249. Baking it Down - Podcast Guest Eugene Kim, Finance Representative

Summary

Podcast Summary: Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing, Ep. 249 – Guest: Eugene Kim (Finance Representative)

Date: February 26, 2026
Hosts: Heather & Corrie Miracle
Guest: Eugene Kim

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Overview: Main Theme & Purpose

This episode marks a special format for "Baking it Down" as the Miracle twins welcome their first-ever guest, Eugene Kim, a finance representative and entrepreneurial “renaissance man” with a background in coaching, dog kennel management, and financial planning. The focus for the episode is answering listener-submitted finance and business questions, delving into budgeting, taxes, overcoming business anxiety, handling rejection, and cultivating the right mindset for entrepreneurial bakers.

Tone throughout is upbeat, humorous, supportive, and approachable, with plenty of real talk about the messy realities of mixing life, baking, and running a business.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Getting to Know Eugene Kim (00:10:00–00:15:00)

• Background: Originally from Chicago, attended Indiana University.
• Realized early on he was not “meant to be an employee,” started entrepreneurial journey.
• Former volleyball coach, dog kennel manager, athletic director—now 14 years in financial services.
• Family man with a 12-year-old (00:08:00), three aging dogs, and a penchant for humor.
• Memorable Quote:

  “Those who can’t play, teach. I rode the bench my whole volleyball career!” – Eugene (05:01)

2. Entrepreneurship, Coaching, and the People Business (00:13:00–00:18:00)

• Coaching girls’ volleyball for 25 years taught Eugene about leadership and teamwork.
• Parallels between coaching, baking businesses, and financial planning: the skills matter less than the discipline, mindset, and people skills.

3. Tracking Income, Budgeting & State Cottage Laws (00:16:00–00:21:15)

• Listener question: Best way to track sales for distinguishing cottage food from instructional income with state sales caps?
• Heather’s Guidance: Join state or region-specific cottage baker groups for relevant info.

  “That capping thing is very unique state by state... we created a list of cottage food groups organized by state.” – Heather (17:01)

• Eugene’s Advice: Use what works—pen & paper, Excel, or a CPA—but don’t underestimate the value of professional help.

  “We live in a TMI and DIY world…too much info, everyone tries to DIY. But if everyone did that, nobody would be in business.” – Eugene (18:41)

4. Should You DIY or Hire Out? Value of a CPA (00:21:15–00:24:00)

• Don’t let the DIY temptation undercut your business legitimacy.
• Hiring a CPA is not as expensive (or intimidating) as most think—find someone approachable and consistent.

  “There’s so much benefit to having the same person every time. It reduces anxiety—and there’s plenty of anxiety in business ownership.” – Corey (23:54)

• TurboTax and similar tools offer guardrails, but a relationship with a CPA means tailored advice and less fear of taxes/IRS.
• Heather: “You don’t pay taxes unless you make money... so, ‘congrats on your growth!’”

5. Controlling Anxiety and Focusing on the Controllables (00:24:42–00:25:20)

• Focus on what you can control: track your numbers, market yourself, and be visible.
• Most actionable business advice:

  “The only thing you control is how many people you see every day to say, ‘This is what I do.’” – Eugene (25:02)

6. Marketing & Lead Generation (00:25:49–00:27:00)

• Eugene relies on organic referrals, personal calls, and networking – not cold leads.
• Rejection is part of the process: get to your first 100 “no’s” as fast as you can.
• Quote:

  “The faster you get through ‘no’s’, you’re gonna get some ‘yes’s’” – Eugene (28:24)

• Practice builds resilience; you’re not selling to everyone, just finding those who appreciate what you offer.
• “Commission breath”—don’t let desperation for sales show, it chases customers away.

7. SEP IRAs, Roth IRAs, and Working with Accountants (00:29:43–00:34:03)

• Explained SEP IRA as a retirement option for self-employed.
• Can sometimes be combined with Roth, check with your CPA.
• Opportunity for “retroactive” IRA contributions up to April 15 of the following year (31:27).
• Financial advisors, CPAs, and attorneys form a “referral triangle” for comprehensive client support.

  “The CPA, the insurance guy, the attorney—keep your bases covered.” – Eugene (32:44)

8. Mindset, Consistency, and the Discipline of Saving (00:37:26–00:41:43)

• Biggest “faux pas” among entrepreneurs: not being disciplined in savings, being too emotional, and chasing trends based on internet hype.
• Starting ‘small but consistent’ (even $10/month) teaches financial habits more than catching up with big one-time investments.
• Quote:

  “It’s not the dollar amount, it’s the habit.” – Eugene (39:31)

• Money is emotional; sometimes, you need a “financial therapist” for guidance.

9. Debt, Overwhelm, and Building Back (00:41:43–00:46:59)

• Listener Q: “I have 4 kids and am drowning in debt. What do I do?”
• Response: Take small, repeatable steps and be patient; instant fixes (the “microwave generation”) aren’t realistic or sustainable.
• Encourage realistic expectations: start with manageable goals and practice discipline.

10. Mindset: Comparison, Value, and Controlling Your Narrative (00:47:53–00:58:12)

• Don’t fall into the trap of chasing potential over reality or letting “commission breath” ruin your sales.
• Don’t devalue yourself—stand firm on pricing and value, don’t be talked down by clients.
• Heather: “Clients can smell desperation like bad cologne.”
• Know your numbers, which builds confidence in pricing and planning.
• Control what you can: budgeting, understanding costs, and personal productivity.

11. Encouragement & Final Advice (00:56:18–01:00:30)

• Eugene would whisper to every baker: “Congratulations—have the guts to try.”
• Control the controllables; let the rest go.
• The only team you’re not allowed to lose to is yourself.
• Encouragement:

  “You get to be an entrepreneur. That’s so cool. You don’t have to be—you get to!” – Eugene (51:19)

12. Q&A Speed Round (Selected Highlights)

• How to find/research good financial advisors: Use FINRA Broker Check (36:13).
• When to involve a CPA: Sooner rather than later—especially when you start making consistent sales or have tax concerns.
• Write-offs: Defer to a knowledge CPA—tax laws and available deductions are state-specific.
• Listener insight: Know your numbers before pricing or planning—track your costs meticulously.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Compound Interest Wisdom (03:00):

  "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it." – Heather quoting Einstein

• Entrepreneurial Grit:

  “You have to have guts to try... glory to those actually in the arena doing it. To try is cool.” – Eugene (54:51)

• On Financial Planning:

  “Every dollar that comes in should already have a place to go... 10% to savings, 10% to offering...” – Eugene (61:18)

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Timestamps: Important Segments

• 00:10:00–00:15:00 - Eugene’s introduction and varied career path
• 00:16:00–00:21:15 - Tracking income, handling home baking sales, and state law nuances
• 00:24:42–00:25:20 - Managing business anxiety and controlling what you can
• 00:29:43–00:34:03 - SEP IRA and working with CPAs
• 00:41:43–00:46:59 - Conquering debt, developing discipline in savings
• 00:56:18–01:00:30 - Closing encouragement and wisdom for bakers
• Throughout - Light-hearted banter, practical advice, marketing talk, and real world examples

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Key Takeaways

• Find Your Support Network: Leverage hyperlocal groups, professionals, and peer entrepreneurs for guidance and accountability.
• Get Professional Help Early: Don’t fear paying for a CPA or financial advisor—relationship and consistency matter more than one-off cost.
• Track Your Numbers: Knowledge is power. Use whatever method works for you, but know your costs and profit margins inside-out.
• Rejection is Part of Business: Move past the “no’s”—they’re steps to “yes.”
• Cultivate the Right Mindset: Business can be an emotional roller coaster; discipline, consistency, and encouragement get you through.
• Celebrate the Journey: You “get to” do what you love—lean into that joy, and don’t undervalue yourself or your business.

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Final Note

This episode packed dense, real-world advice for bakers wrestling with the complexities of turning their craft into a business. Between practical finance tips and mindset encouragement, listeners walked away with tools to control the controllables, manage anxiety, value their work—and most of all, to keep showing up in the “arena.”

For more on community discussions and upcoming classes/collabs, visit the Sugar Cookie Marketing Facebook group or the podcast’s YouTube channel.

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(For questions for future episodes, text or email the show. For detailed resources and event news, check “sugarcookiemarketing.com” and related links mentioned in the show.)

Transcript

[Heather]

Corey, Cory.

[Corey]

Hello.

[Heather]

We're very very close.

[Corey]

Very very close. Very close.

[Heather]

Teeny tiny table. If you listened to last week's podcast, I'm moving. But I don't own a teeny tiny table. Goodly to me it creates warmth in the podcast. It reminds me of our roommate. I can let you know if you have anything in your teeth at any time. And as such, we actually have a couple things going on in this podcast that change it up on us. It is a moved ish, clearly not all.

[Corey]

And we have our first podcast guest, right?

[Heather]

So we got a couple moving pieces and this podcast guest has to get it compliance authorized. So they got to send the podcast to Compliance. Compliance. If you're listening. I love you guys. Huge fan of being compliant. That's my favorite place to be. Need you to teach a class to all my exes on compliancy. So what we're going to do is Cory and I are going to film most of the podcast and the meat and potatoes part we're going to do over zoom with Eugene.

[Corey]

Am I staring at you?

[Heather]

Where am I staring at them? You staring at whoever is most important to you. So we're going to go through the podcast in this very intimate setting. I can see Corey hasn't pulled up

[Corey]

the there's no room script. I put my phone on the floor.

[Heather]

I said it's either Diet Coke or phone. You just pop your head over here. You can just read. So let's go through today's podcast. Our guest is going to be Eugene Kim, finance rep. You guys have submitted your questions to him, but he really wants to talk about your questions and entrepreneurship. He said let's just have fun with it. I know he's a fun guy. He's hilarious.

[Corey]

We're in a text thread with him. He's so funny. If you haven't heard of us before, we are the Miracle Twins and we

[Heather]

host the Baking it Down with Sugar

[Corey]

Cookie Marketing podcast each Tuesday. For the most part, pretty consistently you'll

[Heather]

get a new episode.

[Corey]

It might not be the best compliance

[Heather]

if you take too long. This is out of date. Get it back to me today. That'd be great. But yeah, today we're going to interview Eugene. You guys asked for interviews in 2026. Every idea pre blind it is a ton of background work. You just don't realize it when you write that one sentence saying it would be cool if you did. But here we are and this Eugene said he'd play nice and go easy on us and then we will open it up. To other bakers for the following months.

[Corey]

Yeah, that'll be fun. If you sign up, we'll go easy on you, send you the pre done questions so you know what you're in for.

[Heather]

And I, I don't think anyone thinks this is all too professional.

[Corey]

So this has never been professional day in his life.

[Heather]

Corey did her car sales pitch. Intro to sugar cookie marketing. Things we have coming that we'll mention later on in the podcast is the photography boot camp.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

Cory's excited about it. Excited about it. She's doing. I'm just doing the editing on this one. I did more of the heavy lifting for the cookie classes. One, we have the AI collab coming up in March.

[Corey]

Correct.

[Heather]

In March.

[Corey]

In March.

[Heather]

And then an Irish icing class that actually dropped yesterday. Late at night.

[Corey]

Late at night.

[Heather]

And it is super duper cute. So I want to talk about that in a minute. My quote today is, compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn't, pays it. Compounding interest is a wild, wild, crazy thing. It's great if you use it. And it's absolutely the worst thing. Hate it.

[Corey]

I hate it for all of us.

[Heather]

So we're gonna skip over the topic right now. Then I'm going to actually edit it with scooches apart. Put Eugene in the mid. So. Cory, I are not going to.

[Corey]

It's gonna be a twin sandwich.

[Heather]

Yeah. If you get it, be the stuffing for our worry. Watch compliance. Be like most of it. You gotta edit. And that's just me and you. Really close. If you guys want to see how close we are, you can go to the YouTub YouTube channel, Sugar Cookie marketing and subscribe.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

You'll see me choose between.

[Corey]

Looking at Heather, it was.

[Heather]

I could see Cory's attitude when I was like. She's like, what are we doing here? I said, nobody knows. Come in.

[Corey]

Pre thought out.

[Heather]

So, okay, now I'm going to like 1, 2, 3, and blink. Remember, we just pretend we had this great conversation. So we actually recorded the first part of the podcast already.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Heather]

And then we're going to put you in the middle.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Heather]

We're gonna.

[Corey]

At the end of the podcast.

[Eugene]

Whatever you need to do. I'm just excited to be your be a guest.

[Corey]

Okay, Eugene, start us off with opening with who you are. Oh, no, you're allowed to say that you do. And just a little bit about you.

[Eugene]

Oh, okay. I can do that. Well, first of all, thanks for bringing me on here. I am. Let's see, I'm Originally from Chicago and Bloomington, Indiana, back in 1997 to do undergrad. Took a couple victory laps and realized that I would probably not make a good employee. I don't like people telling me what to do. So I went into business for myself. Yeah, there you go. In the meantime, I was coaching volleyball. Girls volleyball.

[Heather]

See, you were really big into volleyball. Who knew you had all this secret talent?

[Eugene]

I know I'm the most unathletic human being you'll ever see. I doubt it.

[Heather]

I doubt it.

[Eugene]

I rode the bench my whole career. So I always say, those who do can't play, teach.

[Heather]

So I like that spin. Me and Heather are both pine ponies as well.

[Eugene]

Yeah, there you go. So I. I started coaching in 1999. Met an absolute legend in the game. Didn't. Didn't even realize how reputable he was in the. The big volleyball world. And so I coached high school as an assistant coach with him. I ran a club volleyball program for AAU ball and coached at Indiana University for one year as a volunteer coach. And I retired about four years ago until my daughter, rotten daughter, said, hey, dad, I want to play volleyball. I was like, you gotta be on.

[Corey]

I'm ready.

[Eugene]

Yeah, so that's probably. I'm probably going into my 25th year of doing some type of volleyball that is coached.

[Corey]

So question for you. What's your favorite position to play? Not that I know the names, but that sounded like a good question to ask.

[Eugene]

That's a great question to ask. Yeah. You know, I actually, the older I get, the. The bench side is way better for me. I. I love the setting position, and the setter is kind of the quarterback of the. The court, and so a lot of leadership skills in there. But I. I love volleyball because the next person who has to touch the ball, it has to improve upon what's happened. And so I think it's the ultimate team sport, you know, and of course, I'm highly biased in that.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

So I love it.

[Corey]

Sounds like a communal. Me and Heather tried it in high school.

[Heather]

It didn't go well.

[Corey]

But this setter did set the tone for how. So you could hon the game depending on how the setter sets you up.

[Eugene]

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And everybody's involved in it. Right. It's not one of those games where I can dribble the basketball for whatever and then just shoot it every time I have to involve my teammates to do. Do the best I can. So I've. I've always loved it. I've coached only girls for 25 years. But I think it's such a great place to build confidence in a world that is telling you a lot of different things and sending you different messages through social media and magazines and friends and all that. But now you got a volleyball court that says, hey, we went in there, we did this, and we learn a lot of skills. So I always say the least important thing that we've done as coaches is to teach them how to hit a volleyball. You know, And I. And I think if that's what we get out of it, then we failed as coaches. I think we want them to learn how to be good business folks, and we want them to be. Learn to be good wives and good mothers and be able to be the next person who cures cancer. But we want them to use those skills that they learned on the court to be able to do those things. And then the winning is fun, but you hope that that's the byproduct of making sure that everything you do in the gym is correct.

[Heather]

So making me want to take advantage and break.

[Eugene]

Yeah, I love it. I love it.

[Corey]

And so you said you have the daughter. Is this your only child? This one?

[Eugene]

It's my only child. Yep. She's 12, and she's growing up real

[Heather]

fast, according to your bio.

[Eugene]

Oh, my gosh. It just seems impossible. It scares me because 12 years has gone by so quickly, and then I

[Heather]

think existential crisis as well.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Together. I feel what you're saying.

[Corey]

So 12 years old. What grade does that put her in?

[Eugene]

So puts her in sixth grade. And then she'll be. And so you get all the fun 6th grade drama and conversations and all that kind of stuff that I'm totally unequipped for.

[Heather]

Tell me more. Tell me more.

[Eugene]

I was like, that's a mommy conversation. So we have a great relationship in that I. Oftentimes when we get in the car, she'll say, how do you think I did? And I'll ask, and I stole this from somebody, as all my great ideas are stolen from someone else. That way I can blame them if it becomes a bad idea. But I'll say, hey, do you want Dad's opinion or do you want coach's opinion? And, yeah, she'll always go with Dad's opinion first. Right. I mean, that's. You know, I want what dad would say, oh, I love you. I think you're great. You know, you did a great job. So proud of you. You know, let's go get some ice cream.

[Corey]

And, you know, I love dad's opinion, too.

[Eugene]

Ten minutes later, Just out of sheer curiosity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Out of sheer curiosity. Ten minutes later, she'll go, well, what would coach say? I go, you're not getting dinner tonight and we're going home.

[Heather]

Take that iceman throws it away.

[Eugene]

So. But she's already got her ice cream cone, so, you know, she's pretty happy. But I think it's hard. It's just a really. It's a really tough climate these days to be coaching in general, but coaching your own kid, parenting your own kid, all those. All the challenges that come with that. So.

[Corey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eugene]

So been doing that and then been in the financial services business for going on 14 or 15 years. I'm finance majoring in college. I was a general studies guy. Gen studies. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And so right out of college, I ran my own AAU volleyball club called Hoosierland Volleyball Club, many, many years ago. Yeah. And fortunately, by great talent, you know, people started recruiting out of our club, and that kind of helped, you know, get my name out there a little bit that way. And then I was asked to be an athletic director at a very small Christian school, Lighthouse Christian Academy. So did that for a little bit. And then I ran a dog kennel for two years. I was a general manager for a dog. Ye. Yeah.

[Corey]

Is there anything you don't do?

[Eugene]

Oh, there's a. That list is way longer, for sure. Yeah, that. That list is way longer.

[Corey]

What's your favorite breed of dog? Good question.

[Eugene]

You know, we gotta. So we have three at home. I've got an Australian cattle dog and German shepherd mix. And we have two dogs that are really aging. We're a nursing home for dogs these days. The other one is a. Is a morkie. So Maltese Yorkie mix. It's little. Little. Yeah. She's like three pounds. She thinks she's 28. And she. Those two are probably 14 and 15 years old, and I love them for different reasons. And then we got a mini golden doodle.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Crazy I've ever had. I mean, she's just sweet and energetic and fun and smart and dog lover, which is really weird. But my wife and my daughter love dogs, so

[Heather]

having the kennel manager here, I guess it would be great. Do you see them as pets or do you see them as. We need to put them to bed. It's time.

[Eugene]

Yeah. No, they're definitely pets. That world's a different world, you know, I mean, that people are. People love their animals.

[Corey]

Yeah, they do.

[Eugene]

Boy, they'd go bankrupt for their animals.

[Corey]

What was the Most unruly dog breed

[Heather]

that you have dealt with or taking notes.

[Eugene]

Oh, gosh. Boxers, I think. Boxers. Oh, yeah, they're bananas.

[Heather]

I mean, my parents only let us have one dog and it was a box.

[Eugene]

Is that right?

[Corey]

He had no.

[Heather]

Nothing going on behind the eyes.

[Eugene]

Yeah, yeah.

[Corey]

Ever happened.

[Eugene]

Weimaraners are crazy.

[Heather]

Really?

[Eugene]

Yeah, yeah.

[Heather]

They're the first time at 30, at 37 years old, I'm hearing that word.

[Corey]

You need to watch the kennel club.

[Eugene]

Yeah. They are high strung. But dog owners that are, are, that are using it for daycare, which we used a lot. We had these luxury condos set up that they're booked out years in advance. I mean, we need people like that. Right? I mean, you need people who like the high end cookie stuff and all the frosting and all the icing on it. That's a lot of icing. You know, and with the icing comes with some personality to it.

[Heather]

The higher end the product, the more unique the demographic.

[Eugene]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And we're, you know, we're happy for them, but there's a lot of demands that, that oftentimes come with that. So.

[Heather]

Yeah, we love them and we love, we love their money.

[Eugene]

We love them all.

[Heather]

So then you went from dog kennel and then you got into this financing and you kind of parked it here. Right. Unless I skipped some other crazy offshoot you stopped at. Yeah.

[Corey]

When you did underwater basket weaving.

[Eugene]

No, no, no, no, I didn't do that. You don't want me to weave anything, so. But no. Yeah. Went into financial services. Really realize it's just a people business and people just need people to talk to about things that can impact their retirement, their savings, how to do things, when to do things and all that kind of stuff. And you know, we do a lot of the life insurance and disability protection, asset protection plus asset growth. And it's the best thing I've ever done in my life. I mean, I love it. You get to meet really neat people. Obviously have had the opportunity to meet you guys and, you know, randomly and, and that stuff is really cool. Right. To help feel like you're helping folks to have some very difficult conversations sometimes.

[Corey]

Yeah, sure.

[Eugene]

Scary conversations and, and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it's. It's been great.

[Heather]

That is wonderful. So I figured if compliance is okay. And I told them all we're running, I said, I told the compliance office, hello. So I'll try to butter them up

[Corey]

a little bit, you know, that's right.

[Eugene]

Make them happy.

[Heather]

We asked, we asked the cookie Group. Eugene's obsessed with the cookie ladies. He was like, can I talk to

[Corey]

him on a pod?

[Heather]

Like, actually, we needed somebody to be the guinea pig to be interviewed. And he was like, I'll do it. I'll be easygoing. I'll be happy. I'll be nice. So we asked some of you guys who are listening in podcast land some questions you'd like to ask Eugene, and he reviewed them. So, Eugene, if you want us to go through these, you sure do you need it? Do you need to do a disclaimer?

[Eugene]

No, I don't think we need to do a disclaimer. Fortunately, most of these are tax questions. And I think you guys know cpa. That could probably be just as. Yeah, I mean, he talked about his cars and all that kind of stuff, but he.

[Heather]

We. We met through Eugene, through the accountant that we speak of. I'm scared of him. But he definitely said if I could send him the link to this, he would like to watch your video.

[Corey]

Oh, God.

[Eugene]

Is going to be Carrie Deckard, and

[Heather]

he's only talking about cars. Yeah, that's right.

[Eugene]

Oh, yeah.

[Heather]

First question, and probably the most important

[Corey]

one I wanted to ask you, and

[Heather]

it's not here on the list, is if you had to pick between your favorite twin, which one would it be? So please answer.

[Eugene]

Oh, yeah, you know what I mean? I mean, both of you, for you say me.

[Heather]

She doesn't come to any of the meetings. She doesn't come to any. Let your books go out so you could be a kennel club member.

[Corey]

I don't know. Well, just kidding.

[Eugene]

Well, we. I appreciate the question, but I think I'm gonna wait another day. I will let podcast land.

[Heather]

There you go. They love to say me, and they'd

[Corey]

be nice to Heather, you know, and say her name sometimes.

[Heather]

Allison sent us this question, and she said, what is the best way to track and document my income? To distinguish between cottage food sales and instructional income, Our state cottage laws caps baking sales at $35,000 annually. However, for cookie classes, majority of the fee is for teaching and instruction, while only nominal portion reflects the baked goods themselves. And that is a complex question because you're not a cpa, but you can. Can you have any. Do you have any advice for that?

[Eugene]

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, like I said, I think that's more of a tax question than it is a financial, you know, rep question type of question. But, you know, when it comes to doing things in house, so you. You have a lot of entrepreneurs in this group. They're all, they're all selling cookies and all that kind of stuff. Everybody's got a different idea as far as how to track it. So obviously you want to check with your state tax laws and, and what they require you to do. But as far as tracking, you know, we still have people in this world that are pen and paper and that's what feels most comfortable to them. You know, we have people that do it on Microsoft Excel and that's what's best for them. Some of them need a CPA because they don't want to do the work for it and there's costs associated with that. So I would, you know, like, I think it would be best to just kind of lean on the group as far as, hey, what's everybody using? And because everybody has a different personality and different background, I don't think there's a perfect one that fits everyone. You know, you're going to find problems.

[Heather]

That capping thing is very unique state by state. Not all states have a cap. Some states do and they're very strict on it. And then there's always that whole like teaching as a service versus food as a product.

[Eugene]

Sure.

[Heather]

Yeah. So I agree. Attach to us what he's saying is lean on the group. We created a list of cottage food groups that are organized by state because it's so state specific. And it's great to have these national groups where you can get opinions and stuff. But definitely go to the sugarcookingmarketing.com scroll down to cottage groups and cl that and that is a spreadsheet I just updated. I think it's almost a hundred groups in various areas. And it's funny that some states that don't have any makes me think they either have way too strict of laws or they have no laws at all. So just do whatever you want. But yeah, finding a hyperlocal cottage group, even if it like, we're in Northern Virginia, so what's happening in Norfolk isn't going to apply to Northern Virginians, but there is a Northern Virginia bakers group where you see a lot of people like, hey, I just have a question on this certification or how do I. How am I able to learn how to ship? Or what if I use these rentable kitchens? What does that look like? So, yeah, I knew that was going to be a rough one. But question for you based off of this. One, what do you do? One, do you budget? I assume yes. Two, what do you use to track your budget?

[Eugene]

Yeah, I just use Microsoft Excel.

[Heather]

I figured you were going to Say that.

[Eugene]

Yeah. And because it's so friendly to making any adjustment that you want to use, you know, so, you know, you can, you can upload everything into Excel. You can, you can do everything and all that from there. And I use, I rely very heavily on a cpa. And you know, we, and we could, I guess we could talk a little bit about this one here. Because I, I always tell people we live in a world. We, we live in a TMI world and a DIY world.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, there's too much information out there. Tick tock, Instagram, Facebook, whatnot. You're right. Every great idea is because some influencer out there is, is talking about, well, this is what I have. And you don't even know if they're licensed to say the things that they say. They can just say it. It. Right. And then there's a DIY piece. Right. Like, how can I do things as cheaply as possible.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

And I get that. When you're trying to start a profitable business, you're always worried about, man, I don't have money for a cpa. I don't have money for this, I don't have money for that. And the same goes. And I think when I got into this sales type of world and in financial services, I was the guy, and I'll admit I was the first guy to be like, yeah, I'm not interested in your services or, man, that's really high. Can I just do it myself? Right. You're always thinking that way. But if everybody thought that way about everything, nobody would be in business.

[Corey]

Well, no one would buy custom cookies, let me tell you that.

[Eugene]

Yeah, exactly. Right. Because I can make my own cookies. And so, you know, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, which everybody in this group seems to be, and that's, I think that's what's really exciting about it, is that there are other entrepreneurs that are trying to afford services as well. You know, a friend of mine told me years ago is like, if everybody would just keep their own money, then we wouldn't have to be like giving each other, other kids monies for donations. Right. Just, just donate your own money and we're all even. You know, instead of, we end up trading with families and like, hey, if you buy these cookies, I'll buy these chocolates. Yeah. Give our own, you know, so the danger in that is to say, well, I don't want a CPA because it's going to cost money. Well, I don't want somebody to bake me cookies because it's going to cost money. And then, and then the position changes a little bit on that. So there's people out there that are willing to help. You just got to reach out and find them.

[Heather]

This is an opinion. What's your opinion when a baker, let's say they just got started. When do you think that they should start looking for a CPA in there?

[Eugene]

Yeah, there's a few things in this world that scare me a lot. Just, just a handful of things. But one of them is tax evasion. Yeah, nothing makes me more nervous than taxes because I don't want to be caught, not caught. I don't want to be the person not paying taxes, the appropriate amount of taxes.

[Corey]

Right.

[Eugene]

I, I don't want to do that. So I will do whatever I can to make sure that I'm paying my fair share, you know, and then the argument becomes, well, I, I pay more in taxes than I, I make in money. That, that's a funny argument to me because you can't pay taxes unless you're making money. That's work that way.

[Heather]

Our grandfather said you only have to pay taxes on it if you made it.

[Eugene]

That's right.

[Heather]

You don't have to pay any taxes if you do not sell a single thing.

[Eugene]

That's right. That's right. And so, you know, and I'll take a line that I learned from Kerry very, very many years ago, and he said, you know, if I gave you $20 every day, just every day I gave you $20, and then you had to turn around and give me five for every 20, how many days in a row would you do that? And I just thought, and I was like, forever. He goes, what are we talking about? You're making money, you pay your share and you move on. And so the cpa, the tax stuff is just always scary to me because it's just not worth getting in trouble for, especially when there are so many great resources out there.

[Heather]

I think the biggest thing is when people CPA sounds so official and that folks are like, that's going to cost a fortune. But okay, let me ask you is, is if you just get started, is going to the H and R Block guy to get started that first year, is that a red flag is like, hey, I'm doing it better than doing it myself. Is TurboTax.

[Eugene]

Yeah, I mean, I think TurboTax puts enough guardrails on there for you. And this would be a great question for your next guest, But I think TurboTax and those things are out there so that you can do It. And they put enough guardrails that you really can't screw it up. But yeah, always having a professional there. They're there for a reason.

[Heather]

Yeah, I find that like the DIY stuff. Cool, Great. You know, I hate it myself. Makes me extremely sweaty. I don't like it. I am pro team cpa, obviously. I've talked to Eugene and if you've listened to the podcast for the last five years, you know, the past accountant, that was a terrible situation. And then we switched over to you guys, which has been heavenly. You guys can never leave us.

[Corey]

Thank you.

[Heather]

And. But when you have someone you can speak to regularly, which is what, you know, we. Corey mentioned we're in a text thread. It's more jokes than finance, but it works.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Heather]

When you have somebody, you can be like, hey, quick question. I want to alter this. I want to change this. So here's where I want to be. It's really nice to have you specifically and you work with Carrie to deal with us and to have like, hey, let's make this a strategy that works for them now and it works for them then. And then it works for the IRS as well. Which is my scariest, sweatiest. Oh, three letter word.

[Eugene]

Oh, yeah, no doubt. That's why I just go to carry. But can you. What am I doing wrong? How do I fix this and go from there?

[Corey]

So I think a big benefit when it comes to hiring people to benefit your business is getting the person that one is easy to talk to, two is approachable whenever you need them. But three, having the longevity of the same person every time. I know H and R block is fine, but it seems like when you go there, it's a new person and you're like, okay, I gotta re. Explain this to the same person. There's no one ever growing with you. There's.

[Heather]

It's just always.

[Corey]

You feel like in that state of restarting and that can feel lonely. And you feel like, I'm in this by myself again. And every year is a new year and I'm always scared at tax time versus having Eugene where I'm like, it's the same guy. He knows my struggles from last year, he knows my struggles from this year, and he'll probably know the struggles next year is there's a lot of benefit and reassurance and it reduces anxiety. And I know business ownership is just filled, chock full of anxiety. Is the customer going to be happy? Is the IRS going to show up at my door? And the few the things you can take off your plate that are so anxiety can, like inducing is just so beneficial. And I told Heather this year, I'm running my life and things I can control. Things I cannot control.

[Eugene]

That's right.

[Corey]

So if I can control my anxiety in this aspect of business, I might not know what the next customer is going to think of their order and things like that.

[Heather]

It's going to behoove me to do

[Corey]

the things that I can control so that I'm a better person moving forward.

[Eugene]

Yeah. I mean, amen to all that. Right?

[Heather]

I mean, hallelujah.

[Eugene]

That's right. I mean, control the controllables there. That's, you know, when. When I thought about growth in business, and I think this kind of goes for this entrepreneurship group too. The, the, the cookie group is, you know, the, the only thing you control is how many people you see every day to say, hey, this is what I do for a living.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, and if you just follow the process, then. Then the sales come and, you know, the results come a little bit later down the line. But if you're gonna do this, every single person in your community that. That's. That you're in needs to know that you are baking custom cookies for people. You know, and you need to shout that from the mountaintop that this is really something you love doing and you want your clients to have people start coming to that.

[Heather]

That. Yeah.

[Corey]

Gravitating towards it for sure.

[Heather]

Well, let me ask you a marketing question. Where do you. What is your best lead gen source sugar cookie marketing question?

[Eugene]

Yeah. You know, it's funny, I don't. I don't have one.

[Heather]

You've been doing this for so many. How many years have you been doing this? I know you mentioned it earlier.

[Eugene]

Yeah. 14. 14 years. 14 years and one. Compliance, to a certain extent, doesn't allow us to cold call on people, so we're really not allowed to do that Anyway. There are some lead services that we could probably use, but it was just organically, literally calling people that I knew that were in my circle, and I would just call them and say, hey, this is Eugene. I just started a new business. I was wondering if you'd have 30 to 45 minutes to sit down and share with. Share with you the type of work

[Heather]

I do that is hard to do.

[Eugene]

Hi, this is Eugene. And I always said I had 283 girls tell me no in high school. So this was like the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. No.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Heather]

Challenge acceptance. Do you think you handle rejection really well? We talk about that on the Podcast. It is hard to say, hey, client, here's the best cookies I've ever made. And they're like, no, like, oh, yeah. How did you get over that?

[Eugene]

Well, like I said, I had a ton of practice. I don't know about these people. You know, I tell the guys in our office, like, you guys were good looking in high school. So all the girls were saying yes. I said I was not very good looking. I mean, you should have seen the glasses I wore. I said I was being told by. No, I was being told to go by everybody. So eventually just kind of like, okay, I'll move on. It's just what it's any sales organization, right. Whether you're selling a widget, a cookie, or, you know, financial plan, whatever it might be, ultimately you're just having these conversations to say, hey, this is what I do for a living. And I want to see if there's anything I do that could be of value for you. You know, now I can't ever turn down the Girl Scouts cookies. You know, that's just so unfair. Right? I mean, one, it's a great product. Two, these little kids all, you know, they've been sitting outside with, they got the winter knitted cap on, it's 20 degrees. And like, when you buy, you got. Yeah, like, dude, you got all my money. Yeah. So. But it's visibility, right? And now everybody wants to see it. So. No Legion. I was going to chamber, you know, chamber of commerce meetings and, you know, introducing myself to, to folks, and then I turn around and ask them to introduce me to someone else if they felt that that was possible. And there was a ton of no's in that. My wife, she was a Mary Kay sales rep. Yeah, yeah, she did Mary Kay for a little bit. And at that time, we would get into a contest to see who could get to 100 no's faster.

[Heather]

That's so fun. Genius, though.

[Eugene]

And that was a Mary Kay thing. Like, I can't take credit for. Mary Kay Ash was if from what I've learned about Mary Kay Ash, I mean, her entrepreneur spirit was awesome. I mean, it was really cool what she had to do. But at the end of the day, the faster you get through no's, you're going to get some yeses. Yeah, and, and that's the, the part. The rejection piece is really difficult in general. I think our society is dealing with a lot of that with the Facebook, like buttons and all that garbage. And it's really been, it's. It's been a disease to a certain Extent. Right.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

But, yeah, I think just. It's not.

[Corey]

Not.

[Eugene]

They don't. It's not that they don't like you. They just don't like the cookie that you've made for them. And, you know, either you can choose to make a different cookie or you can just go find 20 people that like that cookie and who cares about the other eight?

[Corey]

Yeah, yeah, very true.

[Eugene]

They can go eat Oreos. I don't care.

[Corey]

Rocks. I mean, Oreos. Yes.

[Eugene]

As long as they're not double stuff. But, you know, there's other ways to do it, so. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question.

[Heather]

Sorry, sorry. Mega stuff. I feel like double stuff is now the single stuff, and Mega stuff is a double stuff. Just my working theory. It's just my theory. We have another question. This is from Heather Heston. She said, and I think this is up your alley. And I hate more acronyms. So first, before I ask you the question, what is a SEP ira?

[Eugene]

It's a simplified employer plan. And it's just basically for owner, like a 1099 owner. Generally you can do it on a W2 side of things as well. It's a way to put a. Put more money away than you could in a traditional IRA or Roth IRA limits. And because you're an owner, 1099 owner, you don't have a 401k as well. So there are different ways to do it. But on the SEP IRA for 20, 26, you can put 25% of your. The employee's total compensation up to $72,000.

[Corey]

So nice.

[Eugene]

Which means that you would approximately be making. So 72,000 times four. So you're almost $300,000 of 1099 income to put away $72,000.

[Heather]

Okay, so they can contribute. Okay, let me ask you to open a SEP ira. Can they. Can you have a Roth IRA and a SEP ira?

[Eugene]

That would be dependent on your CPA and your income. So there's a lot of questions that go into that as well. So I would consult with them on that. But opening a SEP ira, you can use a Schwab account. There's millions of ways that you can do it.

[Heather]

Okay, great. And then they can just contribute. Imagine they have 72,000 sitting. Can they just put it all in at once?

[Eugene]

Yes. Assuming that they've got that. Assuming that they've got the total compensation, that that's the right figure. And then again, I would. I would consult with the CPA as far as how it goes up against your income, the good stuff, the cool thing about the SEP ira. And a lot of these IRA contracts is or not contracts, but the products are. You have till April 15 of the following tax year. So I've got till April 15 of 2026 to make contributions that count for 2025.

[Heather]

Oh, nice. Even if we were like, oh, shoot, I just listened to the podcast and now I'm interested in this plan. I could still do it. It was before last year. And I could also get it done for this year depending on.

[Eugene]

That's absolutely right.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Nice.

[Eugene]

So this is where having a good accountant CPA helps because. And I'll just be very frank with my relationship with Kerry is he'll call me and say, hey, you owe this much in taxes this year. And I say, okay, well, if I put this much into my SEP ira, does that mean. And he goes, yeah, if you give me this, this X amount of money, then you don't have to pay any taxes.

[Corey]

Oh, nice.

[Heather]

And this is where the strategy that you guys working together has been really nice because you guys argue with each other and we don't have to deal with it.

[Eugene]

Yeah, but the CPA always wins. I mean, he always wins. And I'm cool with that. You know, I'm totally cool that. So that's, that's something that we do a lot is to. We go backwards, retroactively make contributions to do that.

[Heather]

Do you find yourself working with CPAs a lot in your line of work?

[Eugene]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. CPAs and attorneys, the, the, the three of us all kind of work. It's funny because we all keep referring to each other and say, well, that's a CPA question. CPA sends them to the insurance guy, the insurance guy sends them to the attorney, and attorney sends them back to us, you know, so. But it's just to keep, keep your bases covered.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, it's not, it's not worth getting in that kind of trouble for.

[Heather]

I agree. Because the IRS truly always, always wins

[Corey]

if you all three are winning.

[Heather]

If the CPA is winning, the IRS is winning.

[Eugene]

It's the cpa. You better believe it.

[Heather]

Yeah, I know. This is. Our older sister actually asked this question, and I can see that you've referred it to the cpa. She says, for bakers who are in the kitchen all the time, we see

[Corey]

this question a lot.

[Heather]

What counts as a tax? Write off and use it. This is definitely a CPA question. And I believe that sugar cookie marketing has a great cp. You really want Carrie to be on this podcast?

[Eugene]

Oh, man, I think it'd be great I think you guys will have a blast, maybe. And then if that goes well, we all get on together, then you can see us all argue together.

[Heather]

It's going to be YouTube, that's a CP together.

[Eugene]

That's right. That's right.

[Heather]

Yeah. So that is, I think. Well, let me ask you this. You live in India. Do your people like, do you guys have to get licensed in multiple states? I know you had a two to work with us.

[Eugene]

Yes. We are able to get licenses in different states. Correct.

[Heather]

Do CPAs have to get licensed in multiple states?

[Eugene]

That's a great question. I don't believe so.

[Heather]

Okay, right. So to find you, the people that are listening should find somebody that's within their state because that's going to be the best fit and likely. I know we live in this really tight area of the DMV where we're just three states squished together. Likely you're going to want somebody that is state specific.

[Eugene]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there are some, some state rules that aren't, aren't eligible in other states as well. So. But that would be. Yeah, again, I don't. On the CPA side, I really don't know if they need to get individual licenses. But you know, I know that on our side that we can get licensed in a state that we want to just kind of depends on.

[Heather]

Nice.

[Corey]

Appreciate you doing that for us, by the way.

[Eugene]

I was happy to do it.

[Heather]

How much is Virginia license?

[Corey]

Another test?

[Eugene]

I think that's coming to you. Yeah, that's awesome. But yeah, yeah, I mean, because we use our office in our home. We use one of our bedrooms as an office. And so I know, Carrie, there comes a point where you just trust the guy that, or whoever these people that you put in your lives to say, hey, this is what you say. Okay, Carrie, what do I owe for it? You know, I mean, I. You tell me, you tell me what the write off is. You're the, you're the professional. Trust me, you do not want me to be baking cookies. The best I've got are the break off cookies. And I'm really good at those. Even those I can screw up sometimes.

[Corey]

That's why it's so nice to have people like a tax accountant and you. Because if you have a good relationship, I, Me and Heather talk about the nightmare of the people that were before you. I didn't have a relationship with them. I didn't like when I saw their number on my phone. I didn't know who they were. And it turns out they weren't doing their job. But it's been nice to. You're so forefront. You're so willing to talk and have a conversation and you're like, if you want to sit on a 40 minute phone call and I talk your ear off off, you're willing to do that. And that to me is so much of a trust building.

[Heather]

I'm sorry. Eugene's probably like, the only way I've gotten Corey to attend a meeting is by being on the podcast.

[Corey]

That's right. I love these meetings.

[Heather]

I'm like, these meetings are great.

[Corey]

You keep having

[Heather]

me knowledge.

[Corey]

You meet with my personal assistant right here and run some numbers.

[Heather]

Right. That's great question and tell me if you can't answer this on the podcast. You told me there's a way to look up reviews of people in your industry to get kind of of a yelp of people like you. So, you know, because it's kind of hard to be like we said with the other accountant, we were like, you're an accountant, I'm a person that needs an accountant. And then it's not a great relationship. But there are these websites where you can kind of see the backstory to these financial advisors.

[Eugene]

Yeah. And a lot of people don't know it and it should be on their websites. It's FINRA F I N R A Finra Broker Check.

[Heather]

Okay.

[Eugene]

And Finra Broker check is like you said, it's a Yelp site for financial advisors to see, you know, what their education's been like, how many years that they've been in the industry, you know, how many places they've been throughout their career. Hopefully you'll never see a disclosure. And disclosure is just things that are questionable or a complaint that was made. You know, obviously when you have the, the honor to, to be able to take care of people's retirement accounts and things like that, there are some rules that you want that advisor to follow. You know, you don't want them getting a bunch of drunk driving accidents. You don't want them having to. But, you know, so it's not just. And FINRA does a good job of making sure that, that their advisors, as best as they can are reporting these things because you want to make sure that they're doing what's best for the

[Heather]

client and not what's best for retirement. You always see all those like massive fraud cases, stealing from the poor person who didn't realize it was a giant Ponzi scheme. And you're like, well, shoot that, you know, you don't have a lot of time to make that up, especially when we're talking about compounding interest, which was our quote for today.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Oh, there you go. There you go. Yeah, yeah.

[Heather]

Just the wonder of the world.

[Eugene]

Yeah, there you go.

[Corey]

It's like that's a blind faith, almost like. Please file this,

[Heather]

please. Can I stop working one day, please? Question for you, off script. What do you think is the. What do you see is a biggest faux pas of, like, people's mistakes? Like, when you see it and you're like, oh, man, it's just somebody making that mistake. I wish I wouldn't have to see it all the time.

[Eugene]

Just not being disciplined in, in savings.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

And being, being too emotional again. There's way too much information out there. Right. I mean, you throw up on. On Facebook reels and the world's crashing down and the economy is going to go. Go to tank. It could. I mean, it's not saying that anybody that it can't. You know, everybody's got an idea on, on how to retire best, and you have to find a plan that's most comfortable for you. You know, and that's what I always tell people is this is not me telling you what to do. This is me learning about what's important to you and what you think you can or cannot handle. Right. Not everybody needs this frosted icing iced cookie for every occasion. You know, sometimes it's not what you need. And so you have to have the flexibility to meet the client's needs to a certain extent. So I think a lot of times just discipline alone, you know, because I think one of the questions was asked later, where was that?

[Corey]

That.

[Eugene]

Oh, when, when would be a good time to start contributing to an ira? You know, whenever you're able to, you know, and whenever you feel comfortable and just keep doing it over and over and over again. I would start small. Even if it's $10 a month, you know, get in. It's not, it's not the dollar amount. It's the habit of. Yeah, right. It's. And, and once you get the habit of, you can always increase from 10 to 20, 20 to 40, 40 to, you know, before you know it, you're going to have yourself a little bit of a, a retirement nest egg there that you never thought was gone. But I think so many people feel like you have to start with 500amonth.

[Heather]

Yeah, it feels, it feels like $10 is like a little kid's number, like you're trying to hard. Little kid.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Well. And you hear from the Dave Ramsey of the world this is all behavioral. Right. I mean, to a certain point that even our industry has started talking about our, our jobs as being financial therapists, you know?

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

What you. It's, you know, money is a very difficult thing to. To talk about. There's a lot of emotions that are tied to it, and it comes from all different walks of life. And so these, these sessions that we have, these meetings that we have with our clients, like, well, how do you even feel about money? What. What's it. When I say money, how does it make you feel?

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

If I tell you to take 25 and put it in an account, does that freak you out?

[Corey]

Yeah. Are you mad at me right now?

[Eugene]

Yeah. Are you mad? Those are all the questions that have to be asked before we, we decide to do anything with. With the dollars that, you know that. That you might have extra. So I always think the biggest mistake is hearing, oh, well, I've gotta, I've gotta sell all this stuff now because the world's crashing and you're trying to time the market.

[Corey]

Yeah, don't.

[Eugene]

Don't do that.

[Heather]

You know, just be consistent. Just be disciplined and consistent, even if it's small. Consistency over time.

[Eugene]

Yeah. Because again, it's more behavioral than it is.

[Corey]

Yeah. The actual dollar amount itself speaking to saving and spending. I know that, you know, the, the cookie world is always emerging with now new technology. We have, you know, food printers, edible printers, projectors. There's things that cost a lot of money. And I see a lot of bakers get. You're right. It's emotional. They're like, oh, so and so. Got it. I got to get it too. And then you make this giant purchase and ends up sitting in a box for a whole year and you're like, wow, that money could have done something a little bit better for me in the future. Me. It's really hard to think of future Corey. It's so easy to think of current Corey. And she likes shiny things.

[Eugene]

Oh, yeah. I mean, don't we all. It's just, you know, we all do, Right. The newest iron or the newest driver that I have to hit because it's going to make my golf ball 15 yards farther. And. And my little brother, he's like, it's your golf swing, you idiot. He's like, it's nothing. No equipment can save you.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Don't let your little siblings say anything.

[Eugene]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that's. That's probably the biggest thing is just hearing. Listening to too much noise.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

You know, you know I've been seeing the like, you know, the financial YouTubers debunking the TikTok financial like, and they're saying, you know, these people are like, buy a Mercedes AMG wagon and write it off. And these guys are like, it's just crazy what people can say to get the clicks which in marketing, Corey and I are constantly talking about, the more ostentatious, the more polarizing, the more argumentative. It does reach more people. So there is an unfortunate and incentive to be crazy. But it's kind of. And I, I'm sure you agree, Sloan, steady in marketing and finances wins the long term race.

[Eugene]

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I gotta, I gotta fight with my daughter all the time because she's got these YouTube stars that, you know, watches like, I cannot believe we're watching. They're so obnoxious. And dad, dad, look, this is so cool. I was like, this is what they do for a living.

[Heather]

You know, like it's a 2026 edition of dad, look what I can do.

[Eugene]

Oh, for sure.

[Heather]

You know, except for the hour of your time and you're like, eyes are bleeding.

[Eugene]

I know. So yeah, that, that's kind of where, where things are at at this point. One of the questions, and I didn't see it on here, I don't think it made it on, on this list, but it was on the Facebook post was, you know, I have four kids and I'm drowning in debt. How do I get out of it? Yeah, that's another thing that's really tough these days. Right. And you know, we tell our clients all the time, time, how do you eat an elephant?

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, and I think this goes to how, how I've dealt with coaching as far as just business as well. We live in an instant society. And I, I call this generation the microwave generation.

[Corey]

Oh, I do too. Yeah.

[Eugene]

And when I talk to our, the teenagers that I coach, I say, you know, how many of you had a hot Pocket? And everybody raises their hand, you know, and I said, how many of you have put it in the microwave? And of course, you know, 80% raise their hand. I said, how many of you have put it in the oven? And you know, 10 of them will raise their hands and the kids that put it in the microwave turn around, you put it in the oven.

[Corey]

That takes forever.

[Heather]

Yeah, when I see oven recommended, I put it back.

[Eugene]

Yeah, that's. I said, why don't we do it more often in the oven? And they said, because it takes too long. And, and that's unfortunately society has created that for us. I laugh, laugh a lot because, you know, I'm 46 years old when the cassette tapes came out and I came out when they were in existence. Excuse me. To get to like a song that you actually wanted to hear, you had to like take the pencil and you had to turn, you know, turn the little dial, you know. And then they came out with the coolest invention. You got to push the fast forward button twice and it would stop before the next song song. Technology was never better. It was never better. In our, in my 13 year old mind, I thought we can land the moon. This is amazing. You know, like, it can't get better than this. Then of course they came out with CDs, right. They came out with a Walkman. Oh, you could, you were, you know, 13 songs. You, you know, listen. Oh yeah, we did that. Then they came out with the first MP3 player at circuit City. Yeah. City here Blue. Awesome. I believe I bought a rio for like $250. I could hold 10 songs. And I remember walking through campus wondering why girls didn't want my phone. I was like, I gotta be the coolest guy in the world. Look at this thing, you know? Yeah. Like it held 10 songs. Now we have an iPhone that I know you could get whatever you. And that's what I think that's what we've all been accustomed to, to. Right. Is we don't listen to voicemails anymore. Text. It's even hard to read a text message.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, but. But that's the discipline of doing something for a long time over and over and over and over and over again. And not seeing an immediate result is what makes people quit.

[Corey]

Oh, sure, sure.

[Heather]

Right. Well, it's kind of like, well, that one's real fast. And then you get the get rich quick schemes. And that's like. Well, that's a lot more fun than what you just said right there with 10 bucks in my se. So to the person who asked, they're drowning in debt, what would you tell them?

[Eugene]

I just tell them to find something that's comfortable and repeatable and do it over and over and over again and just know it's going to take time. You didn't go into debt overnight. It took time. It took a lot of time to get there. And so it's going to take time to get out and it might take out a little bit more time. It's hard. It's a tough time to be living these days that, you know, it is. Life is expensive. There are a Lot of things out there. There's a lot of shiny toys that distract us from doing the things that we want to do. But be encouraged and, and pick a goal that's realistic. I've got a daughter that's like, I'm gonna do 50 sit ups a day. And I was like, just do five.

[Heather]

I would like to see you and the daughter in a conversation. We're gonna have you both on the podcast next week.

[Eugene]

She's. Oh, you, you would enjoy her. Yeah, you just bring her on. She's. She's way more entertaining than I am. But you know, I said, why don't you start with 10? And so then, you know, last night we're driving the car, she goes, dad, I've been doing 10 sit ups every morning because now at 5, you know, 15, you know, and, and, and just start to structure that. But yeah, I think that's where, where people start to fail.

[Corey]

Yeah. I think when it comes to the cookie world, every industry has something. I think when someone says, you know, I, I have so much debt, I don't even know how to start saving. And then maybe a new product comes out and you're like, like, well, if I shouldn't buy that, but if I buy that, the potential I have to make more money is there behind it. I think a lot of people fall in love with potential and the potential doesn't always equal.

[Heather]

We're talking about cookies, not my dating. Yeah, back up topic. I was sad.

[Corey]

I think people fall in love with potential of things. So you, you do this investment, you have the best laid plans. Like, your reasoning is so solid, it would be hard to shoot an arrow through it. But then it turns out that now you're out X amount of dollars. You're farther from your goal, you're emotion, you're emotionally stressed. Yeah.

[Heather]

People who make, you know, you get the tunnel vision of like, oh my goodness, I have to make this sale. And your client can smell it like bad cologne. Like, oh, they're desperate for this and I don't like it. So I'm going to step back. But you know, that desperation, I'll take any leap. And then you got a massive bad review and then we got to strategize around it because you were not in the right mental headspace because the pressure on you was not the right type of pressure for the sale. Right.

[Eugene]

Yeah, totally. And I think that happens in all world. We call it commission breath. Right. That somebody's trying to make money.

[Heather]

And that is hilarious.

[Eugene]

I was feeling that they can smell it Off. Yeah, right. And the thing about it is, especially on the entrepreneurship side of things, fortunately and unfortunately, your personal life tends to impact how you do your job. And not that it doesn't if you're an hourly worker or anything like that, but there's a little bit more gravity in it because if you don't close the sale, there is a big financial impact to that for not even present dollars, but for future dollars as well. You know, bad review, whatnot. Not. Yeah, if I'm. If I'm getting a paycheck every two weeks, I might get called into my boss's office like, hey, can you just not be a jerk? I know you had a bad day. You're like, okay, they're still going to pay you.

[Corey]

Yeah, sure, you can have a bad

[Eugene]

day and get paid, but in our world, it's hard to have a bad day and then take that into a client. So there's so much mindset preparation that we talk about. You know, I've thought a lot about. Even on the, on the coaching side of things is. Is training the mindset of somebody. You know, we're training the person, and then we'll train them how to make a cookie, we'll train them how to do these things. But if you don't have the mindset correct, it's. It's hard to do anything. I don't care what it is.

[Corey]

Yeah, we want to say if you

[Heather]

want to look, if you want to blame competition, it's the one excuse we can't touch because you'd have to murder them to solve it. So, like, if you're like, it's too much competition, I can't help you. But you also have been able to stop yourself with that one rather than, hey, there's a lot of competition and there must be doing something right. Let me re strategize how I is. Because the market is supporting competition, which is just a reframing. Like, it's the exact same issue. There's a lot of people, but one is a devastation. There's a lot of people. I'm not going to survive. The other one is there's a lot of people, and there's a niche for me right here. I just got to find it.

[Eugene]

Yeah, right. Oh, for sure. And again, perspective is so powerful. Right? You step away from it and you go, yeah. I mean, this is. Is looking at it on this level. The fact that I have the ability to do this and I get to do these things. We, We. We're in a group, a bunch of us. Are in a group that we. We do a one word for the year. And so everybody picks a word and we try to live on that word. And the one that I really enjoyed someone had brought to me was he was saying that his daughter had called him and was not really complaining, but just saying, hey, you know, I have to. To. I have to take my kid to this, and I have to do this, and I have to do this, and I got to do this, and. And the dad said, honey, you don't have to do anything. You get to do it.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, and. And you guys know my story. My. My wife had a heart transplant two years ago and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, we were getting to do things, and I think that is. You get to be an entrepreneur. That is so cool. You don't have to be.

[Corey]

Yeah, well, it's a perspective shift.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Yeah. And what a blessing it is to get to make. Whoever thought that in this world you could make custom cookies and make. You get to make a living doing it.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, people are going to surpass the Oreos and the Chips Ahoy because they want your cookies instead. You know, you get to do these things. And I think that's the exciting part of entrepreneurship is.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You don't have to do any of it. And if you have that mindset, I think it changes how you handle objections. And, And I, I think when I read through some of the comments on there, just, you know, out of.

[Heather]

I love that Eugene, in the group, sometimes you'll text. You'd be like, there's an interesting thing happening in the group right now.

[Eugene]

Yeah, it's. It's pretty cool because it's, it's all. To a certain extent, it's all the same, but just value and what you're worth. Right. I see a lot of people like, well, if I dropped it a dollar, you know, what it. What, you know, would I make this? And blah, blah, blah. You are what you are. You're worth what you're worth worth. And we don't. We don't go around. There's certain reasons why we drive certain cars that we like and buy certain things. It's not big. It's not because we got it for $10 cheaper or a thousand dollars cheaper. It's because there is a value in. In purchasing that car that we know what we're going to get out of it. You know, and so my encouragement to that world would be like, don't. Don't drop prices for people. I mean, people are. And it's funny to me. The people that want you to drop the prices, they wouldn't drop prices for you. Right. I'd be like, what do you do for a living? Oh, well, I own the hardware shop. Well, can I go in there and ask for 50 cents off every screw?

[Heather]

No, you can't. No, you can't.

[Eugene]

They're going, no, you can't do that. Then why are you asking me to do it?

[Heather]

Yeah, I think sometimes you can feel when somebody, like, has a lower, they're not sure of their own value. So I think sometimes our clients can interpret like, oh, they're going to wiggle on this. Like, this is.

[Corey]

Is.

[Heather]

I can. I can offer because I feel like they'll bite. But then you go to someone, you're like, well, this person's confident. They know they're worth. I can just tell if I ask it, the answer is going to be no.

[Corey]

To that point and to the person who said that they were drowning in debt, I think a lot of it comes from not knowing your numbers. Whether you create a budget and you're like, wow, I did not know we were paying for Disney.

[Heather]

You'll never guess who just started budgeting. You'll never guess.

[Corey]

But to say, I don't think financial planning's in my future is you're coming at it from the wrong aspect. Because the reason you're saying financial planning is in my future or I think I need to drop at a dollar to make more sales is because you

[Heather]

don't know your numbers.

[Corey]

So if you can take a step back and be like, you know, I have to charge this much because my cookies cost this much to make.

[Heather]

There's confidence right there.

[Corey]

Yeah, there's confidence, but there's also confidence in the person who says, you know, I don't feel like financial. I'm so on the off, like, the opposite side that I don't even think financial planning is in my future because I'm in so much debt. It's knowing and it's. It's painful to see. Like, oh, my goodness, we've been paying for this, and we haven't been using it. This subscription to so and so. Oh, my son's been using Roblox dollars. I didn't even know he had access to that. But sitting down and being like, okay, well, the Disney plus subscription was 20amonth, and we were buying that, so maybe I could take the $20 a month, put it in my SEP IRA. Because that money in your brain was already gone and you're already one step Closer to that financial freedom that 30 year version of you is going to appreciate so much.

[Eugene]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely to that. Yeah.

[Heather]

I have a few questions for you. What thing have you seen in the cookie group that surprised you? I know you've been lurking for a couple months now.

[Eugene]

Yeah. The vastness of how many people are, are following and doing it. You know, I think that's really cool. I, I think that, you know, entrepreneurship takes guts.

[Corey]

It does.

[Eugene]

You have to have a, you have to have guts to do something like that. And so kudos for you for at least trying. I, I don't know if it's Franklin Roosevelt or Theodore Roosevelt has a great quote about, you know, there's people that, that go to the arena and they're, they're, they're going to watch and they, they don't understand the struggle, but, you know, glory to those that actually are in the arena doing it. You know, they felt the failure and all that kind of stuff. I love that. I've totally, you know, just totally destroyed that quote. I'll, I'll send it.

[Corey]

I love it though. I love it.

[Heather]

You know, it was one of us that said it.

[Eugene]

Yeah, that's right. But again, you have to have guts to try.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

And that's, that's cool to see a group of folks that, that love doing this. And of course, I mean, who doesn't love cookies? I mean, I'm very fond about myself

[Corey]

eating them every day.

[Eugene]

You need me to be a tester? Send it on.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

He has said so many times, like, if Corey's like, you know,

[Corey]

I'm going

[Heather]

to, I'm going, when's your birthday?

[Eugene]

You did July 3rd. The, the day before Independence Day.

[Heather]

We'll be celebrating you with fireworks and everything.

[Eugene]

Yeah. So, yeah, so, yeah, that, that's been really cool to see.

[Heather]

That was interesting. That was a good one. My other question is if you could whisper something to every baker pretending. I'll listen to the podcast about 1700 a week do. But if you could whisper one thing to them and there was no constraints on what you said, what would it be?

[Eugene]

Oh, that's really put me on the spot.

[Heather]

I know I should have put it in your list of questions.

[Eugene]

The first thing I would say is I would give them a note of encouragement. I think there's a lot of people out there that say, hey, you ought to do this or that, that I would just encourage you and say, hey, congratulations, this is the dad.

[Heather]

Not this is. Yeah, this is.

[Eugene]

This is this dad. Yeah. Congratulations on trying something different. Putting Yourself out there, congratulations on having the guts to do this. You know, it would just be nothing but encouragement because that, that's really what you need on the mindset side of things. The, the other side of it is, I think we talked about earlier, clear. As quickly as you can, learn to control the controllables.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, and let everything else go out the door because there's nothing you can do about it. And I know, I hate, I keep, you know, using analogies with coaching sports, but, you know, we tell the girls, I can't control whether the referee saw that that ball was in or out. You can't control that.

[Heather]

That's a good one.

[Eugene]

Let it go. I can't control that. That team has a six foot four monster that, that's, you know, hammering balls. You're like, I didn't, I didn't put her there. She's just there. We got to figure this out, you know, and I tell them all the time, I don't care. The only team you're not allowed to lose to is yourself.

[Corey]

Yeah, that's a good one.

[Eugene]

You know, and if you do everything that you're supposed to do to put yourself, then you might win. We hope that more often than not you win, but you could lose too, because we can't control what happens on the other side of things. And so I think that is so valuable. You know, what you said, Corey, about control the controllables and, and that's probably what I would tell, that would whisper to the group is a note of encouragement and hey, learn to control what you can control right away. Budgeting, knowing what things cost your time, blah, blah, blah. That's all things you can control.

[Corey]

Yeah. I think Excel spreadsheets, things like budgeting helps you get on the right path to financial planning, financial freedom. And it just demystifying it so it's not this big elephant in the room where you're like, if I don't look at it, it doesn't exist.

[Heather]

This, you know, because thank your twin sister for that.

[Corey]

Oh man, this is my elephant.

[Heather]

I don't like my final question. I know I kept you a little past our promise. This is great agenda is what question do you wish somebody would have asked you? And nobody did.

[Corey]

Oh, that's a good one. That is a good win.

[Heather]

Thank you, twin.

[Eugene]

A question that they would have asked me. I wish they would have asked me. I mean honestly, the ones that they asked were, were the good ones. Right. The, the one that I, I do think that the majority of people are dealing with this hey, I'm drowning.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, so I appreciate the person that asked that because that it's a very vulnerable question.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Hey, this is, this is tough. That's the one that everybody, you know what's funny is nobody asks like, hey, how do I get rich quick? How do I do that? Like, nobody asked those questions, but everything was fundamentally based and so I appreciated them saying, hey, you know, this is, this is really tough. And I think that's a great question because I think we're all there in different phases because everybody wants to do a little bit more and they feel like they can do a little bit more. So that, that was a great question. I don't think there's anything that, that

[Corey]

they, I think that baker, specifically cookie bakers know that just buying the stuff, the utensils doesn't make you good at baking. So everyone knows you. A rich, quick scheme isn't good. Cookie. Cookies don't form themselves. We know it's gonna be a struggle to the end.

[Eugene]

I mean, you know, and Carrie, I bring Carrie is a lot. But, you know, we're not saying you can't, you know, like people were talking about. I'm not saying you can't go to the casino and double your money. You can, but I mean, more often than not you're not, because they keep getting bigger and you, you're still broke, you know, so. But there are people out there that hit the lottery. It's not often, but, but they do. And I think those are not. I wouldn't get caught up in saying that's what I want to chase. What I want to chase is the daily discipline of doing the right thing every single day.

[Corey]

Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. The, the 10 sit ups, you know, buying one course on royal icing, it's

[Heather]

not a sexy thing. You're not going to write on Facebook. Guys, I did 10 setups this morning. You're. You like to do the hundred. I've done a hundred sit ups every day in 2026, but the 10 is the actually sustainable.

[Corey]

And the $10 savings isn't flashy, it's not postworthy. You know, it's not going to be like you're going to get a 50 million likes on it. But that's the, the step to get you to where you're like, wow, I have a really nice nest egg that I'm really proud of and I, I

[Heather]

at it and how I got there.

[Eugene]

Yeah. And I think on the budgeting side, to say every dollar that comes in should already Be placed on where it goes. You know, 10% goes into savings. 10% goes this, you know, 10% goes into offerings, whatever it is, you know.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

And then you break it out that way so that you already. It already has a place to go when it comes in.

[Heather]

And that's a knowledge based thing. I use ynab. Okay. I think Jazzy Excel spreadsheet people.

[Eugene]

Yeah, there you go.

[Heather]

But in that one focus us default. Oh, yeah, we switched microphones, but I don't know why he did. Not like this. But. Can you hear us still now?

[Eugene]

I can't.

[Heather]

Okay, great. Please keep your hands into yourself. When we. When I use ynab, it removes my emotional attachment to the money when it's already pre assigned like that 10%, if it you. If you get taken out and put it in your sep IRA or your retirement before you get to fall in love with it, then you're almost like that. That wasn't even mine. That was future me's. And future me is going to use that and have the best old time. But for me today, this is what is after that allocation.

[Eugene]

Well, and admittedly, I mean, you know, I have to pay quarterly taxes. Mine comes out monthly. You know, I know it's quarterly, but it's got to come out monthly because. Because if it doesn't, I'm gonna be buying. I will find a way to spend it, you know, and everybody has their own disciplines in it, you know, and it's. It's funny, I think sometimes you look at a financial advisor like, oh, man, they got it all together. Or financial representative, and they've got it together. You know, it's kind of like a doctor, you know, the doctors there are the ones that are doing all the smoking, you know.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

They're the unhealthy ones.

[Heather]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eugene]

We all know need help. We all need help and we all need to do this together. And. And that's the fun part of life in general. And then you get to meet cool people.

[Heather]

I know this is right. I got you. I'm stealing this from a much more famous podcast. You can ask a question to the next person we interview. What would you ask them? I don't know who it'll be.

[Eugene]

We don't know who it'll be. Wow, man. You did guys didn't give me any heads up.

[Heather]

Sorry, dude. Yeah, I know.

[Corey]

I was like, no, just you said off the cuff.

[Heather]

Have fun with it.

[Eugene]

What is

[Corey]

who.

[Eugene]

Who's the biggest hero in your life and why?

[Corey]

Oh, that's a good one.

[Heather]

That's a good one. Did you see? That was a good one. Yeah.

[Eugene]

There you go. Yeah. I love hearing stories about that. Like who.

[Corey]

Who.

[Eugene]

Who impacted you the most? And why did they impact you?

[Heather]

Okay, I'll send you the link to the next person we bribe into being interviewed on the Sugar Cookie marketing podcast. But thank you so much, guinea pig number one. Yeah, this is great and I appreciate it. So we're going to pretend that we didn't just do the whole podcast before we talked to you, and then we're going to squeeze you in the middle and then have this awkward ending that was actually recorded earlier. Yeah. I'm sorry to compliance that you had to listen to this.

[Eugene]

Yeah, Right. My bad.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Heather]

Thank you so much, Eugene. I'm sure we'll both be meeting with you soon.

[Eugene]

Yeah. And best of luck to everybody in their endeavors.

[Corey]

Thank you, Eugene. Appreciate you, coach.

[Eugene]

No problem.

[Heather]

What a great guy. Great guy. Great advice. Thanks, Eugene. Okay, now we're going to skip over to the cookie College bootcamp. So we have an upcoming bootcamp. It'll be next week. We're working on it this week. I'll get it up on the website today or tomorrow. And it is photography. Food photography. So Corey's concept is this. She says with the advent of AI and its nano banana is really impressive. Is she's like, it's. It's one thing to have to rely fully on it, but if you ever try to get AI to do the exact thing that you want, it's like it knows you want it too badly and doesn't give it to you. So Corey said, what I would really like is to. For people to have a foundation of photography that if they choose to add an AI component to update 2025 to 2026, you could. But you're so happy with how you can control everything leading up into the point that you want to.

[Corey]

While AI is. Is great and will be around till the day we depart on this dear Earth, the issue with it in this current time frame is that if you ask AI just to delete a background, it can do that. But then your cookies look a little dark and the background looks well lit because AI is in control and it's all fake. If you ask AI to also incorporate your cookies into the edit, he does fix the little imperfections that make sugar cookies what they are like a smile looks way too perfect sometimes. I don't think I could edit. I could even pipe that. Good.

[Heather]

So what we want to do is

[Corey]

incorporate photography that shows the imperfections because that's what we're giving to our clients, something that we're proud of and confident with so that we're always, we know if, you know, AI goes the way the Dota, we still have this skill set in our back pocket. And to make it easy so you're not throwing a million props at a board and saying, like, did I do it right?

[Heather]

Wherever your head goes, it has to face a microphone. So if you're turning, you can take the microphone with you. Yeah, absolutely.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Heather]

But I like it. So the concept of the photography is to kind of get the basics down. And I know you're doing two components of this. You're doing cell phone and you're doing dedicated, mostly cell phones. I love that. And it's going to start from like staging and then lighting, and then it's going to work itself up to the actual photo and post processing. I like that. What was I going to say? Oh, yeah.

[Corey]

When?

[Heather]

Before AI, a lot of this manipulation of photos was through Photoshop. And I know people are like, AI is just readily accessible. Photoshop's always been there manipulating photos in the background. And when I was taking classes for it, the concept is this. Garbage in, garbage out. You can only work with what you have. So even if AI has more flexibility because your photography was better, and this is obviously the sales pitch to learn photography and don't fully rely on things like AI or things like post processing or things like background removal tools, because you're always going to be like, it's just not exactly where I wanted it. Now once your photography kind of rises to where you want it to be, those tools are just great additions to just make minor tweaks if you needed to. A lot of the things Choreo had make a class, and it was for 2025 graduation. Now we always see that. Now it's 2026, so I have to rebake those. We got the school of thought. Just rebake them. Yes. That's great. But let's say pinch for time. I just need to get this out. Or somebody wants to. We taught it as a cookie class, kid.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Let's say somebody's like, oh, I'm interested to see what this would look like as a 2026. Or I want to use it for marketing. You can throw. You got high quality photos. Throw that into AI and it's almost imperceptible that it shifted that number value.

[Corey]

It's almost like I gave AI something good to munch on. Absolutely. And I was able to use that to its advantage.

[Heather]

Low Quality photos, poorly lit photos. Photoshop can't even touch it. Like, you know, it's just really hard. It takes a skill set that surpasses what most of us can do when the original photo is not ideal, not optimal. So we just taught the boot camp for in person cookie classes. I have a great reveal for it. Nice. Jess said yesterday I had the extreme honor to teach an agricultural theme cookie class on opening day in the alumni convention in Madison. This was such an honor. I've been teaching classes for a couple years and I thought I had it all dialed in. However, at the launch of the new cookie class boot camps, I was really able to focus in on creating better systems to make sure I had everything I needed without running around. The morning of the boot camp came at the perfect time. Even got all the tech to work without any major hiccups. Now I know she did that on her own because tech never works for me the first time. It almost knows that I won it too much. So that is the bootcamps we calling them like intensive marketing intensives that are single focused topics. And you get this will be a two day bootcamp. The photography one. The in person classes was three days. Lots of worksheets. A private Facebook group that everyone gets booted from ceremoniously little vandy blendy bottoms. So that is March 5th and 6th. And the. The I'm dialing in the times because this is a new product for us as well. These single use modules.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

And they can schedule the drop. But I don't understand when. When it decides the time. Someone's like I can't get this now. I said I don't think you'll get it till 8pm I gotta figure that. So we'll have that but the, the you'll access them each day and then you'll have access to them after. So you can sign up for just a bootcamp for $13. I'll have that on the website this week. Or you can sign up for the cookie college after attending a bootcamp and get the cookie college for $13 off, which gets you your money back. All right. Thanks for saying thanks for the bootcamp. If you're not ready to sign up, you can just keep taking the bootcamps and just pay as you go. So our bootcamp in March is photography. April Corey is doing pre sales. She says she's got that one dialed in as well. And then I pitched May is learning how to print 3D printed cookie cutters.

[Corey]

Yeah. Nice.

[Heather]

Kind of really you have you took a little Break. Yeah.

[Corey]

Because I said you use what you print or you don't print it because

[Heather]

you're not using it.

[Corey]

It's not a collector thing.

[Heather]

Are you purchasing the STL files? Are you designing your own?

[Corey]

It's been a little bit of both. Mostly time crunchy. Just buying them.

[Heather]

I have an interesting update for Creek design lab when we get to that segment. You will love it. Okay. So anything you want to tell us if we who should take the boot camp and who shouldn't.

[Corey]

The boot camp is for someone who wants to learn their own photography setup. Someone who's beginner, who says, I just don't really know. I like what the big cookiers are doing on social media. I wish my photos looked a little bit more like that. If I could get some tips and tricks, like three usable tips that I could implement tomorrow and have a better photo, I would take it. That's for you.

[Heather]

Okay. And it's only $13. And you think it's worth $13?

[Corey]

I love my photos. I would choose them over AI stuff.

[Heather]

I think your photos are great. This isn't an anti AI boot camp.

[Corey]

No.

[Heather]

This is a pro photography bootcamp that you can then use to make AI work a lot better for you. I think. Think kind of a signature style. There's such a thing as a signature style of photography. So people look that and they're like, oh, I know where that one came from. And that's a type part of branding as well. So that. And it's coming up. I'll post more about it soon. The gossip column. This is a short one. There was another really long one, but I. It was so long I didn't have a chance to proofread to see if it was about murdering a client. This one says sleeper slip up. A birth announcement. Should be fun, right? Right. Each baby sleeper in the set of 12 had to be completely different after they paid, of course. You're going to be an aunt or you're going to be a great aunt. All right. And I had to keep them all straight and match with many similar but different names compared to some stories. Not terrible. It was extremely stressful. Have you ever had a custom order that was 12 custom cookies?

[Corey]

It wasn't 12. She ordered nine.

[Heather]

See, this one's complex because it's 12 custom cookies with 12 custom names with 12 custom gradient.

[Corey]

The great part about mine, it was just 12 or nine unique names. So you were, can you be the godmother? Can you be the godfather?

[Heather]

Oh, you have the same setup.

[Corey]

Yeah. So it must be More common than I thought. It was the first time I had ever done it.

[Heather]

So how'd you price that?

[Corey]

I did charge her for 12. She only charged for nine for all the customization. But I chose a single line font so it's a lot easier.

[Heather]

Explain what single line font means.

[Corey]

So there's bubble letters.

[Heather]

It takes twice as long, skinny ones.

[Corey]

This is where you just go over it once.

[Heather]

Okay, so you charged her for a dozen, and you added on top for nine customs.

[Corey]

So she wanted nine customs. I charged her for a dozen. So the upcharge was the additional cookies she did not get because they were all individual. So she was charged for a dozen, got nine. Oh, extra costs.

[Heather]

Oh, she didn't. She couldn't just do the 12.

[Corey]

She wanted them to all be custom made.

[Heather]

Yeah, I know. I guess you'd have to price that differently.

[Corey]

But then.

[Heather]

Okay, question. When you guys do the cookies for like a classroom and they all have names on them.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

But you're selling those individually.

[Corey]

Like, so if you do it for a pre sale. Yeah, I would do that. About $8 each.

[Heather]

Because each one has to be. And what are you using? Default to, like, type it in.

[Corey]

I use Canva now because now I can take all the names, copy, paste. So I'm not spelling anything wrong. But you would be spelling it wrong if you put it in. Unless you just copy and paste it. But I can do a whole bunch of names in there. Like someone ordered nine cookies yesterday. She wants name place cards, but every name has a different place card. Charged her for a dozen. She's only getting nine cookies.

[Heather]

Oh, the same exact setup as the other lady.

[Corey]

Yeah, except for that one was for godparents. This one's for. She's having a party with coquette bows.

[Heather]

I don't even know what that word means.

[Corey]

Bows. Those bows are super in right now.

[Heather]

Oh, they're very in.

[Corey]

So that's what the party is, I guess, based off of black bows.

[Heather]

Without getting mad, could you lean in a little bit? So that's an interesting one. I didn't even think about that. And birth announcement sleeper slip up. You didn't slip up, girl. Unless you did. But that would be hard to keep tabs on because I see always the biggest offense is like somebody spells Isaac without the two A's, but adds two C's.

[Corey]

One time I forgot it was a classroom. She ordered for a classic. She always tips about $70.

[Heather]

She tips the price of the cookies?

[Corey]

No, she needed two dozen cookies. Usually tips.

[Heather]

That's an amazing tip.

[Corey]

I know. She's my favorite customer in the world. Granted, she moved down the road quite a way, so rest in peace, my friend. But she ordered every class had a different name, and I forgot one child's name. And she was like, don't even worry about it. No. But I drove it out to her

[Heather]

because I said, how could you get it on there?

[Corey]

So it was funny as I the cookie, put it in a container. I said, let this dry overnight. Here's the bag, here's the bow. Put it in there.

[Heather]

She bagged it herself. Did she steal two pieces? Yes, she did.

[Corey]

She ordered a million times since then.

[Heather]

Okay, great.

[Corey]

But I couldn't believe she ordered after that. But she was like, thank then. So nice. I said to be a third grader and not get a cookie with your name on it.

[Heather]

That's what I say when the. When the baker makes a mistake and one that makes the client look mad. Yes. That's when you almost got to go

[Corey]

above because you're going to say everyone but Kayla.

[Heather]

I know, Matt. Oh, I'd send me, Send me. Okay. Our upcoming events. Corey can't read these, so I'm kind of running through these. We have Eugene here in a couple minutes. The AI cookie collab is in three weeks. Now, this one is an interesting one because we have two camps of thoughts with AI. Either you want to murder it, or you absolutely love it and want to propose to it. Justice doesn't seem to be in between, and the two camps can't get along long. So we are blending them with this AI cookie collab. And the collab is this. I use ChatGPT Goalpost to generate a picture of a bunny that was a little bit. You could just tell it's AI generated, but not everyone can tell. But what you're going to do, and I provided the STL file, you're going to recreate it to your best ability. And then you're going to say to clients when you send me AI generated images like this first one, and here's how you can kind of tell that it is. And we'll do that with a caption. Here's what I'm able to do with that. Now, a net won't be perfect, so we're setting the expectations again. All our collabs are meant to have marketing value, but also have reach, engagement.

[Corey]

So showing your imperfections in your cookies versus the AI, which has no imperfections, is a great way to set expectations for your clients. And that's why with the photography boot camp, having the imperfections in your Cookies, the crumbs, the, you know, maybe thicker piping line. Not so perfect. Flooding is helpful to set the expectations to your clients, because when they show up and it's not a perfect smiley face because icing doesn't behave that way.

[Heather]

Yeah. I think it's important to understand the limitations of yourself. When AI creates something too perfect and you're like, hey, guys, I'm selling this, you run the risk of the expectations versus results.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And that could lead to the battery. This is a nice bridge to be like, hey, here's what you thought I could do, and here's what I'm capable of. And that'll be different for every baker. Now Corey's taking a step further, which the AI generated what she's capable of piping, and then she's capable of printing, which is a nice blend to get as close to that. Some people are like, I don't care. You want it to look like. Like this.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

So I'll be curious what it looks like for you because, you know, why the AI generated image still has the cookie in would still.

[Corey]

I was going to take the. The cookie out of it and just use the blender.

[Heather]

I'm curious how you're going to do this.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Except y'.

[Eugene]

All.

[Heather]

And then our April one is a fun one. And I am biting at the bit for spring. It snowed yesterday. It's supposed to snow again. I don't know. Whatever. Pipa park. So what we're gonna do is Peppa Piggot. Just kidding. Just gonna pipe a park it. You're going to go to a local park. It's sp. And you're going to pipe a flower. Flower.

[Corey]

You're going to hold it in front of the park. It's going to look like it's growing on the greenery.

[Heather]

And Coro. Give us an example photo.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And tell us. Kind of do that. So what we're going to do is use that to engage. It's a great engagement post because it's letting your audience know about a local park that you love. You're going to have a little story about the flower you chose and why you chose it. And then it's just great engagement because it is a collab. So if you guys are new to collapse, collabs are where a bunch of bakers get together for a common theme on the same date, same time, using a specific hashtag on Instagram. They post that. That. And we all go engage with each other.

[Corey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Heather]

People who participate in collabs say it is surprisingly effective at marketing.

[Corey]

Fantastic. As far as how much engagement you get versus what you normally get.

[Heather]

So yeah, the bakers who participate will also engage. So if you get typically 4 comments, you could look upwards of 10 comments maybe on a great collab. 20 Comments 50 Comments I've seen it go to depending on how complex the collab is. So surprising. Surprised that the AI collab is taking. I don't know if people completely understand it by how many people have signed up. Surprising because that one is a lot of work.

[Corey]

Maybe I'll have to make mine a little earlier to.

[Heather]

Yeah, I need to send out my. So if you guys register, you can still register to that you can participate. Participate without registering. But I help you with.

[Corey]

What date is it? March 1st.

[Heather]

March. It is March 20th.

[Corey]

Oh, nice.

[Heather]

How many Harmony?

[Corey]

You said There was like 100 or so.

[Heather]

It was over 100. Participants in the AI cookie collab have topped the number 141.

[Corey]

141. There's always people who fall out, like, oh, I got too busy my bed.

[Heather]

Listen, the sooner the earlier I post the collab to give you guys more working runtime, the more people drop out of it in the last minute because they had the best laid plans in my semen. However, I want to say this. Marketing only works when you do. It'd be cool if it was a set it and forget it thing. It's not.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

If it was, none of us would have jobs. We'd all be on island. But it has to. You have to put the work in. I always see people like, I've tried nothing and nothing's working. That's your. Your input is equal in your output. If nothing works, your input. There's something wrong with your input. You can tweak. That's the best thing I could tell you. Yeah, because that means it's fixable. If I told you you're doing everything right and it's all wrong, I'm not

[Corey]

sure why it's actually working.

[Heather]

Good luck. I'd quit.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

That is devastating. So what I'm saying is when it isn't working out here, it's something along the here that isn't working. So I'm excited. I gotta post the information for the Peppa Pig Pipette park collab. I'm just gonna call it Pipet park, but it just sounds like it does.

[Corey]

It does.

[Heather]

I never watched Peppa Pig. Did Archer.

[Corey]

He watched it a little bit. It was slightly annoying.

[Heather]

Summer when she was little. She's eight years younger than us. Her little sister watched Arthur No, I loved Arthur.

[Corey]

Peppa Pig cries all the time. She never. She's not a problem solver.

[Heather]

Oh really?

[Corey]

She does problem solve.

[Heather]

Would Swiper know Swiper saving.

[Corey]

That's Dora the Explorer.

[Heather]

Did I George that we all watched that Teletubbies?

[Corey]

No, I didn't like Teletubbies as much.

[Heather]

I didn't want little monsters.

[Corey]

We had bubble guppies fave.

[Heather]

Bubble Guppies?

[Corey]

Yeah, the Backyardigans.

[Heather]

Okay.

[Corey]

Oh my goodness.

[Heather]

I love that Blue's Clues is before his time. Yeah, but the dog that everyone likes. That's after his time.

[Corey]

The what? The purple one.

[Heather]

The dog. The dog group of crime fighters.

[Corey]

Oh yeah. That's even after Archer's time.

[Heather]

Okay.

[Corey]

I think that's a little bit.

[Heather]

What did we watch? We

[Corey]

did the Barney. Barney.

[Heather]

Okay. Everybody did.

[Corey]

Yeah. It was like really Barney. Oh, in the fleeting rainbow.

[Heather]

Oh yeah.

[Corey]

What is that?

[Heather]

Oh, lambtop too. As well. Whatever that. Yeah. But then I felt like there was some stuff. I watched Nickelodeon, the Rugrats. We did watch that a lot.

[Corey]

You're going past learning into like.

[Heather]

Oh yeah. I'm doing a little where we can remember.

[Corey]

Yeah, those ones are more learning. Learning things. Yeah.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Bubble Guppies was up there for me.

[Heather]

I really like it sounds cute. It's going to be ugly bubble.

[Corey]

And then there was.

[Heather]

Someone's gonna be screaming at.

[Corey]

There was these one robot and two like futuristic kids. But one more blue and one more pink. And the robot was green. And they did a lot of number counting things they really loved. Whatever.

[Heather]

And I see if AI can pull that Project Owl Ollie. That's what they all.

[Corey]

Oh, I think it's.

[Heather]

Is it Project Ollie? No.

[Corey]

If that's a photo of them.

[Heather]

A show for kids. Yeah, for a learning show. Somebody's streaming editing. Tobot.

[Corey]

Can I see a picture? Tobot sounds kind of cubics. Oh, look. We did that.

[Heather]

Yeah, that was reboot. And I loved it. And you didn't like.

[Corey]

Oh yeah, whatever. This is. Yo Gabba Gabba. We watched all the that movie.

[Heather]

Even hu of that was now you're too close to this. You're okay.

[Corey]

Oh, I can't see him on there. Oh, I have to find him. Someone knows what I'm talking about. He was the cutest little robot. They did a lot of number things. And he wore a blue astronaut and the girl wore a pink astronaut.

[Heather]

AI hates to see you come. And he was kind of funny and she was kind of cute. Okay, so that is. I don't. Oh yeah. Peppa Pig. That outpost up soon. I think that'll be a cool one. Where are you going?

[Corey]

Going? I said maybe Lia.

[Heather]

Oh, shoot. I hate that one. I got to do a great fall.

[Corey]

I gotta make it close to my house. The benefit is that it's close to your home.

[Heather]

That is the point. So it's not the biggest park in your state. Like don't go climbing the Grand Canyon for this one. It's the hyperlocal content that we want to marry cookies to upcoming events. What's Popping Con is only in seven weeks.

[Corey]

Crazy time is flying.

[Heather]

Time is flying as in April 16th. You can use code Twins for 25 off. I think they might still be running Early Bird, but if not, you're cutting it Players.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

Crate Knit closed cookie con 17 weeks and I do feel like tickets go and sell. We actually surprisingly Heather Campbell Berkshire. All three names. Murder suicide that she's teaching a live today. I gotta post it.

[Corey]

Oh, today. Nice.

[Heather]

She said, I'm so sorry. I submitted this because I think the tickets go on sale. So it's called let's go to Cookie Con. She's gonna tell you everything you need to know about it. Yeah, yeah, sorry. Heather Campbell Brookshire. I have to use all the three names. And the Venny Bunny I don't even like talking about. This is 39 weeks away.

[Corey]

Check.

[Eugene]

Dive.

[Heather]

No, no care. Dive. That's what you get. So what's Popping Con is a convention. I think it's two to three days, if not even longer because you can do the add ons and go to her shop. It's in Kent, Ohio, where Daisy makes kind of factory setup.

[Corey]

She's a brick and mortar.

[Heather]

It is impressive. Her and her husband do it together and they are go getters. Yeah. And so we are the closing speakers on that one. How fun. You need to do a Facebook live with her.

[Corey]

TikTok live.

[Heather]

She's on Instagram live. Upcoming major holidays. St. Patrick's Day. Now on St. Patrick's Day core. You remember that cookie class kit went through a rebirth this year per the request of members that they wanted more intermediate classes. And we said, okay, who are we to say now? And I really feel like you've hit your stride. Don't.

[Corey]

Don't say stride yet. There's only been three that have come out. So we have the January, we have February, which Valentine's Day. And then this one is a St. Patrick's Day themed.

[Heather]

Yeah, I had to. I had to post it last night. So I was yesterday afternoon. It was super cute. Bright orange, bright greens, Celtic Lucky Irish. It turns out it's a four leaf clover, not a shamrock. Had a Google. I knew somebody was gonna correct me. I know they're gonna correct me. Shamrock is three, Lucky Clover is four. Both are associated with St. Patrick's Day. And it's St. Pattie's Day, not St. Patty's Day. Somebody will tackle you.

[Corey]

Google that for myself.

[Heather]

Right. It's the teas. Right. The teas are correct. St. Patrick's Day. And that is March 17th. It's only three weeks away. So you could essentially sign up for the cookie college or the class kits and get that and teach it. It's a cutie patootie. It's got 10 icing bags, but all just one consistency across those 10 icing bags.

[Corey]

Bag colors.

[Heather]

Yeah, yeah.

[Corey]

10 icing bags. All flood consistency.

[Heather]

All flood consistency. Very cute little setup. I had to. And this one is the first class you've done with the transfer.

[Corey]

I know. That's very intermediate of me.

[Heather]

Yes. I included the transfer sheet and I added a SL slide in the slide deck about what transfers are.

[Corey]

Oh, good.

[Heather]

For our intermediate class takers. April Fool's Day is in five weeks. I hate that day. I am. I have April Fool's ptsd.

[Corey]

A trick on you. I recall what you're referring to.

[Heather]

Fourth grade. Yes. A teacher said, I'm going to give. He made us all take a quiz we hadn't studied for. Everyone fails.

[Corey]

It was a fake quiz.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

I didn't know. And then it was a fake.

[Heather]

Then he said, this is a joke. You can go tell your parents you found this. Lol. Well, the parents were upset.

[Corey]

Upset.

[Heather]

And I. That day, fourth grade. Us from ever and say, I no longer play little jokeies on April Fools. But you know, you get on your news feed and everyone's like closing down their company, having a baby, like all these things. And I'm like, I'm not sure what's real or not. I would hate to have a birthday in AI world. Oh, I don't think we're ready for AI. April Fools.

[Corey]

AI.

[Heather]

April Fools. Easter is in six weeks. It falls early this year. But that's also a classic kit.

[Corey]

That's will be the next one.

[Heather]

Have you gotten the cutters yet?

[Corey]

No, they're on their way.

[Heather]

Very nice. It looks very cute. Hopefully.

[Corey]

Let's see.

[Heather]

You and I are also teaching an Easter class, but I don't think we'll teach the Internet yet. Easter class is in. Sorry, easter is in six weeks. That feels very close. That's April 5th. It's April. Last year it was at the third week of April. This time it's at the first week of April. It's different than it was last year. Your plans last year will not apply to this year. Teacher Appreciation week is in 10 weeks. And then Nurse Appreciation Week actually falls on. On that same week.

[Corey]

Wow. I like Teacher Appreciation Week. It is one of my favorite weeks. I will be participating in a piece.

[Heather]

Hopefully you'll be appreciating them. Teachers.

[Corey]

Yeah, we'll be participating.

[Heather]

Mother's Day is just right after that on May 10th, so.

[Corey]

Oh, that's this. That's literally like three days later. Yeah.

[Heather]

Because it's Teacher Appreciation Week.

[Corey]

Yes. 8th. Which is the 10th. So that's Sunday. Yeah.

[Heather]

Yeah. So they're right there. And then you have graduation, which is kind of scattered throughout. Especially these snow days.

[Corey]

I'm having graduation orders coming in.

[Heather]

Really? Already?

[Corey]

She's like, your order form isn't open for May. Can I sweep along?

[Heather]

Because our graduation is. Well, I'm sorry. Our last day of school. When do you think graduation is?

[Corey]

It's usually end of May.

[Heather]

Yeah, it's June 12th.

[Corey]

It ranges depending on. I know.

[Heather]

It really does. Some people are like, they already graduated. They're off in college.

[Corey]

Private schools and a little different than

[Heather]

the public schools and then public schools. Some public schools are doing almost a year round schedule of graduating. No, no, no. Like they're, they're, they're shortening the summer.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

I do not have kids. Why do you land from planet Alien? Last day of school is also right there. Graduation is before last day of school. Yeah. Why are you looking at me like speaking German?

[Corey]

I don't know what you're saying. I'm just talking about the.

[Heather]

Okay, then Father's Day. But that one never does.

[Corey]

Well, for Father's Day is better than Mother's Day.

[Heather]

Oh, Mother's Day.

[Corey]

Yeah. Moms will buy for the dads of the family.

[Heather]

We need to reach the men. We need to reach the men for Mother's Day. I've seen last a couple podcasts. Years ago, someone said that they post a graphic that says, wives, tag your husbands here. And I'll get them through the ordering process. Which I think is not a bad idea. Stl me about it now. I have an email from Cookie Design Lab I want to read.

[Corey]

So Cookie Design Lab actually sponsors the stl me about it section. That's where you can text in your questions. The phone number to do that is 571-556-5644.

[Heather]

Very nice. Look at you. Hi, Heather, if you happen to see this before recording the podcast today, please share that we are dropping one Easter spring cookie cutter matching image and matching out loud every week. These are all free and will be posted to our blog. First up is an egg with a banner. That would make a great personalized option for Easter basket, hostess gifts or place card cookies. Next we'll be dropping a plaque with bunny ears. The one I've already shared in the Cookie College. Yeah, Amalia is giving away on their blog. So cookiedesignlab.com, go to their blog and you can get these free SDL files to print. If you want to make your own SDL files, use code Twins for 15% off at cookie$.

[Corey]

She based it these designs off of the top bestsellers. When you asked it in the cookie college. Oh fun. A lot of people said so she

[Heather]

made her own really like that. So if you join the Cookie College you can also get Amalia. But if code twins 15% off, that works for their year membership which is what I pay for. And it works for their seven day trial. If you do not even a trial, it's just seven days to print off a cutter. If you're not a big self printer.

[Corey]

So if you were wondering what Cookie Design Lab is, if your customers send you an AI image and there's no cutter out there on Etsy that fills that, you can actually take that image, remove the background, put it in Cookie Design Lab, take the little pinpoints, move them around the image and create a cutter yourself.

[Heather]

Now that's what you've been using?

[Corey]

That's what I've been using. Fantastic. It's given me a lot more wiggle room versus just using plaques. And I find that customers like it just a little bit more custom, especially when you're paying the custom prices.

[Heather]

I like the shape of things.

[Corey]

What she is doing though is she's giving you the STL file already made for these ones on our blog. So that's a great way to go.

[Heather]

She was the text in about SEO regarding blog posts. So very smart way to get people to your blog is by giving them information. So if you have a blog and you're like oh, I don't know what to post. The pipa park listing out the parks is great reward for people who are like oh, I want to know what local parks there are. So kind of think in terms of that. Okay, we have three texting questions. They all follow a very similar thing. Number two, number two. So area code eight zero one. You are the STL me about it winner. You can email me at heather sugarcookiemarketing.com and I'll hook you up with Amalia. Do we have an update on the coat? Don't leave us all hanging. In fact, I'm just going to read all the three texts. First one, Cory, did you get your jacket back? Second one, do we have an update on the coat? Don't leave us hanging. Like the coat wasn't left hanging. Last one. Hi, ladies. Got a side with Cory in the jacket situation. If I had accidentally taken a stranger's jacket, I would be mortified. I wouldn't be driving back immediately daily to return in. As always, thanks for everything you both do for all the makers.

[Corey]

Okay, my update with the jacket. The jacket, let me tell you, when it went missing, had my gloves in the pockets. That's important. She took my entire winter wardrobe with her that day. When I went back on Tuesday, the jacket was not there. But the little manager guy was also not there. So I went home. Cold, sad, long lost. And we got the next day, Wednesday we go to the gym around six o' clock clock. The manager, he's got a great, I want to say either Australian or British accent in between. He's like, did you get it? Crikey. Crikey.

[Heather]

Like a little baby.

[Corey]

Is this before?

[Heather]

After his desperate voicemail not to press

[Corey]

starters, this is after.

[Heather]

Okay.

[Corey]

Are you kidding me? Stay right here. I'm gonna get to the bottom of this.

[Heather]

Okay? Okay.

[Corey]

So it had come in that morning and they hung it up somewhere else

[Heather]

where like the locals, they said, this isn't gonna be taken again AM Yeah,

[Corey]

it's where the workers hang their jacket.

[Heather]

Smart, smart.

[Corey]

So he was like, is this your Jackie? And I was like, that's my Jackie.

[Heather]

So from start to finish, how long between the loss of the jacket and the return of the jacket? A week and a day where Corey's telling absolute stranger she's lost her jacket.

[Corey]

And I put my hands in the pockies. No gloves. She literally dug the gloves.

[Heather]

Are you trying to reacquire the gloves?

[Corey]

The gloves are gone. It was too difficult to get the jacket. Take your little trophy girl, put it in your arms.

[Heather]

Maybe the jacket was a decoy and the gloves were actually. She said, I will be stealing something. Will you be repurchasing gloves because you said this is your only gloves?

[Corey]

These are my only gloves because I destashed all the things I own. I'm trying to get past this winter and I'll buy a cheap piece of

[Heather]

manager Winter keeps a knockin I know. I don't know what's going on.

[Corey]

My hands are chilled. Whatever.

[Heather]

This little thing is podcast land. Cory has been reunited with jacket sans gloves. Did you wash it?

[Corey]

Washed it twice on hot. But I didn't dry it because it's got the fake fur on the thing and it flies.

[Heather]

You know you can't dry those. Does the fur not clip off?

[Corey]

Come on.

[Heather]

Yeah. I can't do the faux fur because it melts. You can't. I have to. I have to. My clothes are being punched by detergent constantly. I have a little bit of a mental problem. I have to wash the clothes after I wear them one time. Yes. Not great for anything in D. I

[Corey]

would say for gym clothes for certain. Someone's screaming I'm a dirty girl right now.

[Heather]

Gym clothes.

[Corey]

Yeah, wash them. Jeans. Wearing them to dinner. I think you could get too much.

[Heather]

Do you hear? I don't. You know, actually, for as. As germaphobic as I am, I don't abide by this one. Outside clothes. So if you have outside clothes, they don't change. You don't. You can't sit on the furniture with from outside clothes. Your dirty chair you sat on upside down side. Okay, I'm gonna go through a couple articles of clothing. I just want to know the frequency of wash bed sheets weekly, maybe every four days. Pillowcase.

[Corey]

That is more because of acne pimples.

[Heather]

Force your hand here.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Heather]

Okay.

[Corey]

This jacket, if I wear it to the gym, he'll be washed before I wear my gown.

[Heather]

Ah, Ice pants.

[Corey]

It'll be washed tonight. Your socks every day. Underwear every day.

[Heather]

Okay.

[Corey]

I actually switched twice in a day. You do a two for one. If I take a shower before bed, which I do every night, I will not put on a dirty hair.

[Heather]

The person I am post shower doesn't acknowledge the person I was.

[Corey]

So my body goes into the bed clean and then I shake a shower in the morning.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Heather]

Okay, let me think something else. Okay, let's say it was a dress. I've never seen you wear it.

[Corey]

But I wouldn't wash that right after unless I did something sweaty like a salsa dance, which I've never done before in my life.

[Heather]

Okay, so you'd never wash a dress.

[Corey]

I would eventually wash it dry clean stuff. I don't own dry and clean stuff.

[Heather]

You really kind of wear the same kind of clothes.

[Corey]

I have seven pairs of these.

[Heather]

Okay. We have this. We both have this pair of pants.

[Corey]

I've washed that because I'm not wearing it as much as you are. I'M wearing it to like a dinner. I'd wash it on the second time. Probably.

[Heather]

Probably our little sister. I'm washing everything all the time. I hate. I hate that for me. I hate that for my clothes. I hate that for the water bill. But just in my head it really bothered me. I packed all my pants including the ones I needed to wear. So that left me pantless. Oh. So then I said well I'm not technically pantless. I have the pants from yesterday and you couldn't. I said a. Heather, Heather, come on girl, girl, quick chit chat. If you gently. Because I had pants in wash in the process of being washed. So I just said if I just wore these again one time then I'd be set. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I. I agree.

[Corey]

A jacket.

[Heather]

Okay. Jackets are different. I did buy a couple years ago splurged. You know I was in my whole buy it once, buy it for life era. Aritzia.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

Can't even pronounce it right. I'm too broke down jacket.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Heather]

But you can't wash it. Yeah, it's the ones I haven't read. I try not to even get a dirty wash, but it bothers me. He's hardly been worn because he can't be necessarily washed. But he's. Whatever bird's got going on, they're out

[Corey]

there in the cold.

[Heather]

They are probably sweating out in the cold because that's what that jacket is.

[Corey]

My jackets I wear on walks start smelling like the outdoors. So my gym jacket that was stolen, he'll be washed all the time.

[Heather]

Okay, question jacket you wear around somebody who ordered for he. I'll have to wash it. I can't stand the meat smell.

[Corey]

I don't want it to smell like outside.

[Heather]

I don't want to smell like deodorant. Cancel me if you order fajitas and didn't announce it to the table. At least fajitas remember Citation chicken once I saw one time that the fajita isn't actually steamy. They add something to the bowl to make it steam.

[Corey]

Probably whatever Sakura guy added that makes the steam.

[Heather]

So really it's all for show. The smell was just an added.

[Corey]

I do think that smells strong regardless. Yeah, yesterday I did go to chili on top and I came out. Nate says you smell like a fajita.

[Heather]

I know. Well, I used to work in property restoration and if you burn a turkey on Thanksgiving or something like that, it's called actually a protein fire. Protein molecules are so large that's why they smell. The larger the molecule, the more you smell it. Smoke molecules are also very large. So a protein fire was actually an insurance claim because it was so hard to get the protein protein wafting through. Especially if you had your AC system running or heater running because it pulled it into the upstairs. It was hard to get that smell out because the molecules are so large. Protein fire claim. Wow.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And it was hard to work with because you can't see it.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

You can only smell it. So that is the jacket update. If you want to Text in at 571-556-5644. You too can understand Corey's laundry habits. Our little sister does not wash clothes often. Hardly ever. Funny story. My mom is very anal about laundry. In fact, when I was 21, I had not washed my own clothes. When I was 20, she didn't let us touch her laundry machines.

[Corey]

Machine.

[Heather]

She's very protective and she still is. So you still can't. So my little sister does live with my mom, but my mom does not let her use the laundry machines. You just got to let people do do themselves at that age. It's just you can do what you do. So my mom, in an effort to kind of get in front of her chores that she does not let anyone do, she preloaded the washing machine. Washing machine. And then stepped down to go run some errands.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

In her mind thinking, it's one less task for me when I get home. My dad, in an effort because it was her birthday, to help her with this chore you're not allowed to help her with because she didn't need to report anyone. She didn't think anybody was going to do it, decides to come and he's like, oh, these clothes are.

[Corey]

He thought the washing machine was the dryer.

[Heather]

Yeah. So when he comes there and all the clothes are dry, it makes total sense to him. They have the stacker one, so it's kind of confusing. They're like identical. So he's like, oh, these are dried clean clothes. He and my little sister fold delicately all these clothes. When my mom comes home, she's like, where are all the dirty clothes? And they're like, I folded them here.

[Corey]

What?

[Heather]

They're dirty? No.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And so they had to put all their effort back in them and wash them.

[Corey]

Go find the dirty clothes.

[Heather]

So that is why I think Cory and I have weird relationships with washing machines. Machines.

[Corey]

My husband washes things every day, but also wears things with holes.

[Heather]

Nate, Corey's husband, thinks wearing something until the threads Are hanging on by thread. Literally is a badge of honor. And if you try to buy him something, he will freak out. He does not. We all have. Here's the thing. Awareness. We all have awareness. We're keeping text that into the podcast. If you have some weird idiosyncrasy, I want to hear it. That little thing where my mom doesn't let people wash their clothes or wash

[Corey]

things every single time she wears them or.

[Heather]

Corey, what are you gonna do? I'm gonna say you don't wash your hair every day.

[Corey]

I don't wash it every day.

[Heather]

And I do. And that's why it's dry. I said, why is my hair sticking away? It's a mess.

[Corey]

So I don't know if I'm doing it right.

[Heather]

So let's go through our sponsors, then we'll wrap this up because we gotta get Eugene on it and travel back in time. Eugene, great talk. Yeah. Future from the best cookie design lab. Code twins gets you 15% off. Baking me crazy. Code favorite twin gets me 10% off. I wanna. We're gonna reach out this next month and I want them to do little segments on the podcast.

[Corey]

I'll believe it when I see it.

[Heather]

I know. Listen. Believe it. You email me massive tasks. Believe it. I got the class up. I got to do the digital download. The digital download. What do you want me to do this time?

[Corey]

We're doing egg. Excited to be in your class.

[Heather]

Excited to be in your class. Marrying teacher appreciation week and Easter, which are kind of close.

[Corey]

Yes, a month away month.

[Heather]

But you wouldn't give an Excited to be in your class after Easter. Easter. No.

[Corey]

I'd give it four.

[Heather]

Easter is your keer. Your bet.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Ker is going to seat you on your keer. Baking me crazy. Code favorite Twins is 10% off. Bakey Bake Code twins. I'm so sorry. Bake me crazy's favorite twin or Heather. Just kidding. Favorite twin. Bakey bake. Code twins is 10% off. What's popping con? Code twins $25 off. We'll be speaking at that Boston neutral mill if you want a discount. My cat's outside. I can hear them. Code sugar cookies gets 20 bucks.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And last but never least, Eddie Primera's edible printer is not discount but it's

[Corey]

a direct food printer. Coolest thing. Still in awe when I turn it on and use it. And I used it for a set heavily last week. It was a first birthday valentine set. So it's our sweetheart is turning one. Her inspo pictures had airbrushing in the back. And I said, eddie could do this in two seconds.

[Heather]

So did you find the graphic? I'm assuming you're using Canva or Shutterstock. I just used Canva.

[Corey]

Canva.

[Heather]

Very nice.

[Corey]

Yeah. And just created that.

[Heather]

Sent it to. What did they say?

[Corey]

She loved it.

[Heather]

I saw you posting about it and I like to leave my little weird comments. You did. I always. Listen, listen, listen. If I see I'm gonna scratch your back. If I see your post, I'm gonna like it. I'm gonna. But I want to add a comment. But I also don't want to be like golly g willikers. I have never met Corey with my same name ever before. So I say, oh, hey, if some. I would love this if I was one of heroes 41.

[Corey]

Appreciate it. I appreciate it. Appreciate your weird comments.

[Heather]

You're welcome. You always wait very long to get back to me.

[Corey]

Yeah. You know why?

[Heather]

To bump it.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

I said, she's bumping it. Three days later I saw your reply to me. So Twinterest. Corey, do you have a twin terrace this week?

[Corey]

Do you have a twin terrace?

[Heather]

Yeah, actually, I've been. This is going to be my twin turtle. My twintelect. My twin to is about Bitcoin. But I don't know enough about it to really establish any information. But we'll talk about it. Twinterest is interior design. And if you are an interior designer or you if you are gifted in that. Oh, my goodness. Mad respect.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

Because it is so complex. Paint looks different in the sun.

[Corey]

It does.

[Heather]

Okay. Wild. So now you can't just pick one paint. Oh, there's 50 shades of that.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Color. Oh, there's 50 types of the shade of that color then. Okay, cool. Like maybe you get the paint established. No. Your curtains have to be 6 inches from the ceiling. Your curtain panel needs to be. Each curtain panel on either side of the thing needs to be the size of the window. Window.

[Corey]

So this is just what they're saying. What looks the best?

[Heather]

Let me. I would like to look the best. I don't want to look so best. Yeah. Okay. Then they're like. But so you know, the pleating of the curtain also needs to be factored in here. The type of material for the current.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

The curtain's length. Do you want it bunching? Do you want it to barely touch? Do you want it to actually function? You just want it to be aesthetic.

[Corey]

Are you doing aesthetic or functional? I. I'm bedroom one. Functional blackout curtains.

[Heather]

Okay, here's the thing. If it's functional it's ugly. That's just the.

[Corey]

Oh, yeah. They're always strong.

[Heather]

The better it works, the worse.

[Corey]

My bedroom feels closed in.

[Heather]

The best shoes I wear are the ones that. Would somebody be like, are you doing okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just. There's no. The cuter it is, the more your knees hurt.

[Corey]

Oh, yeah. And lights pouring in because you got non functional curtains that look great.

[Heather]

I know. So. So you want to kind of blend the both, I guess you want it to be functional, but you also want it to be aesthetic. But then you have to say, okay, they have these things. You can't go into Ashley Furniture anymore and buy the set. Apparently that's a big faux pas because it looks like you just. You walked in and said, I'll buy a set. They said, that doesn't look intentional.

[Corey]

But I put a piano in the middle.

[Heather]

I like it, I like it. But then you have fabrics, you have color. There's a 60, 30, 10 rule or something. 60, 30, 20. Where the matte. There's one primary color. 60%. There's an accent color. And then a. That little plop of color.

[Corey]

That'll be fun.

[Heather]

I find it overwhelming. And then you have the size of things. Just this.

[Corey]

See it back together. That's something I struggle with even to this day. I'm more of a twice measurement. So.

[Heather]

Yeah, that was my twin. Trust is kind of seeing. And now I have a whole new respect for people who are interior designers because I think it does take a lot of knowledge off of things.

[Eugene]

Things.

[Heather]

How high should you hang a picture? The center of the picture needs to be 60 inches from the floor. It doesn't matter what the size of the photo is.

[Corey]

I just look at a wall and I'm like, it seems right about there. Yeah.

[Heather]

No, it's not that. Your tv. There's a whole subreddit called TV too high.

[Corey]

And I like my TV too high. I wouldn't be in bed and looking up to the ceiling. I don't want to have to do that.

[Heather]

Ceiling mounted tv. You know, like when you're at a

[Corey]

hotel and you have to go sideways to see the TV because your toe is in the way. I don't like that.

[Heather]

That is what they want. I don't like that one.

[Corey]

Like.

[Heather]

Yeah. It's just this whole theory.

[Corey]

I'm living my life for me. Then there's the trend.

[Heather]

You are. Corey is for. As much as Corey spends time asleep, I don't. Yeah. Meaning I don't. I've not had a TV in my room.

[Corey]

I've only had it for four years.

[Heather]

We haven't seen you since.

[Corey]

But I watch TV downstairs.

[Heather]

Then you would have a TV in every level. I'd leave.

[Corey]

No, I only ever want one tv. I don't. I'm the only one who watches it. I don't need it to follow me around. I got a cell phone thing.

[Heather]

Ashley's getting rid of her TV on her main level.

[Corey]

That's just cuz her interior designer.

[Heather]

The interior designer T go right about.

[Corey]

Go right about. I have a twin to l. Okay. I was telling my son, now 16, he turned 16 last Wednesday. Time is something.

[Heather]

Is this how you lent you own?

[Corey]

Your time is something you own and you're the caretaker of it. Because nobody owns time. It's a tickin.

[Heather]

I think a lot of people don't understand how little time we have.

[Corey]

We have little time and the time you do have, it's either here or gone. It does not wait for you. Time does not wait for you. Your ownership of your time is being the steadfast person that you can choose to be an on time person. You can choose to not be an on time person. That is a personal choice. Now you might have things that are external that are taking away your time because maybe the kid's throwing things. Then maybe we gotta train the kid a little bit so that he takes less of our time. Preemptively putting your dirty clothes in the washing machine so you can save on time. I'm a very on time person, my son.

[Heather]

Pretty early.

[Corey]

I like to be early.

[Heather]

I don't think you're ever on time. I think you're early. Oh yeah.

[Corey]

But then I don't mind sitting in the car for a bit.

[Heather]

You don't, you don't complain about it. I get a texture every once in a while, but that's because I'm running really.

[Corey]

But choosing to be on time is a choice. Being an on time person is something you choose to be. My son will set an alarm in the morning at 6. He never has woken up at 6 and just hear it go off.

[Heather]

I heard Corey break down his alarm. 6, 6:37, 6:35. Oh, 6:40. Oh, we're going to the five minute. Oh my goodness.

[Corey]

But I'll come in at 6:45 when I know that, but I can't come in.

[Heather]

Is he asleep or is he looking at his phone?

[Corey]

No, he is groggy in bed. Not asleep, but awake.

[Heather]

Yeah, that first alarm, not getting up. Right.

[Corey]

So I said to Archer, I said I don't trust you. With time.

[Heather]

That's a big thing he said.

[Corey]

I said, if you can show to me that you can do well with time management, I will trust you. More currently I don't like yelling up at you at 7:30 to get in the car. Okay. You need to be down at 7:28 before 7:30. So it doesn't even cross my mind

[Heather]

to yell at you.

[Corey]

Okay. He did not like that conversation. As one would not not. Yeah, but you also are 16 and I can't let you fly away at 18 not knowing how to manage young.

[Heather]

Cory's gone through an existential crisis. For AR training, we're button heads.

[Corey]

But it's button heads for the right one.

[Heather]

I think you got to butt heads.

[Corey]

So this morning I did not go to his door. I hear his alarm goes off. I do not go, oh, he is in his bathroom at 6:30 nair.

[Heather]

Has that happened? So he woke up with the first alarm.

[Corey]

Well, six is the first alarm.

[Heather]

Fair.

[Corey]

He doesn't have to wake up at 6. 6:30 technically is the time he told me he woke up. So I guess six is his preemptive. 6:30 is get your button. So he got out of bed at 6:30, was in his bathroom.

[Heather]

That's impressive.

[Corey]

That's impressive. I decided to do read a book downstairs and I was going to read fast. Just a self help book by what to not tell.

[Heather]

I guess I have to read some help today.

[Corey]

I have some time. Let me read it because I'm not going to call Archer down for school. Okay. I was going to read through that time, which is hard for me to

[Heather]

do because being on time for school

[Corey]

is also me being on time. He comes down at 7:30 and I just said I didn't give him a compliment because I said one day because he said the reason why I was late on Saturday because I was toweling off. I said when you go to your boss and say I was toweling off, he's not going to be like, oh, okay, you're toweling off.

[Heather]

I said, you all got to off your excuse.

[Corey]

So I didn't want to overly praise him for being on on time because your boss is not going to praise you for doing the bare minimum being on time.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

So I just said my son is on time.

[Heather]

You know sometimes that whatever that is where it burbles out and you have to say it and I'm like, don't say it, don't say it, don't say it. But then if you sing it. Did I say it? Singing your inconvenient requests I feel is annoying to everybody but makes me feel better about how I said it. Does you. I even said move that over, Cory

[Corey]

miracle you get a little closer to the heart.

[Heather]

So that's an interesting one.

[Corey]

Yeah. So that was my, my big one where he, I could tell he did not like that conversation. But I said, it's not about me. This is totally about you.

[Heather]

I think parents are meant to set their kids up to fail or fly.

[Corey]

Yeah. And I said I, I did tell him the other day, I'm your biggest advocate. When life gets hard, you'll be ring dingling me.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

And I'm always going to try to be and Yaquina. So to make me feel dumb.

[Heather]

Your biggest advo artisan that age were like I didn't want that anyways. But I was like, but you did. So.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

But I think my personal theory about that type of behavior is like I feel awkward. So I'm going to break the attention by saying something that would make this person run away.

[Corey]

So I had gotten him a Valentine's Day card and wrote something nice in it. And I said, okay, read it aloud, you know. And he was like, tim, I thought I said you're trying to make me feel dumb a little more. Because I am. I said, but I'm your advocate. So read it as I wrote it. And then he read it better.

[Heather]

This has been me and Corey's lunch topic. It will be our lunch topic today. I can feel it. But it's good, man. This is what it is at the

[Corey]

end of the day.

[Heather]

I got to sneak it in at the end of the day. In summary, I don't have kids, so it's really just watching somebody else do what I probably don't think I'd be good at. I think I'm way too codependent. I think I'd be like walked all over and be like, well, just.

[Corey]

That's just, that's just the people in life you don't like relationship with. With are the ones whose parents didn't say time management is on you.

[Heather]

The ones, the ones who are. Who I would have isn't important.

[Corey]

Their time is more important.

[Heather]

I would have the kid that everybody hates to see it coming as an adult.

[Corey]

I think yours would have some clean, some clean clothes.

[Heather]

That's what we would have. Okay. My twin terrest. My twin tag. Okay. This is my bitcoin, right? This, this main up but not made up math problem, energy bills, whatever. Bitcoin at its peak we just looked it up was 123,000 a coin, right. So you don't have to buy the whole coin, you can buy parts of it, but you're essentially buying stock in bitcoin. Unlike buying stock in a company that actually exists, you're buying stock in something that isn't regulated, necessarily exist. They said it exists because people believe it's the Santa Claus.

[Corey]

Don't understand.

[Heather]

Right. So bitcoin earlier, I think just this summer was worth 123,000 a coin. Right. So you could buy a fraction of.

[Corey]

It's been volatile in the past, but the height of it was, remember at

[Heather]

one point it was worth nothing and then it was. That's where you see these people, they got bitcoins. You know, there was the old adage that the pizza guy at Meta was paid in bitcoin and now it's worth a hundred million dollars. Did you see the guy who threw away the hard drive with bitcoin on it and then he spent three years digging through and confined the trash cans in the United Kingdom. So anyways, bitcoin today has dropped down to 66,000, 63,000. I think just the last week was in the 50s. The question is, is it on sale or is it worth nothing? And to see, even with the stock

[Corey]

market, except for the stock market has actual companies behind it.

[Heather]

I know, so they're saying, but at one point bitcoin, everyone said it was worthless until it wasn't worthless. Now is it worthless today or is it another instance where it isn't worthless? And I think that here's the thing,

[Corey]

when they were made, people were called them ugly. Then they were swampled up, so much so that people were reselling them.

[Heather]

But at one point they had that value.

[Corey]

At one point. Now laboobs are just everywhere.

[Heather]

I call it a laboop. They are, but I say so it exists because people believe it exists.

[Corey]

And it, the value is because people believe it's value.

[Heather]

They also believe we're in an AI bubble. The dot com bubble of our generation they're claiming as AI, but you in this early said, I believe it will be here forever.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

You are not a bubble believer, a bubble popper.

[Corey]

I what?

[Heather]

The dot com bubble, the dot com bubble popped. We lived through that one.

[Corey]

It popped. Are we still in it?

[Heather]

No, no. The dot com and the valuations for the websites that were worthless. So all these AI companies, oh no AI.

[Corey]

Right now I only can digest the news at the gym because I don't have cable. Like as soon as someone says we're taking on blah blah blah with AI, blah blah blah. Like the stocks are tanking, right? So I know we're in a weird way.

[Heather]

Do you think AI, we have to get Eugene in here. Do I think. You know? What is it, Bubble?

[Corey]

I think that someone's making.

[Heather]

Is it a Michael Buble robot?

[Corey]

That is my. I just saw someone who said that she had a breakup with her AI cuz she. She wanted to marry her original chat GPT AI. But it had been discontinued, this chat. But she had fallen in love with them. But they were like, you better say goodbye to Sandal. And she did a big long.

[Heather]

We all need a Sandoval.

[Corey]

I know.

[Heather]

Okay, I gotta switch the camera.

[Corey]

Goodbye. Goodbye.

[Heather]

Let us know if you miss a bitcoin. If you're rich and we're not, please let us know.