243. Baking it Down - January Task List

Summary

Podcast Summary: Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

Episode 243: January Task List
Hosts: Heather and Corey Miracle
Date: January 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

Heather and Corey kick off their first structured podcast of 2026 with a comprehensive, actionable “January Task List” designed for cottage bakers and sugar cookie entrepreneurs. This episode is packed with practical steps to get your bakery business organized, efficient, and ready to thrive in the new year. The duo maintains their usual humor and upbeat tone while ‘baking down’ the nitty-gritty of behind-the-scenes business housekeeping, social marketing, and strategies to stay ahead—whether you’re drowning in cookies or flour-dusted chaos.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. New Year, New Structure (00:00–02:00)

• Heather and Corey introduce the podcast’s new structure for 2026, promising more actionable steps and less sponsor confusion.
• Opens with the inspirational quote for the New Year:

  “Let the success of others be a map, not a mirror.” — Heather (00:48)

2. The Essential January Baker’s Task List (03:00–48:00)

a. Refreshing Business Tools and Data

• Update & Refresh Spreadsheets: Rollover your annual tracking (orders, expenses, leads) to 2026. Archive prior years’ data for reference and declutter your working sheets.

  “Find the things that make a difference... Oh, I wish I knew this. And track that in 2026.” — Heather (03:50)

• Clean & Set Up Your CRM: Capture December customers and key details (what they ordered, child’s birthday themes, etc.) in a spreadsheet or basic CRM.
  • Prefer simplicity (Excel/Google Sheets) over big platforms unless you’re ready to learn the ropes.
  • Example: Corey recalls following up with a previous hysterectomy-cookie client as a personal touch (06:02).
• Newsletter List Update & Segmentation:
  • Add December’s contacts (with permission!) and begin segmenting by order type, class participation, etc. for targeted emails.
  • Encourage using opt-ins for healthier engagement and compliance.
  • “You can have a giant list of everybody, or a small list of some people who want to be there. I’ll always choose a small list.” — Corey (14:25)

b. Marketing Content Planning

• Outline Content Buckets/Pillars: Identify 4–5 repeatable post types—e.g., national day bakes, engagement prompts, “meet the baker,” sales offers.
  • Schedule posts ahead for consistency during busy baking times.

  • “If you did all these, you’d be a superhero, but even just a few will put you in a good place.” — Heather (02:15)

• Batch & Schedule Your Content: Use free tools (Facebook’s planner, Google Sheets) to schedule out January’s social media to avoid “photo dump” panic.
• Audit Social Bios & Pin Posts: Update Instagram bios for 2026, ensure “now taking orders” messages are current, and regularly refresh pinned posts for relevance.

  “Nothing says you’re not on top of it like a year-old pin post.” — Heather (28:25)

c. Business Operations, Organization & Legal

• Inbox Zero: Unsubscribe, label, archive—get your email down to zero and set up labels for ongoing organization.
  • “I fought tooth and nail to get there... I feel free.” — Corey (17:43)
• Financial Health: Audit recurring software/services, cancel what’s unused (“death by a thousand cuts”), set up or refresh your financial tracking (e.g., YNAB).
• Tax & Document Prep: Begin organizing receipts, mileage logs; use scan utilities and templates to prep for tax season (42:03).

d. Digital & Physical Decluttering

• Website Audit: Update for 2026 offerings, refresh holiday offerings, swap seasonal photos, and run plugins to catch broken links.
• Purge Supplies and Inventory: Organize packaging, labels, business cards, and toss (or sell) what’s outdated. Use expiration dates as freedom to let go.

  “Walmart is your storage closet. You only pay the storage fee when you pick up the item.” — Heather’s minimalist mantra (36:31)

• Cleanup Product Photos: Take a day-by-day approach in your phone library (“search January 6th”) to prune, label, and create themed folders for easy sharing (“butterflies,” “Lego,” etc.).

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3. Automation & Efficiency (52:03–54:16)

• Set up autoresponders, order workflow automations (i.e., Zapier), and templates for customer inquiries and invoices to streamline repetitive tasks.

  “If you automate more stuff, you get to think less, and that thought goes to where you want it.” — Heather (52:03)

• Clean out and organize cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox), using folder and naming conventions (e.g., “2026_MM_DD”) for easy retrieval.

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4. Strategic Market Position & Pricing (47:20–48:56)

• Audit Your Pricing: Analyze current costs, ensure profit on every item, and adjust for inflation or ingredient price changes. Knowing your numbers boosts pricing confidence and helps maintain competitive edge.

  “If you’re operating on thin margin, it’s a need to know.” — Corey (47:57)

• Review & Schedule Community/Networking Activities: Compile and rank local Facebook groups and baker collectives for regular engagement and marketing. Set up reminders in Google Calendar to post on optimal days.

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5. Seasonal & Recurring Action Items

• Cookie Class Scheduling: Tentatively plan the year’s classes now—even if themes aren’t finalized—and use platforms (Eventbrite) to set them up in advance.
• Update All Communication Channels: Make sure auto-responses, pinned posts, business hours (Google My Business), and holiday closures are accurate and reflect 2026.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Personal Touch in CRM:
  “Happy one year without a urus! …She instantly responded.” – Corey (06:01)
• Marketing Wisdom:
  “If you have to open it to smell it, toss it.” – Corey (38:18)
• Inbox Strategies:
  “You can batch delete from a contact… Do I need to access this information ever again?” – Heather (18:16)
• Letting Go of Clutter:
  “Throwing it away means I’m no longer that best version. I’m actually a worse version that wastes money... Need a Heather! She has no relation, she was never going to be the best baker. She doesn’t bake at all. She can get rid of things.” – Corey (37:47)

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Featured Listener Segments & Fun

Roomie Review (60:12)

Testimonial from Samantha, showing the value of the Cookie College membership and returning with a new mindset to use SCM as a business “toolkit.”

New “Goss” Column (65:44)

Anonymous, light-hearted baker stories—NOT customer bashing—debuts. First story: “Craigslist Missed Connections” at a Christmas market (66:34).

Upcoming Collabs & Dates (69:03)

• Quarterly Collabs: Reviews (Jan.), Meet the Baker (Feb.), AI Recreation Challenge (Mar.), Local Feature Variations (Apr.).
• Event Countdowns: Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, and major industry events (EddyCon, What’s Poppin Con, CookieCon).

STL Me About It Segment (72:05)

Listener texts—including “Word of the Year” (Corey: “Purge,” Heather: “Unbothered”) and a question about marketing cookies in a new gym (77:24).

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Listener Q&A Highlight

Marketing in a Gym Setting (77:24–79:38)
A listener asks about running ads for cookies in a new gym:

• Corey suggests leaning into “birthday, party, or class” angles and bringing samples for personal trainers.
• Heather advocates fun, gym-themed cookies (“a balanced diet is a cookie in both hands”) and engaging the staff for cross-promotion.

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Pro Tips Sprinkled Throughout

• Automate busywork early to free time for more creative or profitable tasks.
• Segment and clean your contact lists while last month’s customers are still fresh!
• Batch and schedule content when business is slow, so you stay visible all year.
• Let go of supplies, ingredients, and packaging “aspirations” that weigh down your space and focus.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:48 – “Let the success of others be a map, not a mirror.”
• 03:50 – Tracking, spreadsheet, CRM setup
• 06:01 – Personal CRM follow-up example
• 08:57 – Content buckets/pillars explained
• 11:34 – Scheduling January social content
• 17:43 – Inbox Zero journey
• 28:25 – Updating social bios, pinned posts
• 36:31 – Minimalist pantry mantra
• 42:03 – Organizing tax documents
• 52:03 – Order workflow automations
• 65:44 – “Goss” segment debut
• 69:03 – Upcoming events/collabs calendar
• 77:24 – Marketing at the gym listener Q&A

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Style, Tone & Community

• Upbeat, Friendly, Encouraging: The Miracle twins blend actionable advice with humor and a pep talk vibe.
• Clean Language, Family-Friendly: No cursing—a Grandma Miracle guarantee!
• Baker-to-Baker Real Talk: “We’re not perfect, just tripping forward together.”

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Conclusion

This episode is a blueprint for bakers looking to set the stage for their best year yet, with everything from task triage and digital decluttering to content planning and pricing fundamentals. Whether you tackle the whole list or pick a few, Heather and Corey encourage progress over perfection. Don’t let the “best version of yourself” become an excuse—organize, automate, and let your marketing sweeten the (cookie) deal.

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Catch new episodes of Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing every Tuesday on your favorite podcast platform or in the SCM Facebook group!

Transcript

[Corey]

Foreign.

[Heather]

It's a podcast. It's 2026. It's new and it's structured. It's new and structured.

[Corey]

People on YouTube can see I have a handy dandy piece of paper in my hand. And that is because there's an outline here to guide us. To guide me specifically through our new outline of our Zhuzhed Up 2026 podcast.

[Heather]

Same great marketing nuggets and know hows now in paper form just for us. So Corey isn't guessing who the sponsors are. I know.

[Corey]

I kind of like it. Okay, so our intro is, if you haven't found us, we are actually a group that' Facebook called the Sugar cookie marketing Group. You can just put that in the search. It's the number one sugar cookie marketing based group on Facebook. Congrats. That's great.

[Heather]

Sugar cookie marketing. Yeah, marketing. Yep. We don't have a lot of competition, but we're the best at.

[Corey]

Yeah, we are.

[Heather]

I have a quote. Sure. I saw this on Tik Tok. Okay, maybe read it. Remember, it said, let the success of others be a map, not a mirror. Explain it to me. Do I get it? Do you get it?

[Corey]

Let. I'm seeing it right here. Let the success of others be a map, not a mirror.

[Heather]

Right. If you have the. I'm. Oh, they're succeeding, so I'm a loser. No, they're succeeding, so follow their lead. Yeah, make it a map, not a reflection. I love that. Of your inaccuracies.

[Corey]

I love that.

[Heather]

Something to take into the new year. Okay, speaking of, I know we've done a little bit of feel good podcast. You know, we do Got this and Holy. But I think it's always important to. Also you have to do the work.

[Corey]

Meat and tate. Meat and tatoes. Meat and potatoes.

[Heather]

Meat and tates. Medium rare. Never hurt. No rarity. So it's January and you can say, you know, you survived the year. Yes. But also we've got to make it work. Yeah, you gotta make it work. Gotta make.

[Corey]

We're doing it live.

[Heather]

Project Runway and whoever that was. So here is. People keep saying, what do you guys do in January to get your business set up for success? And I created a list and nobody loved it, but you guys keep asking that question. So I'm giving you the list here on the podcast of things I would spend my January doing. And these are actual physical, digital, mostly digital activities you can do to set your business up for success in 2026. Tons of ideas. If you did all these would be a superhero. I would say if you could take a few of these and actually do them. You're going to be in a good place.

[Corey]

I'm actually going to take a few of these. My own brain for my own.

[Heather]

These are done with you and mine. Uh, okay. My big one. We talked about this in the podcast episode. Stay on track. Track, track. It's roll over all your tracking spreadsheets to 2026. The reason why I like creating a refresh spreadsheet. What are you doing?

[Corey]

My thing is out of line.

[Heather]

They're numerically.

[Corey]

Oh, they're back in front.

[Heather]

They are. That would be a lot of paper to waste front.

[Corey]

Like it.

[Heather]

We're here. We're here. So roll over your tracking spreadsheets to 2026. I like to rebirth my spreadsheets. What I do in. Cause I use Google Drive. I go to file, make a copy, then I'll make a copy, and I'll take the data from the past years of this spreadsheet. Now I've got a new copy. This would be my 2026 copy. And I'll take my 2025, 2024 data and put it in an archived tab.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Heather]

Then my 2026 data starts. That way I still have residual data, but it's not bogging down in a massive spreadsheet from years worth of data. Can I ask a question?

[Corey]

Would it behoove since we've talked about clutter? Clutter. There's clutter on your computer. Do you think archiving it or deleting it?

[Heather]

I love referential data. Okay. Because you can't track last. Sometimes you ask me, what were you doing at this time last year? And I'm able to pull it up. It's not from my memory, so I prefer to keep archived copies of data, but a new spreadsheet for each year.

[Corey]

Okay. I guess what it comes down to is make sure your tracking isn't bloated. Bloated things you're not going to reuse because you're going to be like, swimming through facts and figures if it's not well documented and you just haven't. You're like, I don't know what these numbers mean.

[Heather]

Delete it.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

If it's not something you're referencing ever. And you're like, I'm not really sure why I'm tracking this. Get rid of it. It's just bogging it down. That's find the things. And we talked about it in the track, track, track episode. Find the things that make a difference. Oh, I wish I knew this. And track that in 2026. And then every year you just keep tweaking. They get better and better. Yeah. Love it, love it. Read us the next one.

[Corey]

Update your CRM with December context. We know December was busy. We were just flinging flower right, left.

[Heather]

That's a CRM.

[Corey]

CRM is customer relationship management. So that is going to be a place that where you actually put your information about your customer. If they ordered for their child and they ordered a Mario theme for the first birthday, we're going to know probably in one year. The kids turn in two, and they're probably going to want to order again. Having that information allows you to reconnect with your audience. You're not always trying to get a new lead every single week of the year.

[Heather]

Always get the question, what CRM should I use? If you have no CRM, I'd actually just start with Google Drive sheet or an Excel spreadsheet.

[Corey]

Why?

[Heather]

Because simple is better. CRM programs are. Can be vast, like Salesforce being the chunkiest of the monkeys. But like more Nutshell or Entirely or these other ones. What's the one that starts with Disney? Those options are really nice too, but there's still a configuration and a learning curve. A lot of people if you just had it in a spreadsheet, that's half the battle. And you can always import that spreadsheet as a CSV to that. And so Corey is finally starting to track her leads in an Excel spreadsheet. Yes. And you know you gotta walk before you run. And I wanted her to dive into CRM, but she said baby steps and that is great. So what are you tracking?

[Corey]

So right now I'm tracking their names. Email being the most important to me. A lot of them do give a phone number, which is fine, but I don't have a text thing.

[Heather]

Just keep it, just have it.

[Corey]

And then their order date, what they ordered.

[Heather]

Perfect. Yeah. So now Corey could say next year she can filter in her spreadsheet, which is what she's using as a CRM, and say, show me all the orders that I took for January 2025. Now she can contact those people and if she had some time make it a. In like a personal email, I would.

[Corey]

I did one CRME thing this week.

[Heather]

Okay, tell us.

[Corey]

One year ago, there was a local lady who ordered hysterectomy cookies.

[Heather]

Love that.

[Corey]

And it stayed in my mind because I faced my own hysterectomy in July. But I knew that my little, you know, Google does your photo memories. It popped up those that set of cookies. And I remember the name. So I just sent a quick email and I said, happy one year without a urus. It was an elective surgery she did.

[Heather]

Because she was facing issues.

[Corey]

So I said, after one year, are you just living your best life? I just want to check on in on you. She instantly responded.

[Heather]

I could not imagine if a company I bought something from was like, I had a. I bought this Acura a couple years ago, right? A year to the day that I signed the papers, I get a phone call from the guy, Connecticut. I had shipped it out of state because I wanted a deal. And I said, well, I said, do you be the last person I expected to hear from? And he's like, I just have to do this because it's in the computer.

[Corey]

I hate that.

[Heather]

I know, but you're like, wow. Until it wasn't. But could you imagine if he actually is like, dude, I just was thinking about you. Did you keep it? Did you like it?

[Corey]

If they showed any. I remember I went to a BNI one time and a lady, we had done a little one on one meeting, that's what they call them. And she had sent me a letter via snail mail after. I've never been so aghast that someone would think of me.

[Heather]

So I went to her.

[Corey]

The next time I saw her, I said, that was so nice to send the letter. If we just left it at that, she would have been a star pupil in my brain. But she's like, I do that for everybody. So it took down a little of my.

[Heather]

I want to say Heather, Kim and Lillian all sent us Christmas cards. Love that. Could you imagine if you said to your clients, I'd love to add you. You know, everyone says Christmas cards are dying, but they shouldn't be because it's.

[Corey]

I know.

[Heather]

Could you imagine if you say, I'd love to send you a Christmas card. Can I get add you to my CRM?

[Corey]

At the end of the day, this customer isn't getting another hysterectomy. So I'm not going to beg like.

[Heather]

Hey, you want some people?

[Corey]

What I'll do though, what that does is it solidifies in her brain. Oh, I do like Corey. I remember her name. It came from.

[Heather]

It makes a huge difference.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Makes you feel like less of an order and more of a person.

[Corey]

More of a person. So I'm trying to do that myself.

[Heather]

Okay. I like this one. Create an outline for your content buckets in 2026 content pillars. Content buckets. So I create them. It's a great guide to outline your content buckets. And then I create. So actually I use workflow. I don't know if it's the best place for this, but I do like it. It's a bulleted list organizer and it has a free plan if you guys want to. So what I did.

[Corey]

What did I do last?

[Heather]

Ideas, posting strategy. So for the sugar cookie marketing group, it is something I have to run. So I created these content buckets and then I test the buckets and as if buckets don't perform well. On Nixum last year we did a location roll call.

[Corey]

Great. That always does.

[Heather]

It really connected a lot of figures. It got a lot of engagement. So it became a bucket and I'm going to restart it here soon. Best selling bakes. You guys saw that go up yesterday.

[Corey]

We like those. We like to see it around the holidays.

[Heather]

Right. So I scheduled out in groups. You can schedule out for about two months, but on pages only for about a month and a week or something. So I scheduled out my bestselling bakes post for the Super Bowl, Valentine's, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's Day, April Fool's and Easter. Right. This is as far as I can get another bucket. A monthly roll call for birthdays. You guys love that. I love seeing it. A lot of you guys come on your birthday and say it.

[Corey]

I just randomly was curious and I did a giant one. There's probably a thousand comments on that at this point. Of people birthdays.

[Heather]

So again, these are all content buckets that have worked. Again, you're just constantly spending your whole year tweaking this stuff. But you got to get your baseline.

[Corey]

In the cookie college.

[Heather]

Can I just talk.

[Corey]

We did a Monday Morning Live. We do. It's called the Monday morning roll call. In this one, we talked about content buckets as it relates to being a baker. So Heather's talking in the realms of the Chanel group. So let me bring it back to the bakery. We did easy days and those are days that are national holidays. So national popcorn days coming up this month. It's easy to throw up a popcorn set. You did. Those are things you do on busy. Like I know I'm going to be in the kitchen and I'm not going to be around my computer. I can't do it. We have engagement days, like really where we're asking our audience things about them and we're going to comment back to them. So we have engagement days.

[Heather]

I would make that a bucket. It's.

[Corey]

No, it's a bucket. And then we have our sales days at the end of the day we are a business, we do need to make some sales.

[Heather]

I love it.

[Corey]

We have relationship days. We're, we're really trying to show them who we are and why they should order.

[Heather]

Do you notice out of the buckets Corey just spitballed right there? She gave us what, four or five and only one was a pitch. And I think a lot of people who struggle with making sales on social haven't created relationships before. They pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch. Oh, hey, here's a meet the baker post. Like the farthest we get in the relationship is seeing your face, which is great and it'll perform well. But you see that Corey's like, I'm talking about national days. I'm doing about town stuff. I'm doing engagement questions. I'm replying to everybody and then I'm going to pitch them. Yeah.

[Corey]

At the end of the days, we all bake cookies. It's in the name cookie company. Many of us have it. So how can we turn people who know what we do into loyal followers who scream our name from the top of the mountaintops?

[Heather]

I always say that real estate agents kind of get it with the coming and going of businesses. They get a lot of shares and. And I end up looking towards the real estate agents. The burn. We talked about that one. To get information about what's coming and going. If somebody asked me for a commercial real estate agent, I would just say I just know whoever run he needs.

[Corey]

To introduce his self a little bit more. And that's why there's a strategy in content buckets.

[Heather]

Yes. And again, these content buckets are the training, the guides that will take you through the rest of the year. And you'll tweak them as you go.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

So I would definitely create the buckets. I would start with five. I think it's five is pretty easy. And then probably once a week, three times a week, I would pick from one of those five buckets.

[Corey]

Yeah, that's what I have. That's what we. Our strategy was this week was to choose one from each of those little buckies.

[Heather]

Love it. Uh, nugget from buggies. Sounds delicious. Right now, uh, schedule out a January content calendar. So I love scheduling out content. I think we get pretty busy sometimes and you have little scheduled out stuff. It kind of keeps you there without being there. Making sure my. I think it's just recording. Okay. Is that recording?

[Corey]

Sometimes it's like thought we got red dots everywhere.

[Heather]

Sometimes it's like thought comes and it's like you didn't have a press Record. I'm surprised we haven't not recorded an episode. Hi.

[Corey]

Proud of you. You're the button pusher.

[Heather]

I'm looking at all the red dots. So scheduling out your January content calendar. Like I said, Facebook planner free. A lot of these things you can do for free. That's why I like the Excel spreadsheet schedule out. And now we just said, what content buckets you're going to use that you can make 3, 6, 9. You can make 12 posts. I'm asking you to post 12 things when you split them up by buckets. That'd be two pitches, three engagements, two about towns, one easy. One easy thing. Lob me up a meme or something and I can be present all of January without necessarily having to every day think, oh, what should I post today? Yeah. And I think we can see that hurried approach and like, oh, shoot, I haven't posted in two weeks.

[Corey]

When I say when I see the baker does photo dump.

[Heather]

Okay, we've been gone for a while and you are back. So scheduling that out again. You don't have to post your most freshest bakery says popcorn day is coming. I know she has an old popcorn ready to go and she's going to reuse that so she didn't have to be in the kitchen to be present on social. And then you can use from Facebook planner. You can cross post that too.

[Corey]

Instagram. Instagram. Instagram.

[Heather]

Okay, Add. What do we go?

[Corey]

We have add December. So you jumped back.

[Heather]

No, I didn't.

[Corey]

Segment.

[Heather]

No, no. Read what you're gonna read. Read it, trust it.

[Corey]

Add December context to your newsletter list.

[Heather]

So because we get so bogged down in December, you're just taking leads, Taking leads, taking leads. You're gonna add them to your serum, but you also need to add them to your newsletter. If you send a newsletter, that's a lot of contacts that you can stay in contact. Can I ask a question too?

[Corey]

We get a lot of leads in December that we end up having to turn down just for the sheer fact we have two hands, 24 hours. Would we add those potential leads to our newsletter?

[Heather]

Would you want to get an email from somebody who told you no, but.

[Corey]

I could say yes during the month.

[Heather]

Probably what I would say to them when I need to reject their order. I'm so sorry.

[Corey]

Would it be okay if I added you to my.

[Heather]

I would love to work with you in the future. I can add you to my newsletter list if you want to. And you'll get my first availability.

[Corey]

Let's keep that in our minds. For next year's friends.

[Heather]

Probably wouldn't reject somebody and then add to my newsletter and not expect to be reported as fan people ask that question a lot. If do you. Do people have to opt in to be added to your list? No. It makes a healthier list though. As long as the content they reached out for, how you acquired their email is the same content you're sending. Meaning if they asked you for an order and you took their order and now he's trying to sell them a car, you violated the law.

[Corey]

Sure.

[Heather]

So you can look at that. Can spam. I think it's the laws behind it. You getting a phone call. Mm. Mm.

[Corey]

Text from Sweet Panko.

[Heather]

So yeah, what I would do is I would. It's always great when you have your order form to say, check here if you want to be added to my marketing list. Why that's so strong is that means they opted in twice. Not only did they give you their email, they gave you their email and said, sell to me. And at the end of the day.

[Corey]

You'Re like, but if they opt in twice, they might not opt in right now.

[Heather]

That's the point. Makes it such a strong list.

[Corey]

You can have a giant list or you can have a giant list of everybody. A small list of some people who want to be there. I'm always going to choose a small list of people who want to be.

[Heather]

There because I'd rather an open rate and a sale. A click through rate. That makes me money.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

Okay, next one. Okay. And this is kind of back to that segment your newsletter list. So a lot of times me, myself and I, you get too busy and you don't segment your list. You're like, okay, I'll just upload these. These are.

[Corey]

Anybody who saw that version of you would be segmenting.

[Heather]

The best version of me has many segments. The worst version of me is sitting before you today. So when you get a list like Corey said, we have a list of people who took my December cookie classes. We have a list of people who ordered December DIY kits. And I have a list of people who ordered DIY customs.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Then I have a list of people who, who I couldn't take their order, but they opted in. Those should be four different segmented lists. Now I can. When you're in these newsletter centers like mailchimp or Constant Contact or whatever, you can say send it to all if you wanted. Yeah. But imagine how much more powerful it would be if I sent the people who took my December class, my February Valentine's Day class.

[Corey]

Oh, you're gonna get more sales. Here's the thing you say, but daika class. I understand that. We know just from teaching classes and selling custom orders, a lot of those people don't always fall in the same category. My custom order people, maybe the like one will show up at a class every month, but not as many as ordering customs. So the people are different. Your corporate order lead people probably don't want to take a class. I mean, they're a person and they have a Saturday that they would probably want to do something. But we want to make sure that we keep that segmented audience nice and fresh. We don't want to bog them down with things. They don't because if they opt out.

[Heather]

Can'T reach them again, can't reach my gown. Those newsletter centers do not want you to spam somebody who said no. So a really strong contact list is double opted in and segmented. Like, wow, if that's what you did in January, that's all you did in January.

[Corey]

And I want to say the best part is you can start today as they come in. It's better.

[Heather]

I know the question crawling up on the back of some people's necks right now. They're like, I have a list, but I haven't emailed them in a couple of years. I probably start fresh. I mean, you could send an email and see what happens. You're going to get a lot of unsubscribes from people who just moved out of the area.

[Corey]

We have such a transient area that.

[Heather]

Half of the people will have changed their email address. The other half have moved.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

So just something to keep in mind. If you want to jumpstart an old list, just brace yourself for impact. Because too many unsubscribes or too many spam reports and they'll lock your account. It'll burn your email address. It would.

[Corey]

We have staged quarterly emails now as drafts.

[Heather]

Yeah. So, you know, a lot of people have the best of intentions. You create the newsletter sender, you create the segmented list, and you never get around emailing. So it's all wasted work. What you can do is create a template. You create a template and then you duplicate it three times. So we have four emails and you create the drafts. Granted, by the time we get to Q2, you're gonna have a lot more different information. But you can just go in there and edit it. You don't have to create it from scratch.

[Corey]

Yes, creating from scratch. Daunting. So daunting. We don't do it.

[Heather]

Corey and I always say if we can just get the templated outline done, everything else is copy pasta.

[Corey]

This.

[Heather]

What this. This is a piece of paper. So I said to Corey, granted, this piece of paper is draft one. We'll see how we like it today and we'll tweak it along the way. Love it.

[Corey]

Love it.

[Heather]

Next.

[Corey]

And I have done this. I've cried, but I've done it.

[Heather]

Corey did it this past week, Inbox Zero.

[Corey]

It took me one week. I had six inboxes to go through. I feel free.

[Heather]

I feel free. And now she's like, Corey violently was unsubscribing upstairs a minute ago.

[Corey]

How dare you email something I asked to be emailed.

[Heather]

Getting to Inbox Zero means you have. My dad was like, what's boxera? We're like, you've never heard of it and you'll never need to retire. Before you get to Inbox zero is deleting or archiving or labeling every email so that your inbox has zero emails in it. That means every day, every email you see is what you see that day and then that day you clear it out. Yeah, it's beautiful when you get there. It's hard to get there.

[Corey]

Listen, I fought tooth and nail to get there this last week.

[Heather]

Tell us what I told you this. What if you go to Gmail, you right click and you said, find all emails from. You're allowed. You can batch delete from a contact. Yeah, I told Corey and she was like, what helped me was, do I need to access this information ever again?

[Corey]

And a lot of times it was no, no. And it was so free to just go through. Granted a little anxiety inducing because at the end of the day those emails were there just in case. But these people have come and gone.

[Heather]

If you had had taken the time to put them into your newsletter, add them to your CRM, you wouldn't necessarily feel like you're losing it. You just put them in the correct place.

[Corey]

So anything that was baking related, I did archive that. You know, if a past client, you know, if it was spam or anything.

[Heather]

Like that, you can label them and archive. There's just a million ways that Google gives you to get to Inbox Zero and then you can start setting up automations. That's our next step so that it gets there. Oh yeah, set up inbox labels to manage your inbox. There's emails you need like receipts from. Okay, call fire. Yeah, if you text into the podcast, I get a receipt. Do I want to know? I'm getting. I can't unsubscribe from Call Fire together. What if my billing needs update? Sure. So what I can do is say, any emails from Callfire, put it in this inbox, this label over here.

[Corey]

So can I ask you a question? Right now my inbox is filled, it's starred with orders that are happening. Orders that are on the books that haven't been made over the next couple of months.

[Heather]

Love it.

[Corey]

It is in my primary inbox. Could I scooch those over?

[Heather]

Yes, deliciously. On the left side you can create a label called orders and then we could have a subl. Sub label called in progress. Okay, so now you check all those in progress. You'd label them and then to the right you'd say archive. Now they only exist in that label on the left side. They actually don't take up inbox space.

[Corey]

Oh yeah. So then they would be able to see a clear inbox. So now whatever comes in would be fresh and new, something that came in that day.

[Heather]

Yeah, you can say, you can say this if I ever get an email from Sarah. Yeah, at Sarah Buys Cookies.com. any new email, apply the label in progress order. But also start and make sure it lands in my inbox and no other folders or spam. Yeah.

[Corey]

And guys, here's a tip that I've been doing the last half of last year and I'm going to continue in this year is that initial email I have with my client is the one I want to be the umbrella for any other communication that comes through. Sometimes a client will send a additional email outside of our first email thread.

[Heather]

Is what you're talking about, our thread.

[Corey]

Our little chain of emails. What I do is I take that information, bring it back into the thread and be like, I'm just recapping here to keep me. Because I don't want 52 emails from the same person. That's still too much to track.

[Heather]

One day you're gonna. You're gonna believe me to do that footer recap, the email signature recap.

[Corey]

I'm trying to.

[Heather]

I wanna be that person. I do this one Auto recurring expenses. I think over a year you incur a lot of expenses. Maybe like this little thing signed up for that, tried this out and you forget about it. And to go back through and make sure that you can look at all of your expenses if you have a canva subscription, if you signed up for this little plugin on your website, maybe.

[Corey]

That you're not using nail subscription. There's so many little tiny things you can sign up for.

[Heather]

Death by a thousand cuts. And it's easy to let you know, forget that you're doing it. Yeah.

[Corey]

Set up financial tracking software.

[Heather]

Yeah. Once you audit your recurring expenses and you see where things are going that you want to keep, it's awesome to get a hold on your finances. Where's that money coming in? Awesome. And where's it going now? I do like Ynab. Full disclosure, our older sister works for that company. Fuller disclosure, I get no benefits from that. Where'd I go?

[Corey]

Fuller. Fuller disclosure. I signed up for completing one.

[Heather]

For some reason, Corey refuses to use the one we could help her with. So what you could use for Ynab, and I was just talking. Talking about this. In the sugar cookie marketing group, you can create a personal and a. And a business budget within the same account. So it's about 109 a year. Not chump change. Yeah. But you're able to see all that information. How much money did you make in January? Yeah.

[Corey]

So that equates to about $8 a year if you want to price it out monthly. The great thing about knowing what your business expenses are outside of, like, the cost of ingredients, like software things, is you can say, my website, let's say, cost you $200 a year wherever you're hosting it. Not cheap. So 200 a year. Did my website convert $200 worth of people? That's something that we have to track.

[Heather]

Knowledge is power. Knowledge is that information. Yeah. Imagine being able to look at your financials in a dashboard and click a button. You'd be set up.

[Corey]

You would know what needs to come, what needs to go, what you need to make and what you don't need. Absolutely. Next one. Audit website for dead or broken lengths. This one's huge.

[Heather]

This one is skipped a little one. Oh. You can go back, update your website to reflect your 2026 offering. Wow.

[Corey]

I've clicked to everyone's website. Who ends up on my feed? If you end up in my feed, Sorry.

[Heather]

She's going to be in your route. She's going to click to your website, and she's going to see that you have St. Patrick's Day 2025 still on there.

[Corey]

A lot of people still have Christmas stuff up, which I don't blame you.

[Heather]

It's been busy. You got. You got a lot going on. So sometimes the pictures are outdated, your skill sets change, your availability has changed. You're no longer teaching classes, or you are teaching classes, but go and update that website. Go through every page and just make sure it all still makes sense.

[Corey]

Even to that you might have it on this ginormous list. My Yelp is not where I usually get leads from. I don't usually get leads from Yelp, but I do have an account on there. I went there and the photos were very old and my stylus changed a little bit. So I was able to go delete old photos and upload new ones.

[Heather]

Tis the season.

[Corey]

Tis the season.

[Heather]

But yeah, go check out your website and there's some plugins you can find online that audit your website for broken links. Meaning that you have had a hyperlink to go to this cookie class. The cookie class was over. The hyperlink is dead.

[Corey]

Yeah, I see a lot of class links dead in the what?

[Heather]

Dead in the what? And it makes sense because they're gone. So you need to go and update that. It is an SEO factor to have a bunch of broken links on a page. Google don't like it, so you'd want to go and clean those up. It's not a massive ranking factor, but it's also a better user experience. Yeah.

[Corey]

Okay. We have. Since you just said update broken links, update autoresponders in emails and socials.

[Heather]

That one's a big one. Whenever I send out the newsletter on Wednesday. Wednesday, a lot of you guys are out of your breaks and I love that you gave me a rang. Change days you'll be off, but you are back. And that autoresponder still sending. Yeah.

[Corey]

And this one, I'm sure you have it. I see a lot of people's breaks pinned still to the top of their pages.

[Heather]

I saw some poor little baker. 2023. Yeah, I think it was a pregnancy announcement, actually from 2023. I think the baby is now working and fully important.

[Corey]

The most incubated baby.

[Heather]

So the problem and the reason why you guys aren't knowing what I'm. When I'm saying pinposing, you're like, surely that's not me. You can't see it on mobile. You have to be. You can't be the page admin and see it.

[Corey]

You can if you look up your own page. You can see it.

[Heather]

Right?

[Corey]

You can't be in the admin's dashboard to see it.

[Heather]

Why wouldn't it let us see that?

[Corey]

I have no idea.

[Heather]

If you really want to know if you have some leftover pin posts, you can only have three. Go onto a laptop and look up your business page. It will show you at the top. Grab your bestie's phone and say, let me search my page. I do like that one. So update Your autoresponders and email and social. That means when somebody messages you on Instagram, sometimes they see I'm booked for 2025 and we're in 2026. Make sure that those are updated. You can find them. I find it easier to access them on a laptop computer. Yeah. And make sure it just reflects the good. The goodness. I need to update my schwabby.

[Corey]

My schwabby.

[Heather]

And that's what Corey said. Update social media bios. It is the time. Maybe even just a refresher.

[Corey]

Maybe even just making. I refreshed mine the other day.

[Heather]

Yeah. Maximo. No, you're not gonna.

[Corey]

You're not gonna notice any different. I just cleaned.

[Heather]

What did you do? What'd you change?

[Corey]

Just cleaned up.

[Heather]

Add some emojis. Oh, I like. I like the emojis because I think it draws my eye to it. Let's see what you chose. Cookie emoji. Like that. Stay safe there. We got a hyperlink and a downward air Custom Sweets Baker in Woodbridge, Virginia. Location. Love it. Love it. And her name on this is her first name, last name, location.

[Corey]

Again, one question. I had Custom Sweets Baker Bank. Is that fluff? Is that valuable? I could pigeon my hold and say sugar cookies. That's my main gig. But I do make some other things.

[Heather]

What if we did sugar cookies, cake pops and Woodbridge, va. Why the custom word throws me a little bit.

[Corey]

I guess because I was always been leaning towards more custom work.

[Heather]

I think it's funny because I also. I kind of feel like the word custom is an industry term that external people. Have you ever been. Has somebody ever said, can I order some custom cookies from you? Or do they say, I want some sugar cookies?

[Corey]

I have to think about.

[Heather]

Think about that cookie doesn't start at $78. Love that gets tire kickers out of the way. Yeah. Fill out the order inquiry in the link hyperlink below. So you bought yourself some. I'm not sure Ruthanne would know that's a hyperlink emoji. But I like it myself. I know.

[Corey]

Is that bad? It's a link. It's a link emoji.

[Heather]

Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Is that bad?

[Corey]

You only have so many words you can use. Working with very limited space.

[Heather]

You still have your little highlights. I thought they were going to get rid of this.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

They never did.

[Corey]

I've updated them to bring them into 2025. I have nothing to post for 2026 yet. But they weren't from 2022.

[Heather]

Then you have a Bible verse. I like that. Personal. Your profile Is tagged as a bakery. I like that. And then you have a downward arrow that's pointing to the link.

[Corey]

I think to my link, but I.

[Heather]

Think those are truncated. The downward arrow on mobile. I'm looking at it on computer. I know.

[Corey]

I'm sure it is, but I'm trying to tell you, like fill out.

[Heather]

If I needed to place an order, I would say maybe the thought is now taking orders for. But you got to stay on top of that. Back to kind of what we're saying. I do like that.

[Corey]

And because I mean, I'm on there all the time. So it's not like I would. I couldn't.

[Heather]

It is something. It's hard to check. Yeah.

[Corey]

That's what I see. Most speakers forget is they'll be like now taking orders. It'll be on their job forms.

[Heather]

In the form.

[Corey]

Guys, listen, I'm clicking to everything. If it's in my feet, I'm clicking to it. Especially because I've deleted TikTok. Now I have all the time in the world.

[Heather]

We'll talk about that in a minute.

[Corey]

A lot of it will say like now booking for December 2025, but we're now in January.

[Heather]

So nothing says you're not on top of it like that.

[Corey]

So holding yourself to that.

[Heather]

What I do when I have those things that you actually have to stay up on and I use asana to manage my entire life, I'll create an asana task that says you need to update this on this day in asana. It puts it on my calendar and then I can say, oh, look, it's this day. I got to change that smart.

[Corey]

So that if you want to do that and look active and be like, now booking for February and March, keep yourself on top of it. What we don't want to do is hold ourselves for the best version of ourselves. And we'll say, yeah, I'm going to be on. And we never update it. And we lose sales. Because at the end of the day though, that little text is supposed to get you sales, but can also cost you sales if you're never updating.

[Heather]

I agree. I went into to go look up a store and see what their holiday hours were this past December and they hadn't been posted to since 2022. You're just in. So I did not go. Yeah.

[Corey]

Cause you're.

[Heather]

It's. I didn't want to be rejected.

[Corey]

I know as much as people don't like social media and things like Facebook, it's an indicator. I can't go to a GMB Google business profile and trust the content. People aren't updating that ever.

[Heather]

But when they do. Oh, so my dad wanted to go to the car wash at the mall, so I look him up. It's also Christmas Eve. Yeah, I don't listen. Our dad's a type, right? And it said, updated holiday hours closed on Christmas Eve. I like that. Confidently say, and maybe that's something you add.

[Corey]

I love a timestamp. So if you need to add your own little timey stamp, I love the updated blah.

[Heather]

Updated blah.

[Corey]

And that's why social media is so good, because there's a time stamp on the stuff.

[Heather]

I know.

[Corey]

And the next one you'll never guess. Replace pin post on social media profiles for a 2026 timestamp.

[Heather]

Explain that to us.

[Corey]

Okay, so, so you have pin post and the information in your pin post is needed. Probably how to place an order. Maybe your allergen.

[Heather]

Yeah, all good, juicy stuff.

[Corey]

Here's the thing. You did it in 2025, and now when someone goes to your social profiles, it'll say January 3, 2025, and it looks like it was 10 decades.

[Heather]

It's a first post we see. And if my grandmother sees it, she's gonna be like, I haven't posted in a year. No, no, you just haven't updated your pin post in a year. But you say, but the information hasn't changed. Then just post it again. It'll end up in their feeds. It's a refresher. It'll have a new timestamp.

[Corey]

I did to know me post.

[Heather]

So I could I have seen. Corey has been updating me.

[Corey]

I have, I have. So I want the timestamp to look like I'm relevant. A lot of people are scrolling and going, so they're like, well, no, it's a pin post. They know I just pinned it. They don't. For some odd reason, when they scroll to your first post, which is your pin post on mobile, they see the timestamp and it looks like you haven't done anything. This is where I say it costs people sales. I'm taking a break. Okay, that break was from 2022. You're not still taking a break.

[Heather]

I did post to the sugar cookie marketing page and I said, baby girl, that pin post is out of date. This blessed soul. She was like, oh, my goodness. It was from a surgery I had two years ago. I didn't realize it. So, yeah, and you may say, like, well, then the solution here is just not to have pin posts. No, it's a great place for that. Okay. If you're on TikTok and you want to get some little backstory, I love it when I'm like, whatever your story is, I need another. And it's pinned to the top. That's where I look for like foundational information.

[Corey]

No pin, no care yet. The pin will help me. Especially if someone comments. How do I place an order? I'll be like, oh, if you scroll up, the PIN post will tell you.

[Heather]

Easily accessible by you as well because you can right click get the link and give it to them. Yeah, yeah. Set up an in person cookie class schedule. So Cora and I did that. I know people ask this question every year. How do I know where I'll be in six months? You don't. And you don't need to worry about that. What I like to do is create a tentative schedule for our in person cookie classes and take that tentative schedule and put them on eventbrite. Yes, that would be. I'd be posting a Christmas class in January. I do not have to release my tickets until, let's say October. Yeah, right. I can release it. So that means as long as my year changes or shifts, granted, people can see the class and get ready for the class, they can't sign up. And if I need to tweak it and I'm three months out, I can do it. Yeah. And I'm the boss of that, so I can choose it. But putting that whole list up there now I can say, when people are in my cookie class in January. Hey, guys, listen, I'll tell you guys because I love you, that December class is going to sell out. So if you want to buy tickets ahead of time, you can still cancel whenever, whatever. My policy is, it's worked really well.

[Corey]

For me and Heather. We used to do where we just released them six weeks prior to the event. And that gives you a little anxious because. Because anyone who is going to sign up early couldn't. But then you'd get down to, oh, we have one more seat to fill. We have one more seat to fill.

[Heather]

Well, what happens when you also like, okay, we release. I release the December tickets in like September because they do fill up. Now if I fill it up ahead of time, I gotta actually add that second December class if I felt like it and still have a really long Runway to fill it up.

[Corey]

I wanna say a little downside to that is people sign up early because the best version of themselves will be free November 22nd. Unfortunately, at the last minute, Heather will send an email that Sundays, you are seven days out from class. And then you have people canceling because no longer cancel.

[Heather]

After seven days, you can roll into a new class. That's my policy. So it's stated when they sign up.

[Corey]

But still, it does happen into a new class. Now we have maybe one or two seats we have to fill up.

[Heather]

If my marketing was good all year long, hopefully I can use my. My VIP classes. So, yeah, there's a risk for everything I do. Like when I post the classes in January because then I don't have to think about them.

[Corey]

I wouldn't. I wouldn't say the downside doesn't out outweigh the positive.

[Heather]

Yeah, another one. People always ask about that. Well, how do you know what you're going to teach? Then I just say, this is a. This could be what I teach and it could be not what I teach. I'll update it as we get closer to class. Sorry to YouTube.

[Corey]

I think it was focused on the outline.

[Heather]

You are all over the map.

[Corey]

I know, because I don't want to lose my spot.

[Heather]

I gotta see. You gotta look out for your camera, people. I'm looking out for mine. All right.

[Corey]

Sorry, friends. That was a little blurry.

[Heather]

It's not you. It's come to my side of the screen. Come to me.

[Corey]

Okay, we have audit supplies. Your packaging, business card, bows, etc. Easy to type, type. Easy to type, hard to do.

[Heather]

So Corey was saying this. You had a strategy. Like you had two cookie backers left.

[Corey]

My strategy is if there's three of something, you either sell three of the something or you toss it. You don't need to go order 25 more of it. Because now you've put yourself in a conundrum. We're using what we have. My biggest strategy towards this audit, your supplies, is everything needs to be with its brother. If you have.

[Heather]

Have cello bags.

[Corey]

Cello bags with cello bags. If you have square boxes with square boxes, backers with backers. That's the only way you're going to.

[Heather]

Know what you have.

[Corey]

What we don't want to do is be like, oh, I thought I had Valentine's Day packaging. I'm going to go place an order. We realized four months after Valentine's Day, we did have it. We just didn't know where it was.

[Heather]

I love that. So what you're saying is organize audit, pitch, sell.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

Okay. And then if you say, well, I have some stuff I just know I'm not going to use, there's these buy, sell, trade groups. Oh, sure, they're pretty. How they run is so interesting. You're only allowed to comment your zip code and say the word sold. If you're the first zip code that says sold, you get the product and then you handle Indians. I love them, but there's a bunch of them. Not the sugar cookie marketing group, though, so don't do that.

[Corey]

There's probably a local baker's group and a lot of them do allow sales that you could sell it to another baker. So that would be even the best thing.

[Heather]

You know, yesterday, as I was coming for my content buckets, SCM101 post that I'll be posting on Tuesdays throughout January, we have a local cottage bakers Facebook group list. And you guys showed up and showed out and I have almost a hundred local groups. That's fantastic. You could ch. And you know, granted, Texas has like half of them, but, you know, you can go see which states has them. We had three.

[Corey]

When they're hyper local. When they're too broad like Virginia, that's. That's too broad. But we have a northern Virginia one that's a little bit more active and useful for me being.

[Heather]

But talk about a great place to sell your tax love.

[Corey]

Purge expired inventory. Listen, things go bad. Sprinkles don't last forever, no matter what you tell yourself. Would you want to get old sprinkles in a diy?

[Heather]

I don't know. I know there's the argument about Best Buy Best, but there is the. If the taste turns and it's like we're looking at years at past expiration, maybe it's time to just let it go. Here's my inquiries. Corey's going through our minimalist era. You guys live through mine. Corey's in hers. I love expiration dates because it allows me to let go like. Like it was never going to be used. It was an excuse in my head. I was the kind of person who would use it, but it's not who I am. So I think that purging expired inventory frees up.

[Corey]

Here's how what Heather taught me me and she took it from someone else, but she taught it to me. So it's Heather's wisdom.

[Heather]

I want you to hear my voice squeaking.

[Corey]

She said, walmart, Target, your local grocery store. That's your storage closet.

[Heather]

That's your.

[Corey]

That's your pantry.

[Heather]

You only need to pay the storage fee when you go pick up the item.

[Corey]

The sprinkles you have that are expired in your cupboard, technically, you shouldn't be using them. Technically, if we get it down on paper, I mean, would you want to get old sprinkles.

[Heather]

Probably not.

[Corey]

You don't need to hold the sprinkles. Walmart. The sprinkles are at Walmart. Walmart.

[Heather]

Be like, girl, those sprinkles you. You haven't picked up from your storage closet yet, they expired. So we got you some new ones whenever you're ready to pick those up.

[Corey]

And Walmart throws away their own expired sprinkles, so you never get an expired frank.

[Heather]

So you have a free inventory manager that you only have to pay when you need to pick up the sprinkle. Yeah.

[Corey]

That expiration date is the freedom date. That's the allowing you to release yourself from your clutter.

[Heather]

Yeah. It's funny. I do like going other people's houses and organized. I actually hate it, but I love it a little bit. But I mostly hate it, so please don't call me. But what I tell them, I'll say, look, I'm gonna go through the pantry. Anything that's expired, it's already gone. So don't even. Don't even worry about it. I will let go of it for you.

[Corey]

Heather is the person, the in between, the person who has no relation. I have no emotional tied in the reason why. And I'm speaking to a baker's life myself. The reason why we hold on to packaging is because it was the best version of ourselves that we wanted to be.

[Heather]

Throwing it away means I'm no longer that best version. I'm actually a worse version that wastes money.

[Corey]

Yeah. And that's hard to do. So, you know, need a Heather to come in. She has no relation. She was never going to be the best baker. She doesn't bake at all. She can get rid of things. You can't have my Heather. You'll have to get your own.

[Heather]

But get a friend. She can make another.

[Corey]

Get a friend.

[Heather]

Yeah. Just an unemotional third party. And I think that's why organizers people, when that industry exists, because they're like, oh, I have strategy and I'm not emotionally attacked. Yeah.

[Corey]

Okay, here's. Here's my thing.

[Heather]

Okay. Cory's in the middle of the trenches.

[Corey]

If you have to open it to smell it, if it's still good, toss.

[Heather]

It, toss it, toss it.

[Corey]

If you don't believe it, toss it.

[Heather]

The minimalist podcast, which apparently now is charged, so Corey can't binge it like I did. They said, if there's anything wrong with it at all visually, and you weren't, get rid of it. Like, that's the best excuse. It has a Stain on it.

[Corey]

Gone.

[Heather]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Organize and purge product photos. Label them for easy search.

[Corey]

We talked about doing this.

[Heather]

Oh, we talked about this. Corey's got a really interesting strategy. I'm gonna let her tell you. What is it back a year ago?

[Corey]

Oh, yeah, this is actually. I actually posted it in my local community group because it's such a good idea.

[Heather]

What a great way to market.

[Corey]

By the way. I know for the last one year what I've done is. And sometimes you'll be good at it, sometimes you'll have to wait till Friday and you'll catch up. Is in your photos app. A lot of you have 10 to 20,000 photos. Some of.

[Heather]

Yeah, some people are chuckling right now. You just thought that's. That's a joker's game time.

[Corey]

You saying I need to delete photos? Too big, Too vague.

[Heather]

Overwhelming.

[Corey]

Overwhelming. If you search in your photos app the day that we're on. So Today we're on January 6th. If you search January 6th, it's going to pull up everything you took on January 6th.

[Heather]

January 6th is going back as far.

[Corey]

As far as many. January 6th, you had your phone.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Corey]

What it is, is on January 6th, I might have.

[Heather]

Have, let's just say 50 photos.

[Corey]

That's easier for me to prune the.

[Heather]

Bush than going through all of 2025.

[Corey]

Yeah. You don't have that much time if.

[Heather]

Each day we just look up the day.

[Corey]

So tomorrow you look up January 7th and we go through and delete the screenshots. Delete the recipes. We don't even know where they're from anymore. Delete the gossip that you were sending to your bestie.

[Heather]

Love the gossip.

[Corey]

Delete it. At the end of the day, you've done gossip.

[Heather]

It's the.

[Corey]

The chapter has closed. Delete those screenshots and you're going to free up a lot of. Of a lot of space on your phone. That's where a lot of us are. Like, I'm running out of space.

[Heather]

Tons of. I have a photo of a snowblower. I don't need that any longer. I don't need it any longer. I have a photo of me snow blowing. Do want to keep that do. And there's just a ton. Oh, look. All a bunch of my ex boyfriends. Oh, see?

[Corey]

And we can delete that. The chapter's over on that one.

[Heather]

Man, this took me all the way back to what year? 2019. 2019. So that's horrifying. So. But I like what Chicoi's doing. She's taking it day by day and turning it to the so now we.

[Corey]

Have deleted, but we want to categorize things. If someone is asking in a local foodies group for a baker who could do a butterfly set, the baker that's going to post the butterfly set in the comment section is maybe going to get a better chance at making the sale. So we want to categorize. You have folder options on your phone. And this is what I've been doing is if I've ever done a birthday set, if I've ever done a Lego set, if I've ever also seen all.

[Heather]

Of your Lego sets next to each other. Like that one's not going to make me a sale. So I don't necessarily need to keep it.

[Corey]

But trying to search through your phone to be I think I did a Lego sale. Was it April of last year?

[Heather]

Yeah. Love it, hate it, leave it, keep it. It's going to be here forever. Some. But when I. When I like AI, I love it and when I don't like it, I hate it. Like it's never in between. AI in Google Photos, you can describe the object and it will look at your photos and try to figure it out.

[Corey]

Try to figure it out. So I'm just saying if you're in Google Photos on your phone photos, a lot of us are working from our phones and we have all of our cookie photos on the Internet there. What if we strategically put them in the right spot?

[Heather]

I know your second life starts, I'm pretty sure.

[Corey]

And you know what? You can do it day by day.

[Heather]

And that's probably the easiest way to do it. I think on iPhones you guys can add tags.

[Corey]

You can add tags.

[Heather]

So tags is another way to sort through. There's folders. Yeah. And then there's tags or labels. So you can say, here's my folder of birthdays, but here's my tags of second birthdays. Yeah. So I can quickly say, don't just show me birthdays, show me second birthdays.

[Corey]

Yeah. I have one that's called my husband so that when he really annoys me, I can look back and be like.

[Heather]

Oh yeah, you're the one where I turn him into a great grape. I'm sure I have years ago organize receipts and mileage log for taxes. I hate tax season. I have a little bit of tax season. Ptsd. You guys heard on the podcast. Listen to any podcast. It was recorded around April. Anyways, your accountant or you would love for you to organize that. It'll be a time I'm gonna tell you right now. If you guys are on. If you guys are on the YouTube channel watching this scan, snap. This little bad boy right here is.

[Corey]

I went.

[Heather]

I sold a car a couple years ago. Yeah. I went to CarMax and the girl was like, let me just scan all of this information for you. She put it into this bad boy right here. And it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[Corey]

It was perfect.

[Heather]

Scans, collated, grouped. And I said. And she's like, I know what you're gonna ask. You're gonna ask what this machine is. She's like, actually put a sticker on the backside because so many people ask me about. I turned around and bought this bad boy. And I haven't looked back since. It has organized everything for me. It actually is a little smart. So it'll read what it scanned and name it for for you.

[Corey]

You know what?

[Heather]

I did pass? Corey.

[Corey]

Unorganized. Corey lost my. Both birth certificate and my wedding certificate and my divorce. They're together somewhere.

[Heather]

They're having a blast.

[Corey]

But to have to reorder that. Whatever I was doing was now delayed and now I had to reorder it. One couldn't have done a little copy. But it would be nice to just have it if I needed to reference it.

[Heather]

I'm gonna say this. And you said it earlier in this podcast. Podcast. I'm not organized. I'm anxious.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

And that anxiety, like just hearing that you lost all this, I can tell you right now where they are. Because at one point I had that anxiety. I was like, I gotta address it. I'm not saying that's a way to live your life. Let me tell you.

[Corey]

Listen, I'm probably the good in between. I've gotten a knock box. And you probably maybe have seen an ad in.

[Heather]

You're going through your rebirth. You're about literally in life, almost five years younger than me, getting ready. Yeah. I'm watching.

[Corey]

I'm like, who are you guys?

[Heather]

Like, sometimes Corey. Okay, here's what you're going to experience. Yes. A little bit of burnout. I need you to power through. Yeah. So get those receipts organized, get them categorized, get them. And then you could go back to Ynab, which just released the ability to take photos of receipts. You could categorize them that way. Nice.

[Corey]

Create email templates for quick replies and inquiries. I have done this myself. What's great is if you have a Google Gmail account, you have access to.

[Heather]

What we call Google Drive, but Google templates too.

[Corey]

And Google templates.

[Heather]

Do you know what I'm saying? When I'M saying templates.

[Corey]

I'm sure it's something I just use.

[Heather]

Google Drive, but yes. So within any G suite or Gmail account, when you grow to create an email, let's say you write out a template. I actually use this for my cookie classes and I'll trigger the template. It's actually on the right side. You go to drop down templates, triggers a template and it puts in all the information. I put in bright yellow what I need to switch out. Nice. But templates get a little out of date. So in December's class I went through and updated my template for 2026, creating templates for quick respons. Again, like you can see all these. This just makes you a tad bit sharper than the competition.

[Corey]

More efficient.

[Heather]

Did I forget to say that word?

[Corey]

Yeah, that's okay. More efficient. Quicker, better customer service, better end user experience.

[Heather]

So I don't have to reinvent the wheel every time I need to write somebody think about, okay, the cookie classes, they happen the same place. They have seven at the same time. Nothing changes. If I say, okay, hey guys, like now I just trigger the template and I just change out the information that needs changing out. And, and yeah, you can do that. And it's in Gmail and it is in G suite.

[Corey]

You take the next one. Let's create a list.

[Heather]

Create a list of active local groups to market to in 2026. In our podcast we did on marketing to local community groups, we said create a list and it's actually what we spoke about at what's Popping Con and we gave them a spreadsheet, which we also gave you guys, if you listen to that podcast to create a list and rate the groups.

[Corey]

You'll also be proud of me. In my calendars, on my iPhone, I have one that says mixing bowl cookie company in there. That's where I.

[Heather]

She's growing her. She's learning how to kiddos.

[Corey]

That's where I've been putting my orders. But also what I did is there's this group, Nova Parents here in Northern Virginia. Parents, you can only post there once a month on Saturdays. And I said, I'm missing these. So now genius in my calendar is a reminder that's going to tell me one hour before 11 o'.

[Heather]

Clock.

[Corey]

So I'd be like, okay, I need to start thinking, but I'm not going to miss a Saturday posting.

[Heather]

Love that. Let me level up for you. Sure. In the event description, put your comment copy and put a hyperlink to the group so you don't even have to.

[Corey]

Think less, think less, think less. What we do now is the is playing for the best versions of ourselves.

[Heather]

I know. And sometimes the best version of ourselves is lazy. I love thinking of my future lazy self. I love that that person is like, it's already untaken. Care of baking that in there. I love it. So where do we. Oh, yeah, the make a list of active groups. I think that template's still up. It's in the podcast. If you search for what's popping con, maybe sugar cookie marketing, you should be able to find it. Either way, you can easily make a spreadsheet list and keep it in Google Drive. And Corey said put a hyperlink to the drive in the event reminder that she has on Google Calendar so she can update, saying that she posted there already. Audit pricing to ensure your costs are covered plus profit. I think that we're in an ever changing economic landscape where interest rates are going up and going down and the price of eggs is high and low. I think it's easy to get kind of lost in the sauce and be like, hey, what are you guys charging for this? Yeah. And then you're like, oh, why do I charge for that? I don't know. Because somebody from 5 million states away said they charged this one time and I never, ever understood my pric.

[Corey]

Yeah, I was lost in a twilight zone last Wednesday. I had two orders due and I don't know why they both. It was two orders of the most opposite colors in typical. Took me 12 hours.

[Heather]

And I said, you're just tired of this.

[Corey]

Money is not worth it. For how long I've been in this.

[Heather]

Room, Cory and I will be sitting together and creating her a spreadsheet for costing so she can easily reference it and explain it.

[Corey]

Yes. At the end of the day, you can slip slap on a high price tag and probably cover something.

[Heather]

Right. But wouldn't you rather.

[Corey]

Wouldn't you rather know?

[Heather]

I know when you're, when you're like operating off of really thin margins, you got to know.

[Corey]

Oh, if you're operating on thin margin, it's a need to know.

[Heather]

I think it's like, slap this high price. I'm still making money. Let's just understand. Let's understand. At the end of the day, let's.

[Corey]

Feel confident that when someone's like, oh, that. And you're like, yeah, that.

[Heather]

Here's the thing. If I know people listening to this podcast and they're cringing at each one of these, they're feeling uncomfortable right now because they're like, I know I should Be doing all this, girl. I went, I'm with you. Cool. We are the pick what you can, do what you can. We know we gotta be there. You can take it on each month to get separated. You could be working on this in 2020, in December 2026. And I'm still like, you did it.

[Corey]

You're hearing some of this and you're like, I couldn't do it the way they're saying it, but here's the way that would work for me. Do that, do that. We're just getting your juices flowing, girls.

[Heather]

Yeah. But knowing your numbers and auditing that. So I'll be putting Corey's numbers in a spreadsheet. Yeah. So that she can say, oh, my goodness, the price of butter is greatly different than when I first came with this. And then she can audit that and maybe adjust her prices. Even dare I down. If she wanted to be more competitive in a price concept. As long as she's got a healthy profit margin, covers her cost. She's allowed to do that. It makes her competitive.

[Corey]

Yes, I can. And what a way to edge myself on the market.

[Heather]

Maybe she'll get an order from the lady. What's that?

[Corey]

It was.

[Heather]

I stepped on a piece of tape.

[Corey]

That'S holding this chair up.

[Heather]

Oh, yeah, Watch out for that. Maybe Corey could even say to the hysterectomy lady, hey, you know what? Let me give you a discount on this one for coming back because Corey knows her numbers now and it's. Maybe it never touches her pockets because it touched her ingredients. Cost because they have come down or something. Update Google business profile. Oh, yeah, we talked about this one. With your 20, 26 hours and holidays, I think you can do your holidays all year. I think you can do it.

[Corey]

It's always sending you a reminder. Hey, girl, just wanted to see.

[Heather]

Do you want to do your holidays real quick? Just a little thing at the end of the day. Is anyone going to call you on Christmas? I don't know. But if they could look you up and say it says closed or it says open. Yeah. And now you can do Google business posts. You can schedule those out now. I know, I know you can find some apps that allow you to do that.

[Corey]

Listen, I do. I'm talking to. Nobody will make up.

[Heather]

It's a ranking factor. If I went there and I saw updated information, I would like it.

[Corey]

Yes. It just seems they're active. They're there. I have over 2, 500 photos on there.

[Heather]

25. Yeah.

[Corey]

Anytime I do a set.

[Heather]

Google's all got a Whole data center for Corey. Okay. It looks very great. You don't want to phone number down there. I see. Your products look very fun and updated. You have the booking options. We have great reviews. And look, your social media post. Do you remember when the last one.

[Corey]

You made was my social media post or my. My post?

[Heather]

It was Google my business post. It was one.

[Corey]

Was it this year?

[Heather]

These are the posts you make?

[Corey]

Yeah. Well, did I do one this year yet?

[Heather]

You literally just said you do them all the time.

[Corey]

I did. Oh, no.

[Heather]

You haven't done1 in 2026. I'm so sorry. I was like you asking if you did.

[Corey]

I did one in December. I know I did.

[Heather]

You did December 13th and November. And then because Corey's so consistent in her naming conventions and the information on profiles, it has pulled in all your social profiles at the bottom, which is delectable. You cannot to force that, but you can't force it. I know, I know. I've gotten lucky there.

[Corey]

I love it.

[Heather]

Lucky.

[Corey]

That's a great one. Create a P and L profit and loss statement to review your fiscal year. Now, this one is good.

[Heather]

Yeah, yeah. We're talking about this with my little sister. Profit and loss shows you the health of your business. If you ever need to apply for a loan or a grant, you need to provide that for them, how much money you made and how much money you spent. So you can see, how was 2025 actually for you? And what do I plan to do in 2026?

[Corey]

Are you still clicking my cool business profile?

[Heather]

No, I'm highlighting what o.

[Corey]

Good. I said, wow. What are you clicking on over there? No, I'm confident with that. I have baby. That's my baby child at the end of the week on Friday when I'm watching tv, I'll go and update it.

[Heather]

With some photos and stuff. That's a great way to, you know. And that's something I want to talk about as well. But just add it here. Adding a carrot to your task. Sometimes I'm like, oh, you really, really don't want to do this, but I'll go get a burger if I do it.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Corey saying I'll be able to binge Netflix while I edit my photo out of my photos.

[Corey]

Yeah, I just like to do it. I like to listen to something when I do it, so it's easier to do do it if I'm listening to something.

[Heather]

Loves going to my mom's house. She loves hearing the goss.

[Corey]

I love hearing the goss.

[Heather]

She'll bring her computer, shoot My dad will be like, what are you working on? She'll be like I'm working on the goss and I'm also cleaning out. I want to hear the goss and.

[Corey]

Sometimes I'll interject an opinion but I want to work on something.

[Heather]

You with an opinion. No. Yeah, set up. This is a me1 set up order workflow automation. So digital invoicing, immediate digital invoicing. When they're invoiced you can have them automatically added to the CRM. You had them added to the newsletter. Zapier is a great app for this. Yeah. You can kind of find AI could kind of help you kind of navigate that if you ask it. But if you automate more stuff and then audit your automations if you automate more stuff, you get to think less and that thought gets to go to where you want it to.

[Corey]

One thing me and Heather incorporated for my business here is an auto responder. At the end of the day people try to circumvent my job form to get an to get an order in that they shouldn't be getting in. So what that does was if they hit me with Corey, can you take my order? It's hit with a job from hey, are you looking a bit placed order? You got to fill out this form. So it helps me feel less guilty.

[Heather]

I just got your autoresponder for something I had sent you. You had asked me to send you like a cookie cutter file or something and I was like yeah, it answered further questions. Yes. And then it told me to go to your social media and get inspired by photos there and place an order there and kind of more expectations of what to do.

[Corey]

So it honestly answers a bunch of the questions. So a lot of people saying Corey, can you take an order? Oh, here's the form. Maybe they have or ordered before I had the form so they didn't know one existed. Now they see it. We have best intentions of Mice and men. I can say to myself I'll get back to that email in the next 24 hours. And 24 hours has come and gone. Having those autoresponders to do the work for you can help alleviate a lot of this back and forth.

[Heather]

I told Corey like even with my sugar cookie marketing inbox I said I'm getting a little inundated with emails, some that are just questions that could have been an. So I'm creating a directory autoresponder that'll have all the information if like honestly, like if you can't find what you need here, you probably didn't need it.

[Corey]

And I want to say that will allow you to not, not say, don't respond to emails, but when they're answered, you don't have to respond to an email.

[Heather]

Yeah. Here's our policies. You don't have to ask twice. You know everything you need to know. And then I'm going to actually connect it to Jotform. Like if you really need to do this, you can submit a form. That way it comes in in a way I can quickly analyze.

[Corey]

Yeah, analyze.

[Heather]

It probably works on that purge.

[Corey]

I've been doing this purge and organize your cloud storage. At the end of the day, the marketing company we have, it's hard to delete things that you put time and effort into, but those clients are no longer their clients. Yeah, but I'm just like, wow, I remember when I made that. Here's the thing.

[Heather]

Google Drive has just come up with a lot more features since we first started. Yeah. Now Corey and I can actually share a drive to together. But that wasn't a feature. So we used to have to duplicate our drive. It was ridiculous. Now we have a lot of duplication. Yes. Oh, my hack for this one. I actually did this for myself in 2025. That's why I added it here. Workflowy. I mentioned it before. Workflowy is a bulleted list app. Bulleted list. It mirrors a folder structure. So what I did is I created what I want my Google Drive to look like and then I in Workflowy, and then I'm like, drag and drop. It's very easy to drag and drop. Like, oh, no, I don't think I'd like that there. I made my perfect Google Dr. And then I built it in Google Drive and put the files where needed.

[Corey]

Haven't you enjoyed my birth into a more structured Google Drive?

[Heather]

Oh, it makes everything better. Corey had the habit of just always attaching photos to emails, which created a bog in my inbox. Which means I had to download them, unzip them, shrink them, and then upload them back to my storage offer. So now Corey said in 2026, she's only using Google Drive. She'll organize it.

[Corey]

Now I said to myself, if you aren't in.

[Heather]

You know how many times I've referenced this photo files for the hot sauce guy?

[Corey]

Oh, a billion. And I've organized them for you.

[Heather]

You barely organize it. Can I? I'm going to challenge you. Sure. Name the first folder. 2026. Underscore. Month, day. So month, Underscore day, Underscore. Now I can see exactly when you created the folders.

[Corey]

So I was sorry you guys for the marketing. I was naming them in like the, the span of what they were useful for.

[Heather]

So it was easier for me to.

[Corey]

See and be like, okay, I'm going to add more to this specific.

[Heather]

Oh, I see what you generic or themed or. It's kind of just an approach.

[Corey]

I know and that's to me how I because I, I'm very photo big on my end. You are very much text big like you know, kind of like forms and stuff but photo big. I'm like, how can I reference this and be more organized in the future? It's if I can see like this is the.

[Heather]

Hey, I'll take what I can get. I ain't go and tweak it. I try try update website. Oh, somebody added this one to mine. Update the website. Copyright in your footers. Some websites have a A20A timestamp at the bottom.

[Corey]

Listen, if you say you do website design and social media marketing like me.

[Heather]

Don'T claim that we got an out of date. You better update it there. You can just go and update your footer. A lot of times if it's in WordPress it's in the customization settings.

[Corey]

Most people are n looking at it but it's just one other way to.

[Heather]

Show that you're relic of website yesterday. Why is it still there? Because it was basically like don't steal what's on this website. I wrote it.

[Corey]

Oh, then why do we have a timestamp there, Corey?

[Heather]

I don't know. It's just, it's just, it's always been research enlist business network events. This is somebody else's submission. I do like that. Create a spreadsheet and say which one and then rank them one to five.

[Corey]

Yeah, love that.

[Heather]

And then price them out because some things are free and they may be a better bang for the buck and some things are paid and they may be high, higher quality lead source. There's a tie. There's a number at the bottom of the page. I know, I'm looking.

[Corey]

Okay, I know I have to find three.

[Heather]

You keep going. You keep going.

[Corey]

Found it located.

[Heather]

So that takes us to that list. If you guys want that list in random form, I will be sending it out in the Wednesday Wednesday newsletter tomorrow.

[Corey]

Tomorrow.

[Heather]

These are just ideas. You could take some of these all throughout the year. If you did them all, you're going.

[Corey]

To be sitting purty per day.

[Heather]

And I tell Corey it's the first time is the newborn baby deer the second time you do it. You pull from a template the third time. It's just the way you work. Yeah.

[Corey]

And it on it. You're not going to be perfect in what you start. I'm proud of you for starting anywhere you go.

[Heather]

You're.

[Corey]

You're with me. We're just little baby deer. And Heather's got like a folder structure from Mount Zion. So like if you are just putting things in a folder.

[Heather]

Proud of you. And then maybe name that folder year underscore. Yeah. It's just, it's just you're going to find what works for you and you're like, wow, that felt so good. There's a lot of you guys struggling right now now because you said, I accidentally set the trap. I walked into my house and you're wondering like, why is this person getting so many more sales? They're just a little more polished throughout all these little small ways and it makes them a little bit more competitive.

[Corey]

I know, I know. And if you say like I'm such an oversaturated area, your number one things you gotta do is these.

[Heather]

Welcome to help.

[Corey]

Yeah. At the end of the day, we're buying from and I always say we buy from the same cutter shops. Our cookies look relatively similar. If it says 6, 7, we're all doing it. So what's going to give you the edge is maybe the quicker to reply because you have the template on hand.

[Heather]

Yeah. I just want to clarify. Corey and I are like community or competition. It's better to be friends than to be friends. Right. But there's the other thing is we're still in business and you need to be competitive and you'd rather get that sale than them because that is being competitive. But also we don't want to wish failure on them. We want to look at them and be like, I'm going to try to do that a little bit better than you. I love you so much. Yeah. Thanks for being my map and not my mirror.

[Corey]

At the end of the day, I'm not going to trip you up to the trophy stand, but I will be taking the first place.

[Heather]

Okay. How did they get first place ones? I need to get first ones.

[Corey]

So if you want to instead of pointing out and be like, everyone's around me offering the same thing, offer it just a tinge bit better. Make sure your website looks branded. Make sure your communication is very well structured. Have bold things in your email. Make sure that you're responding in 24 hours instead of 48 hours. So there's things that that can really Set you apart. And I live in a super, super cookier saturated area and you don't see me punching the wall. It's literally like, come on, let's see who going.

[Heather]

If you look at all of these, none of these required. Looking at somebody else like, it was like, we have so much we gotta fix about ourselves. We can't even focus on it.

[Corey]

I know, I know.

[Heather]

Okay, going to the next part of our spreadsheet.

[Corey]

Nice. It is the roomie review in the cookie college. Instead of just saying you need to sign up, we're gonna let you hear from the roomies in the college. And they've dubbed themselves that and we love it.

[Heather]

And Samantha, it is your. She has submitted one. She submitted it this past month. So she gets a 10Amazon gift card. Thank you so much. It says if you want your cookie business to grow and become more than just a hobby, then this is a program you need. I signed up when it first started and it was way over my head. So I took this big break and I came back with a new mindset. I want to make my business work for me. And the college is my toolkit to do it. I'm going to tell. Thank you, Samantha. I'm going to tell Corey this. I am tripping through rug tufting. Tripping forward. We're tripping forward.

[Corey]

We're landing on our new little scratcher pad thing. Came in on your.

[Heather]

Your little winder. Oh, did you see my winder a lot? Okay, so I saw Cory. It would be so awesome to have a single place that tells me exactly what to do, gives me the links to do it, walks me through how to do it, lets me ask how? Why is it not working that same way? And then I spit out the product I wanted. And that's what the cookie college is. And I said to Corey at the end of the day, what I wouldn't give for a cookie college for Up Tuft.

[Corey]

I know, I know. And a lot of people are always searching it. And that's why leave Me made the cookie college. It's a one stop shop where you need to find everything to be a toolkit. That list we just went through, half of those are courses that are in the college already.

[Heather]

Now here's the crazy part. You're listening to this on the 6th and the doors close on tomorrow. First time ever since we opened it, when we first launched it on August 31, 2021. Wow. We actually limited signups to 250 for the first six months. Yeah. And then we never shut the doors again. We opened them I think in January, that next, next year 2022 and the doors have been open for that long. And for the first time ever in 2026, we're closing the doors and we're. That means nothing changes. Everyone's wondering like, do I lose something? No, no, no. Everyone who isn't in there loses access. Yeah, but everyone who is in there, you only gain more. So you guys are set.

[Corey]

The reason why is I'm holding your feet to the fire. If you have any chance to sign up and you sign up and you do nothing, you do nothing. When you're in the college, the college will not work for you. Agree? If you sign up and I hold your feet to the fire, you tune into my Monday morning roll calls where we go over a topic each week. You're there. Sometimes people assign Donna, Heather. They're always there. They're. They're looking for it.

[Heather]

Is it a Facebook live of Heather Campbell brothers and listen? I don't think so.

[Corey]

So here's the thing. If you are saying I want to join the cookie college, I just haven't. This is your time to do so, but I'm not going to make you do it.

[Heather]

It's your time to do so. For a discount code, use code newbaker2026 and you can get there at our grandfather date. Then we're going click to close the doors, right? Yeah. So somebody's like, what does that mean? That means that you can only access the Cookie College 12 to 13 times. I've had the venue probably 14 times. Very strategic.

[Corey]

And maybe even less because I might take the last three.

[Heather]

I know Cory's going crazy. Cory's like so. And we're moving to this boot camp thing. I think it's going to be really great. I've been working on it all week. I'll be working on it. We'll do 12 this year. Now the first one will be January 28th through the 30th. That's three days and each day will be between 10am and 12pm so that'll be two, one to two hours per day. This, this is a bootcamp intensive, meaning Corey and I are going to pre record. Day one is going to be configuring and setting up a in person cookie class and marketing it on eventbrite, creating all that. Then we're going to actually go to the location, we teach cookie classes, prerecord everything. You need to know what she bought, why she bought it, how we set it up, why we do it and then we're going to walk through our script and tell you why we're speaking that way. And the final day we're going to do follow up marketing and then a live Q and A. So that's what the bootcamp is. At the end of that, those people who attended that bootcamp can then join the cookie content College. Yeah.

[Corey]

So what we've heard you guys have said it is the cookie college can be overwhelming. Well, there's 90 courses in there that is always being added to. Unfortunately that's overwhelming. So what we're going to do, instead of taking any of the content away, it's still going to be in there. You can access it right now if you sign up. What we're going to do is streamline it. So how to set up your eventbrite listing for cookie class tickets in 2026.

[Heather]

Is going to replace the old one because eventbrites changed how so it's going to update.

[Corey]

Update things. Streamline things. Hold your hand and kick your bun into high gear.

[Heather]

Kind of like if I wanted to, if I just spent these three days and I'm not taking your whole day, I'm taking two hours a day. I would know exactly at the end how I could teach my cookie class. In February we're doing a photography one. Yeah, you're gonna love it. It's gonna be a lot of Corey's voice. But I'll be here recording and editing.

[Corey]

Recording.

[Heather]

And then in March we're gonna do pre sales. So you're looking at the January in person class bootcamp is in three weeks. The February photography bootcamp is in seven weeks. And that pre sales boot camp is in 11 weeks. You say how I do that? Sign up right now. If you sign up for the cookie college using code newbaker2026, you get all this, you get everything we got and you get all the other memberships as well, which are not changing. Yes, the, the cookie class kits, the baker's business basics, the digital downloads, the transfers, those are all remaining exactly as they are and they're still always included in the cookie college. Just the doors to the college are closing so we can do these intensives for the next 12 months. Yeah. And if you sign up for an.

[Corey]

Intensive boot camp, the door will open to you. You.

[Heather]

Yeah. But if you're in the gauge, it'll always be open to you and you can go join us because it will be fun. It will be fun. So we're looking at the bootcamps for the rest of you. I'm excited about it some of the ones that we've come up with is food photography that sells understanding pricing with a profit, a healthy profit. Email marketing deep dive using G Suite effectively, which actually covers a bunch of the stuff we talked about today, using AI in your bakery, things like that. So that's coming. But we will be working on, on those. Corey's excited, I can tell.

[Corey]

Laughing. I'm just making sure.

[Heather]

Yes, yes, got it.

[Corey]

December is bolded for whatever and he says pop ups.

[Heather]

How do we like, how do we like this structured.

[Corey]

I love it.

[Heather]

Okay. Corey added a new segment.

[Corey]

Oh, I added a Goss column.

[Heather]

Corey said, you know we're non client bashing in the sugar cookie market. Right. Because it doesn't really add marketing value. It gets a lot of drama, but it doesn't really have a point. However, that doesn't, that doesn't mean people aren't crazy. And at the end of the day.

[Corey]

If you can't comment back, you can't comment back.

[Heather]

And, and Cory's like, well I would love to know gossip like this because I like to hear it but now it won't like it just being nosy.

[Corey]

And this is gossip, not necessarily just customer bashing. You had a bad customer. I know we deal with weirdos all the time, but this story. Weirdos. A story that you're like, it doesn't end up. It doesn't belong in the sugar cookie marketing group because it's not marketing related and it doesn't belong in the baking group because it's not baking related. So this is just a story.

[Heather]

Yeah. So whoever submitted this will pick one a week. It's completely anonymous. I don't even ask for your email address. There's no way for me to know who you are, nor do I want to. I'll just read one of these ones. The title of this anonymous thing is Craigslist Missed Connections. It said this was probably six or so years ago, but I think, I think about, I think about it once a year. I did a market one time. It was a one and done market. Think like a Christmas market. It wasn't recurring and the foot traffic was okay. Constant flow of people but not necessarily a constant in flow of sales. Understandable if it's only one time. I was helping out this mom and her kid get a sugar cookie pyo. They insisted to see like every design I had. When the man was standing behind them, I couldn't tell if he was waiting for them to move or he was just taking in the whole market. Plus I was busy holding the Pyo after pyo to show to Mrs. Undecisive over there. The mom eventually paid for the cookies and left with her kid. And this man walks up. I mean, he was like good looking and well dressed and no bags from vendors, just a jacket over his army. Leanson says, your eyes are gorgeous. I hope everyone gets a chance to see them like I did. I was so taken aback that I just responded thank you and mumbled eating. After that, at best, I never saw him again after that. I walked the show towards the end to the event to see if he was there with the vendor booth helping. No, he was just gone with the win my Ms. Bakery connection. What is it, Meredith? What did you just say about me? Can I interest you in anything, Mr. Mr. Man?

[Corey]

If he listens to listen to this. Go Maxi Avenda girl.

[Heather]

Yeah, I like it. I thought just a story worth a listen. Ma'. Am. Yeah, I just want to know what's going on at everyone's house. It's a story.

[Corey]

You're like, you know what? Someone's got another story.

[Heather]

I could submit some myself when I might. Do you have customers? Yeah. Oh, the lady didn't. She should click on links.

[Corey]

Well, don't say that. Oh, yeah.

[Heather]

There'S just people that think differently than us out there. And it's fun to read that. So I have the form. It's actually pinned at the top of the sugar cookie marketing group if you want to submit your anonymous gas.

[Corey]

Maybe we'll have to like update, like ask each week while we get into this form of.

[Heather]

Yeah, this is like a whole new thing.

[Corey]

See, I like that. That was a good one.

[Heather]

Very high pitched. See, I like that. You said it was fun. Very fun. Okay, we'll keep the gossip column for another week. Oh, guys, we get a keeper.

[Corey]

Feathers really put it on the chopping block. So please send good ones that aren't crazy.

[Heather]

Okay, I have an upcoming events countdown as a new segment. What are our thoughts? Let me see. I just.

[Corey]

See, I see them. Oh, this is handy dandy.

[Heather]

Guys, let's see what you're saying. So Corey and I thought it would be more fair to you guys in this year to do our collabs and post them up quarterly. I know.

[Corey]

This hurt my brain. Guys.

[Heather]

So in January, we're doing a reviews collab. It'll be on January 3rd, which is in 17 days, you may say. I haven't seen you post about that. I'm working on it. I had to make this whole spreadsheet first. February, we're going to go back to a Meet the Baker collab. March will be a very interesting 1. An AI recreation cookie collab. That way, as we see AI and AI generated photos take over more market share. We can demonstrate to our clients. Here's the AI cookie, which we'll provide it. And here's how I can recreate them.

[Corey]

I did it with an owl once, and I was like to the customer, I said, well, I can't recreate him because he's El Perfecto. I can get kind of close, and here's what it would like. Look. So that's what we're going to do. Take an AI photo and recreate it as a cookie so people can see the differences.

[Heather]

Yeah. So again, all the collabs kind of focus on a way to market to your audience and also get engagement from other bakers. And April will do that local feature variation of Main Street Cooking Club. So again, the January reviews collab. You're going to ask for reviews. Corey's going to tell us more about that soon. Upcoming events. Eddycon is actually in three days.

[Corey]

Oh, wow.

[Heather]

We're in January. If you wanted a Freddy at Eddycon, they're giving you $500 off to join the list.

[Corey]

Oh, to join the list.

[Heather]

Yeah. But I think they said they're shipping them this month. Oh, wow. I don't know what's Popping Con. We've been invited back to spring.

[Corey]

Oh, it's in January.

[Heather]

Eddie Con is tomorrow.

[Corey]

In three days, you have what's popping con? January 28th.

[Heather]

I'm so sorry. That is incorrect, though. It's actually in 14 weeks. What am I doing that says 14 weeks? Yeah, the date's wrong.

[Corey]

Oh, I see.

[Heather]

I see. I was rushing through this.

[Corey]

I said, shoot, I better get.

[Heather]

I got to get art.

[Corey]

That's a joker.

[Heather]

I didn't know. It's so cool. I'm sorry, I haven't updated. I have these in a spreadsheet. It did not translate. Cookie con is in 24 weeks and the Venue Bunny is in 46 weeks.

[Corey]

Because Cookie Con would be literally tomorrow.

[Heather]

I think the holidays are correct, though, if you want to read this. Okay.

[Corey]

Super bowl, maybe February 8th, which is in 33 days. Five weeks. Valentine's Day.

[Heather]

But the reason why. And you're just brushing over, that is five. You got to order your cutters now.

[Corey]

Yeah, you got to Valentine's Day.

[Heather]

You got six weeks.

[Corey]

You'd be ordering your cutters now.

[Heather]

So I already put the best bakes for Valentine's Day up last yesterday, and there's been a ton of ideas. So you could go there, source your ideas and order.

[Corey]

Love that. That's February 14th. Ramadan is February 17th, 42 days, six week Mardi Gras. Big for our Southern ones. February 17th, 42 days, 6 weeks in St. Patrick's Day. Can't believe we're talking about March.

[Heather]

I know.

[Corey]

March 17th, 70 days, 10 weeks.

[Heather]

I really didn't want you to say the 70 days because that's so like a figment of imagination. You just could go to the 10 weeks there on that one.

[Corey]

Okay, well next time feedback.

[Heather]

I just didn't think we were going to take it off. Cory's like read it.

[Corey]

You said read it and I said okay did it.

[Heather]

So okay. I like that segment. We will be tweaking how Corey reads it and I'll get the dates correct.

[Corey]

How the incorrect information.

[Heather]

Here's the thing. You asked for this template. I love me a Chaplin in 2026.

[Corey]

Next is is the STL Me About it segment. It's roughly 10 minutes long. The phone number should you want to include. You do get a chance to win something.

[Heather]

571.

[Corey]

The phone number is 571-556-5644. This segment is sponsored by my new favorite software.

[Heather]

You know she finally saw you signed up.

[Corey]

I know and it is the Cookie Design Lab. So I had a very complicated order of a shop that of a set no one makes a cutter for it's.

[Heather]

Boot Scooting boot you told us last week and you posted in the group.

[Corey]

I did and a lot of you saw it and I turned a boot with spaghetti into a cookie cutter from this lady's AI that she sent me and it turned into a fruition was a cookie.

[Heather]

So you can search Corey Mira in the group if you want to see that. But Cookie Design Lab is a sponsor of the STL Me about It segment. I know, I know a couple of you have emails because you have one. I'm working on my directory so you know where to find that.

[Corey]

I love love that.

[Heather]

But use code twins for 15 off now they have a preview mode so you can see if you like the software at all. Like Corey said it was kind of easier than she thought it'd be. Yeah, I didn't take a tutorial.

[Corey]

I mean I probably should have. So my boot came out opposite but she, she said we're always listening. So she said her husband might switch it. So when you put it in the software it'll come out as it looks.

[Heather]

Like the flipped automatically. Yes. Otherwise it's just a click of a button. Yeah. Okay. So we have three texts. Can you pick one? Actually, we have four ticks. I'm sorry. One was funny.

[Corey]

Pick three.

[Heather]

Oh, that's the funny one. It was just the word twins. That was all it was.

[Corey]

Twins.

[Heather]

So area code 2, 3, 9. You. You win with the word twins. You are the STL, Nevada winner.

[Corey]

That's so funny.

[Heather]

I was like, maybe they sent something else. No, it's just that was the only thing from that phone number was just the word twins.

[Corey]

Oh. Maybe you had asked what was a code and they remembered a code that was probably.

[Heather]

That's a code for. That was from Fletta. Why do it? It's my favorite Texas twins. Okay, I have a couple more texts. You guys can text in to win next week. You didn't win this week, but you won my heart.

[Corey]

You did. Ah.

[Heather]

This is from two eight one. Happy New Year's, ladies. What word of the year have you all chosen for 2026? Purge? That's yours.

[Corey]

Purge.

[Heather]

Purge. Corey. I know it's going to be adventurous. Corey's in mid Purge zone.

[Corey]

We call it Purgatory. That's hilarious. Let's start podcast.

[Heather]

Mine is unbothered.

[Corey]

Unbothered. The thing is, is we said at the end of the day, life will happen to you. You. You cannot control anyone in your life. You cannot control every situation in your life. But you can control the weather. You're bothered by it.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

How you react to a situation.

[Heather]

So I'm being unbo. Sitch is a sitch. I'm just here watching the sitch with the gas. Give me the glass with the stitch. I'm being an emboss. 713 area code. Hi, from Texas. Two things. First, if you haven't already, you should check the mailbox for a special Christmas card from Texas.

[Corey]

You know what?

[Heather]

We did get a notification that there's a paa. You find yourself in your own neck of the woods.

[Corey]

That's not my neck of the woods. That is 25 minutes away from my neck and my woods.

[Heather]

My olive garden is two minutes from.

[Corey]

Now, and guess what? We both ate there on me.

[Heather]

And second, I just wanted to shout out my local baker friends for putting up with my Chanel shenanigans. If she shenan won, she'll shenanigans. I love it. I love to tag them and request for cookies due less than 24 hours or super detailed orders on a minimalist budget and then wait for them to yell at me. I just started sending it to the group chat and the last one calls for not it is a lucky tag. But seriously, make friends with local bakers. These ladies are the best quote unquote co workers that make the job so much more fun. I've learned so much from sugar cookie marketing in the college but the community over competition absolutely has to be the best one. Having a baker in your back pocket. Yes. Corey was purging her packaging. Yeah, a lot of peace in there. A lot of peace. And she purged it to a local baker who could actually use it and so they paid her a discount. So Corey recoup some cost. This baker got the stuff and Corey's.

[Corey]

Release from her own prison.

[Heather]

It's a suck of life. I think that link if you go to sugarcookiemarketing.com you can find all the stuff. But that cottage local cottage baker's group link is a powerful one because that's where you can kind of find these. And again you can find them in the sugar cookie cookie marketing group on the location roll calls. I see a lot of you guys.

[Corey]

Saying I'm right down the street.

[Heather]

Hey yeah. So just finding those bakers and not everyone's going to be a hit and a home run. It takes a while to find that person who clicks with you. You could also just be born with them. Helps a bit. And my last text for the week is 21 4. Hi twins. I have a hyper local marketing opportunity and I wanted to pick your brains. There's a brand new local gym three minutes from my house opening in March of this year. They wanted to advertise 30 small businesses in their gym and I, I signed up. It's only $5 for the first month trial and it goes up to $125 for a month. For the next three months they run a 27, 22nd ad on all of their screens in the new gym and the other locations of this gym within a 30 mile radius. A marketing event once a month where I can sell my cookies and additional marketing on their social media pages. Now how do I market cookies to people that are trying to work out lol. My thought process is that lots of people are probably parents and there's beauty parties and big sellers for me so I can market that angle. I also teach classes so I can go from that as well. Any other ideas? Any tips? I'd be so, so appreciative.

[Corey]

While my local gym does not have the opportunity to advertise with them. There was a lady there who says she knew I was a baker because she's in our local community group and she's A personal trainer at the gym. One day I just said, you know what? I'm just Baker a few extra cookies and I brought them into her. What she turned out to be was she came to our cookie class with a bunch of her friends about she.

[Heather]

Almost sold out a yeah, we're asking for a private class. Yeah.

[Corey]

So I think this is an awesome opportunity for you, especially for $5 for the first few months. A lot of people that are going to the gym still have parties and events that they're going to go to. So I wouldn't just say because you know their gym. If they're in your local area and it's your local gym in the hype around the gym is super high. This is a fantastic opportunity. I think you want to do your classes and I think if they have a child care center like our gym did away with the childcare center and with that when a lot of the parents because no one's there to watch their kids. But if they did have a childcare center, that's a fantastic way to really get your name out as birthday party go to baker.

[Heather]

As I brushed the dust off of my Gym membership as one would in 2026, January 1st, I went in and it had a placard and the gym shares a shopping center with an IHOP and it says if you say you belong to the gym and show your card, you get 20% off at the IHOP, which is great. That would come like yeah. So that's something you could do as well. Especially if you have those booths there. I would go for the angle like probably what Corey did. Maybe give the personal trainers some cookies. I get that you are selling to people who are trying not to eat cookies, but I think that's a funny part. And you could lean into. Let's say if you go there and you create a cookie. I could see myself buying a cookie that says calories don't count if it's in the gym or something. Something to play into the fact that you're there at the booth noodle wall. Give it to me. Give it a. Stick it to it.

[Corey]

Since you're going to be there quite often, every single month. You could create a few cookies for the personal trainers to use as incentives for their clients when they do a really good work work out.

[Heather]

That is funny. And then you could also put business cards in the anything the whole printing the QR code. There's some options there.

[Corey]

Freya.

[Heather]

I think it's a fun idea. I would say it's so it's 125amonth for the next few months. It sounds like you'll be in a four month trial here. $5 the first month and then 125. I would stick to all four months and show up to each one of those. I don't think it'll work otherwise. Like if you don't go and do the events and stuff. Yeah.

[Corey]

I think if you just did the first month, the $5 it's not going to be enough. I think the 125 +5 for the next three months one it's going to get your name out of there. The hype of a new gym is huge. When a new gym opens up where we are it it's flooded. People are making videos about it.

[Heather]

So you had a quote that you could put on a cookie and it said a balanced diet is a cookie in both hands. It was in your footer of your autoresponder of your signature that you paid for. That would be funny to me. That kind of stuff is really funny to me. If I went to a gym and saw that, I think it would be pretty cute. Okay. Corey has this new segment but I didn't get around to it. So please forgive. She wants the sponsors to be more exciting segment because without the sponsors there's no podcast. So she's going to ask them for a marketing tip and I will be asking you guys for a tip.

[Corey]

Yeah. So since that is coming. Heather did a fantastic job getting this ready to roll.

[Heather]

So everyone could everyone witness Corey's like wanting to bite my head off the last week when I asked her to if she could remember Dana. Nah, nah.

[Corey]

Cookie design labs. Use code shoot. Use code twins for 15% off. And that's how you can make some customers cutters for your audience to make them even more custom sets.

[Heather]

I love that.

[Corey]

Baking me crazy favorite twin. I've been using some of her piping bags. She has an extra small piping bag set. I really have liked it.

[Heather]

Really? Yes. Cuz you're doing more detailed work especially for the class kits we did our first intermediate class. Jury's still out on that.

[Corey]

Use code favorite twin to save 10% off. Baking me crazy. They have so much in their shop. They have so many things. C piping bags, more meringue powders, rolling pins, sprinkles, baking sheets you got there. Bakedy Bake is the makes royal batch which is the meringue powder that I use. You can use code twins for 10 off of that. So that's yeah got already vanilla in there. You got corn Syrup in there so it gets a soft bite.

[Heather]

Love it.

[Corey]

In white food coloring.

[Heather]

Let me jump in here. Daisy makes has switched their sponsorship over to what's Popping Con now. What's popping Con? We spoke at it in its inaugural year.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

They've invited us back again.

[Corey]

It was super cute.

[Heather]

It is on. It is Thursday April 16th to Saturday, April 18th. And you can find more about that at what's poppingcon.com. nice. I have our code. Daisy makes twins twin 10 get you 10% off of your ticket. No, of Daisy makes. Oh nice. Love it. Last year she did but right now they're in early bird pricing if you wanted to do that.

[Corey]

Nice. So that's in April and I believe.

[Heather]

We'Re speaking.

[Corey]

Just wanted to make sure that you. I didn't hear you say that. I was really.

[Heather]

You've made eye contact with me. I love eye contact.

[Corey]

Primarily Sarah, Eddie. So Eddie is the direct to food printer and they're having their Eddie con and I can't wait to hear what people learn. I'm sure it's going to be it's.

[Heather]

In three days and it's two days of I think eight hour classes. Bonnie beach, she is like running an eddy con connectors group.

[Corey]

If you didn't know what Eddie is. It's a direct to food printer. He prints directly on the top of your royal ice.

[Heather]

You heard me with that text in question to put the QR code of the personal trainer and see if we get the personal trainer wanting to do it. That's so easy with an Eddie I.

[Corey]

It's so you couldn't pipe a QR code but you can print a QR.

[Heather]

Code if you were crazy hard. Cuz it really needs to be s.

[Corey]

It has to be perfect squares. We actually used Eddie for the QR codes when we did that wedding event where I gave my business card but with the business card was something to scan and it was just very cool. People thought it was so neat.

[Heather]

It was pretty neat. It was pretty neat. So Eddie, the edible food printer if you're like he ain't cheap. It's 3,000 bucks but you can always find people like reselling. I'm a refurbed girly. I love it. Coming from the corporate orders but at a discount. I know you can check that out. Primera Eddie printer users group on Facebook or you can look them up. I think they're sold out of Eddie Con tickets but if you really want to squeeze it in there I think you could call them and see if somebody had to give up a ticket.

[Corey]

Bosch Nature Mill. Not necessarily a podcast sponsor, but if you want to save some cashier, you can use code sugar cookies for 20 books.

[Heather]

Woof. Uh, yeah. Really nice company. I really enjoy them. They were very all about the vending.

[Corey]

When I was doing my purge, I looked at my two. I have artist day in the Bosch Universal. I said, I'll never get rid of you guys.

[Heather]

Yeah, people who love them, love them. I love them. That is, if you're. If you're going to be a batch girly in 2026, you. You in Bosch your batches.

[Corey]

And I looked at him, I said, you are big and take up counter.

[Heather]

House space, but I love you. I love you, Twintress. What is yours? What's yours? What is my. What did we think about? What did you rate the structure of the podcast? Loved it.

[Corey]

10 out of 10.

[Heather]

10 out of 10. I think it's more structured to the people listening. I know we're growing pains. Growing pains. As much as you actually had our retirement manager contact us and he wants to be on the podcast. So we're doing a royal icing retirement. And he is so excited. He is obsessed. He said initially he was just like, oh, what do you guys do for working? And I was like, oh, the marketing, sales. Then he was like. He was like, was this like cookies and I. Can I join the Facebook group? Yes. Then he's like, what if I was on. He's like the nicest guy in the world. He's so nice. His name is Eugene, unrelated to the dough eater, but he will be in February 10th.

[Corey]

Oh, nice.

[Heather]

And so he. We're doing guests, and I'm rolling that along with the.

[Corey]

With the guest because there's a lot of moving parts when you have other people.

[Heather]

He's so excited to talk to everybody.

[Corey]

Yeah, he's so funny.

[Heather]

He.

[Corey]

When I was like, Heather, I said, I think the tax guy is trying to get into the group. Do I deny or do I approve retirement?

[Heather]

That guy doesn't want anything. No, the tax guy doesn't care.

[Corey]

My twin trust. It's so funny as we talk about purging things, there's two cost to purging. You bought the thing initially, never used it. Now to get rid of it is another sad cost.

[Heather]

Corey has found Facebook Marketplace.

[Corey]

I'd never used Facebook Marketplace before.

[Heather]

It is truly Craigslist. It's better.

[Corey]

Yeah, it is a little better.

[Heather]

Less murderer. Because you have a seller's profile.

[Corey]

You do. And I think that Craigslist was like.

[Heather]

You don't know who I am. Oh, that's true. Yeah, Never.

[Corey]

And you could be a non or whatever. Okay, so Facebook Marketplace. I've just now started using it because I was like, I have some things that have some value and to. To toss them. Super sad because they still don't know much.

[Heather]

No, no, guys. For those of you wondering, Corey's pricing things were $5 at one point. She sold something for a little dollar.

[Corey]

Something for a dollar.

[Heather]

Somebody drove 40 minutes to buy something for $7. Yeah, Corey, like, here's me. You couldn't. I couldn't. Like, imagine girl murdered for a $5 object. Not me. I'm a go. Goodwill donator. Yeah, that. But Cory and her husband. My husband or not.

[Corey]

I said, at the end of the day, if I can make it, I.

[Heather]

I added up your list. How much have you made? You said 4, 443 or something.

[Corey]

4 43. Okay, I've made 443. I'll just tell you. A new wave oven got it for free from a TikTok because I was a influencer for a bit for $60. Spent zero.

[Heather]

So she spent zero. She sold it to somebody at Marketplace for 60. They wheeled and deal like 10 bucks. She was like, no. Took the first offer that said. She's like, I only have $50.

[Corey]

And I said, well, I can only.

[Heather]

Let it go for 60 days. Fine.

[Corey]

Okay. But the countertop space, I got back.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Corey]

There's okay.

[Heather]

There's two gains when you sell something. The monetary and the freedom. Ankle weights.

[Corey]

I want to. I just want to you to understand. People are fighting over this. They were $5. I don't know.

[Heather]

I had the best intention.

[Corey]

Never use them. So I said, not used very much. No stains, doesn't smell. But they have been used once or twice. An old man showed up. I had to put him on his shoulders. I had his little arms. He's like, sorry.

[Heather]

His ankle weights were not his arms.

[Corey]

I it. Their ankle or wrist weights.

[Heather]

Okay, great.

[Corey]

I said, you can use it. I said, it would rub a little on your ankle.

[Heather]

This is the funniest one. I like this guy because he said, is there anything else in your house for sale? And Cory's like, I don't know. What do you want? And he was like, that egg thing. And she was like, okay. And he was like, well, I only have a dollar. And she's like, then it happens to be a dollar.

[Corey]

Yeah, it was.

[Heather]

He said, $.

[Corey]

He didn't know what he wanted, and nor did I have anything. And I said, well, here's the few things I said. I was going to clean them up before I listed them. He's like, what is this? It's the shape of an egg. And he was like. I said, it makes hard boiled eggs. How do you.

[Heather]

I would have a high. I'd gotten at something. I don't know what it is, for a dollar.

[Corey]

And he was like, how much you want? I said, I don't know, three. And he's like, I don't have a dollar. I said, lucky deal. It's on sale today for a dollar.

[Heather]

Okay. These cat spoons, they're. They're spoon dishes. Right where you put, like if you're.

[Corey]

Mixing your sauce and you don't want to put your spoon on the counter, you put it on this dish, a spoon dish. I want to tell you how many. 17 people.

[Heather]

17. No, you lie. 17 of me.

[Corey]

No, 17.

[Heather]

Telling the truth.

[Corey]

17 people.

[Heather]

How many?

[Corey]

I was so overwhelmed by the amount of people winning a cat. You were $5 total. Three. You got three.

[Heather]

You got 17 people. Want something for five.

[Corey]

17 people.

[Heather]

Anyways, Cory sells them. A girl drove almost 40 minutes in traffic to get him.

[Corey]

40 minutes. And when she comes in, she's like. I said, do you. I don't know the. The etiquette. One guy did plug in a magic bullet and he didn't step in. He like literally reached around to my out.

[Heather]

Want to see if it worked?

[Corey]

To see if it worked. And I didn't know. I didn't know that was customary. I thought for $5 you'd take a risk.

[Heather]

I think the marketplace is the wild west. It is the last one to do it. I don't know, undiscovered. So I was like to her, do.

[Corey]

You want to see what they look like? To see if they have a chip? She said, no, I already know who I'm going to gift them to.

[Heather]

Somebody. I was reading through Craigslist. Somebody tipped her. Someone didn't.

[Corey]

It bring change was funny. I had a Qi hair straightener and I don't use it anymore. So I said, it's literally been under the sink for forever. So I just listed it two seconds after it gets approved because everything goes through. She said, I'm literally doing my hair right now. My hair's sopping wet. I want it. So she did a porch pickup, which is a gamble because that didn't hair.

[Heather]

She could.

[Corey]

I never saw because at porch pickup.

[Heather]

I was never there.

[Corey]

She didn't have no. I said, no change. Don't ask me for change. She brought a 10. It was eight. She left $2.

[Heather]

You know what you hear These twins preach good photography. You know what marketplace wants ugly photography.

[Corey]

I've tested it. They want to see your. Your meal, your lunch behind the photo. They want flutter images.

[Heather]

If you're staging it, that means you think you're making.

[Corey]

I think so.

[Heather]

If you had a hurriedly take a photo as you're running out the door, you need this money.

[Corey]

It was so funny. Like I had just like let me clear the space. No, the things with my Diet Coke can for scale, for size, you know, you got.

[Heather]

You gotta match the bizarre branding. Like you have to. It has to be a flea market vibes.

[Corey]

What I realized our personalities were really upbeat and say too many words. They don't want that. They want. Yes. No. They want to be like, get it now.

[Heather]

We are both risking our lives to make this five doll sale here.

[Corey]

They don't want a lot of words. They don't want back and forth.

[Heather]

So descriptions really short.

[Corey]

Very short.

[Heather]

Yeah. Multiple photos or just one?

[Corey]

I have thought that multiple photos of different angles do better. But not curated photos.

[Heather]

Crappy phone photos. And then I've, I've.

[Corey]

If we did this more in business just altogether assuming the sale. So you're not. You're not talking about cat spoons because you want a best friend. So someone's like, are the cat spoons still available? And it's just a auto.

[Heather]

You can click it and it literally sends. So everyone's sending them.

[Corey]

I said, yeah, do to you want to pick it up today? Like I'm assuming you want it.

[Heather]

I would say yeah. About 16 other people in line. You want them?

[Corey]

I should say that.

[Heather]

I'd be like, oh my goodness. I want these so much more than you ever realized. I.

[Corey]

It's the craziest thing now I'm like, look, what else can I.

[Heather]

Her. Cory's husband owns three things in this world. And he was like, I think I could tell one of them. They're on a high. Ride the wave, ride the energy.

[Corey]

A lot of times my family, like my sisters have night things and they. They give it to me. It feels better and I'm willing to let them feel better. But then if I can take it and now I can get something out of it.

[Heather]

Oh, by all means, go to Dyson. I got the new Air app. I do really like it. I gave Cory my old air wrap. She really likes it. So good. It was a changing of the guards. Yeah. However Dyson the company throws in and when I say the word professional briefcase, it is a briefcase with a handle, a shoulder strap. It has the words Diamond Dyson. It's the sexiest briefcase ever seen. When you open it, I swear a light shines down from heaven and a music starts playing. And it's all these really high quality hair brushes from Dyson. Hair clips, hair brushes. One of those pump sprays. Yeah.

[Corey]

A comb.

[Heather]

Like all this beautiful. And I was like, wow. Listen, this is one of the.

[Corey]

If you look for a pump spray outside of Dyson, it's probably two bucks, this one.

[Heather]

Just because it was in the briefcase. Yeah. And I say, my grubby little Smeagol fingers are like, these are mine.

[Corey]

But listen, do I need to? It was free.

[Heather]

With purchase, it was suddenly worth a gadillion dollars. My little sweaty palm.

[Corey]

Heather's hand shook as she held it.

[Heather]

So I said to myself, I slapped myself and I said, what are you doing? You literally got the air wrap.

[Corey]

You don't need a brush.

[Heather]

And I haven't had a round barrel brush since I got the airwrap four or five years ago.

[Corey]

Because the airwrap negates the need for a brush.

[Heather]

Cory's like, maybe I'll have one. Remember, she just got the airbrush too. The air wrap, the. That I give. So I say. So I say, I'm doing this for Corey. She's fighting a battle right now. If something comes in, it'll trip her up. Yeah. I tell my aunt and my grandmother about these. Beautiful. And they're like, can we see them? And I said, yes, but you can only keep one if you keep them all. It was the Lord of the Rings. So I bring it down. You should have seen my grandmother. She's 86. She could buy anything she wanted. This world. She picks up their hairbrush. It's per. It's this iodized purple. She runs it through her. It's a brush, right? It's. It's no brush. You haven't seen it life. It's just a little. She like, this feels so good. A brush.

[Corey]

A brush.

[Heather]

And I said, it does. And it makes you look so good.

[Corey]

Heather saw me the next day and she's like, I have some bad news to break. I hope you're not mad at me.

[Heather]

I did this for you, girl.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And she said, I did it for you.

[Corey]

I've given away the brushes. And I said, you know what?

[Heather]

I didn't need them.

[Corey]

Good. I know, cuz I know me. If I got this free purse brush that you got.

[Heather]

Sorry. The Lord's brushes, okay.

[Corey]

Apparently I would have held on to it for another four years.

[Heather]

I know. I know. And guess who has it now. Our cousin in Texas. So good luck with that. Girl like.

[Corey]

And she moves often cuz her husband so she'll.

[Heather]

Here's the thing. It just is so crazy stuff. Madame Blueberry. If you guys watch Veggie Tales you'll know what I'm talking about.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Heather]

My twin. Trust YouTube. You get a preview here.

[Corey]

What?

[Heather]

Wow.

[Corey]

I'm going to do a play by play if you're not seeing this. She made a heart rug with her new tufting equipment. It's very red and very filled in. Are you going to cut them out?

[Heather]

Oh no. I'm going to keep practicing. I actually don't have the. Thank goodness for Facebook groups. Yeah, yeah. I asked a dumb question. I know you guys were seeing my.

[Corey]

Post there so why is he hairy on the side? Aren't you supposed to pull those out?

[Heather]

Yeah, I'm still practicing so I actually need apparently to be really good. There should be no spacing between those lines.

[Corey]

Oh yeah.

[Heather]

But you'll notice surrounding me is a. I called it a skein. Like a dweeb.

[Corey]

It's a skein.

[Heather]

A yarn. That yarn. Little. That yarn. Little hot dog right there called a skein.

[Corey]

You have to re yarn it into a cake.

[Heather]

This is a caker. You see a little cake growing right there. I'm actually running out of it. But I got. I rewound the yarn because at any point during rug tufting there's taunt. Yeah. It pulls it out. I've experienced it myself. So they were like yeah, you idiot. No, they were nice. They were like you gotta re respool your yarn into a cake.

[Corey]

What's so funny? As I'm getting rid of my horse hoard.

[Heather]

Heather's hoard is.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Hobby and hoarding is arm and arm hobby and hoarding. But I needed a hobby. I did. I did. And I am pursuing this one. Our older sister and Corey have had a little bit of their own time intervention. They are social media addicts. I am recovering so now they're looking to me for dragon. And I said we all need to. Ashley has me listening to a book called the Dose. Basically that's a vertical scroll short short form video is is just destroying our dopamine because it's such a high. And then Corey comes the other day and she's like I stayed up an extra hour scrolling and I said I couldn't enjoyed it if I hated it.

[Corey]

Me who loves sleep.

[Heather]

I.

[Corey]

At the end of the day I had a few giggles but it didn't translate. Into bettering my life.

[Heather]

And a gaggle. A little giggle collection of giggles is a gaggle. So. But Corey's like, she, you kind of did look a little depressed by it. And I was like, it's so funny. Ashley and I. So I uninstall TikTok throughout the week. It makes my Fridays a little bit of a treat. Goran installed TikTok.

[Corey]

I did. You want to tell you what crazy thing happened Sunday night? Probably had three more hours I could access it and I wasn't getting the dopamine.

[Heather]

Ceremonious. Ceremonious. When I decide like I'm done here.

[Corey]

I did it early. I thought I was going to have it to the last second.

[Heather]

I'll tell you what, when you uninstall Tik tok and reinstall it, if you stay any length of time too long in a specific piece of content, it's all you'll see on Sundays. Yeah. So it almost helps secure itself. So in the dose the book, the guy is like, hey, you need to. He's like, his is the challenge in chapter one or segment. Segment one he said text one person what you're about to do. Meaning I'm going to spend 20 minutes rough tapping then turn your phone onto airplane mode and put the phone in another room. These and set a timer for 20 minutes. He's like, all four must be present for this to work. So I've been doing that with this rug tufting thing. So for 20 minutes I'm inaccessible to the entire world outside. I of my Top Gun alarm going off at 20 minutes and I've just been plugging away.

[Corey]

The great thing for me is I've. I always get things done and I like doing things. Obviously on Saturdays I like to update my forms while I listen to the goss. So I like do listening to things. So I've always listened to something, whether it be a podcast, a show. TikTok scrolling So I do want to listen to things. The reason why I didn't like TikTok is it is very negative. The things that pop off are people complaining about other people as a group.

[Heather]

Admin girl, it's negative.

[Corey]

So if I can control what goes into my little brainy brain, why not watch a funny show or listen to something like the Middle east podcast that could help me declutter.

[Heather]

That's what the guy said. If you're doing something that's slightly not enjoyable, you're actually building up dopamine. And on the flip side of when you get that, you get your brain is Going to correct the bad feeling.

[Corey]

With a good one.

[Heather]

And that's what you reward the agreeing with. If you're still listening to this and you guys want some goss goss. Okay. A couple days ago a member in the sugar cookie marketing group's like hey Heather, I think I've uncovered an internal plot in sugar cookie marketing to get people to sign up for Hot Plate. I said what? What do you speak of? And she's like in every thread asking for website host or website platform. These four accounts that are locked which means they're eastern profiles, not western profiles. We can't lock them on the west western hemisphere for you for some reason. So she's like they don't have any friends and they only recommend Hot Plate. I go through. They're all locked, they have no friends. They only comment on threads where it says website host or website platform but it's written by AI or in a way I cannot tell that they are not. Like it's not copy and pasted. It's all like hey, I've really enjoyed Hotplay. It's great. I have no idea if Hot Plate's find this. No clue at all. I just had to ban these things. And I could not believe she figured figured it out.

[Corey]

I know at the beginning of SCM when it was in its baby infancy there was a lady and Heather will know who I'm talking about even though I don't even remember her name to this day. Anytime someone asked for a logo designer this non cookie lady would show up instantaneous to someone asking for a logo designer. She had run a software that was attached to the groups and there's the software out there.

[Heather]

Allegedly now it's not but I think if with AI I know, I think.

[Corey]

It still is and what it did was it was alert that as soon as it saw the text of logo.

[Heather]

Design she would jump in there and.

[Corey]

She was the first person on everything.

[Heather]

And I like to think the no sales rules based was built with her.

[Corey]

It was built on top of her comments.

[Heather]

Right, right. Because she never did anything that added. She only sold, sold, sold.

[Corey]

She only sold. She even said she wasn't a baker. So I think she joined a lot of business groups and when someone asked for logo design she was there to magically be the first person to, to provide her content creation.

[Heather]

Will we ever know who sent the hot plate infiltrators? The, the nefarious, the bad actors?

[Corey]

No, but the, the one thing I want you to take away from that at the end of the day we are all biased to our purchases. If you asked me, do I like the Cabela 10 tray dehydrator, I'm going to say, yeah, I love it.

[Heather]

There's so much bias in purchasing, and.

[Corey]

I've never owned another dehydrator to tell you that it's not the best one. It's the best one I. I've ever had. Plus, it's the only one.

[Heather]

Do you know what Tufting kind of got? The one that people wrote the most. Do you know why they wrote it the most? Because enough people wrote the most. What else am I going to do?

[Corey]

So at the end of the day, when you're asking questions and you're making these business decisions, you have to know that some people are biased just for the fact that they invested in it themselves. And it's hard to be like, I bought this thing and I hate it. When someone says they bought a car and they hate the car. I will listen because I'm like, wow, you here.

[Heather]

And then I. I had to say, you don't hate the car. You hate some things about the car. Like, there's a.

[Corey]

There's a. But you're more honest than most.

[Heather]

I agree. Yeah. So that said, if you guys have taken any recommendation joint, it's a neat little platform. I don't think it's worth those four comments in every thread that's ever gone up since February 2025. It is. Has a high percentage charge. That said, now you know that if there seemed like a lot of People are using Hoplite4People are no longer using. Yeah, but.

[Corey]

But just go into your. When you ask someone, who would you use, what do you use for this? If they are biased, you need to see if things work for you at the end of the day because we are biased to the things that we buy. If you ask me if those cat spoons were worth it.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Corey]

I've never had a cat spoon other than that. Tell the other 17 people they thought it was worth it.

[Heather]

What are you putting shoes on? We put them in the bowl.

[Corey]

I didn't need a cat spoon to begin with. Why did you buy them?

[Heather]

They were very cute.

[Corey]

They were so cute.

[Heather]

Apparently 17 people.

[Corey]

I know they were cute.

[Heather]

How much did you buy them for? 15.

[Corey]

They were 20. Yeah. I hate that I even know the price.

[Heather]

I know. How long have you had? Two years. How long have you used?

[Corey]

Never. They were as clean as a burb.

[Heather]

Are you kidding? Listen, guys, it's 2026 new year new. Let's get this. Sign up for the cookie couch. We'll see you in the boot camps. It's gonna be fun. Don't recommend hot plate unless you actually used it. Okay, I'm gonna let you go. Cory and I.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Where are we choosing?

[Corey]

California.