmas. That.

[A]

Is. I should.

[B]

Ask. That is fine. Okay, guys, we will see you next week as we gear up for a fun 2026 of marketing and frolicking and fring together. So sorry I got to end on this. There's this restaurant we're going to. It's called Rosemary's Thyme. Rosemary's Thyme. T H Y M E so, like the little seasoning thing. When we were 14, we had a laser tag birthday party party. And the laser tag teenagers who are running the thing say, can we have the birthday boys come out? That's how short our hair was. We go to Rosemary's time to celebrate with my family. And my dad looks at my mom and says, don't you ever cut their hair again. That was so embarrassing. I, me, Corey, not embarrassed, could care less. But that was the last short, buzzed up the back haircut we ever had. Yes, you've seen pictures of it. If you want to see a picture of it, I can post it. Rosemary's Times closing next.

[A]

Week. Closing due to rent increase. Not because they're not.

[B]

Amazing. So as a solidarity 2 rosemary time, we'll be journeying there for our first time in 18 years and our last time ever. Lunch.