← Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪
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- [00:02]
A
Am I blurry? You gotta be kidding me. You're a little blur.
- [00:06]
B
Pink. Pink.
- [00:08]
A
It's the camera so badly wants to focus on the microphones. It's like, forget the people. I just want to focus on the microphones. Okay, Corey. It is the podcast and it's remote. It is going to be 70 degrees. 75 degrees on Sunday, but today it's freezing rain and snow. I won't believe it until I see it. Virginia keeps you on your snow and your toes. But I'm excited about 75 degrees.
- [00:32]
B
Oh, I can't wait. And it says 70 degrees for a whole week.
- [00:35]
A
And they said that's out of context. I think it's going to be a rainy week too. But I'll take it.
- [00:40]
B
I'll take it. Clean up the roads.
- [00:43]
A
Your vote. Does the. Did the snow piles last this through this Sunday? The big parking lot ones? Yes, they do. When do they miss?
- [00:53]
B
Yeah, well, we had some good days this past week and they were still literally.
- [00:57]
A
But 75. 75.
- [01:00]
B
I know.
- [01:00]
A
Maybe twice seen it in so long. 75 is. Is. It is. Take your jacket off and complain about the heat weather. But actually I'm very excited.
- [01:10]
B
You're right.
- [01:11]
A
I don't think they'll last after the 375 degrees in rain.
- [01:15]
B
I. I hope not. And I hated that it snowed yesterday and it really kind of stuck.
- [01:20]
A
Gave them a little power, gave them a little gump. Ruthanne said that at least they look prettier now with new stuff.
- [01:27]
B
They were getting a dark hue.
- [01:30]
A
Yeah. Nothing gets. Where does the darkness, the gunk of the snow creep Piles come from. Like nobody was pouring stuff on them. But when they're at the lowest, they're very dirty.
- [01:42]
B
I want to say the exhaust from cars just right on there. Right on there.
- [01:48]
A
Which begs the question. And we'll return back to it at the end of the podcast. Wearing shoes inside the house. Controversial because you see how dirty the outside road is. We'll be returning back. Husband who wears shoes everywhere. Do you?
- [02:07]
B
Yeah. Because when he was like, I'm gonna wear shoes, then I'm already gonna have to clean regardless.
- [02:11]
A
Pot, me, kettle, kettle, pot, kettle and pot.
- [02:14]
B
But we have a lot of carpets that are a lot of rugs that I don't mind replacing.
- [02:19]
A
Fair. Fair. More on that. I wanna ask about ruggables. It. This is the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group's podcast. It was late last week. We had our first guest, Eugene, but he had to wait for compliance. Who took their sweet and lovely and approving that. But we're back to our regular sch on Tuesdays, sometime in the afternoon. Typically though, this is in person, but we're doing it remote and I have the nicer camera, obviously, and Corey's using her laptops. Upcoming is the photography bootcamp, which is actually the topic of today's podcast, the AI Cookie collab. And I would want to talk about that Irish icing class. And if you want to talk about the upcoming Easter class in a minute, we can do that. My quote of today is the single most important component of a camera is the 12 inches behind it is that you, your brain. Yes. The face, the human. So that is the topic of today. Now this whole week we've been putting together our second bootcamp in 2026 and it's Cookie photography. And Corey is the heavy lifter on this. I edited all the videos and got them loaded yesterday. So that thing is going to kick off actually on the 5th and the 6th. It's a two day boot camp. The bootcamp is a new concept. If you're new to the podcast, it's a new concept for the Cookie College, our membership. You can taste test the membership for 13 bucks once a for these boot camps. And when you're ready to sign up, you get the cookie college at $13 off and all future boot camps included.
- [03:42]
B
Yeah.
- [03:43]
A
So I think it's great now when you go to sign up and I figured out how to do this last night, meant to tell you when you go to sign up and you purchase the bootcamp, you're immediately able to sign up for the cookie College at that discount. Oh, that's nice. Bam. Bam. But also, if you're not ready to commit yet, you have seven days after the bootcamp to snag that discount. Okay. Corey wants to talk about five steps to better cookie photos. Cookie photos on the brain. That's all we've been talking about.
- [04:06]
B
It's all we've been talking about. And it's not necessarily like I can say do 1, 2, 3, 4 and that's what's in the boot camp. But I want to just talk about almost spitballing and opinion based why photography is so important when it comes to bakers in particular. And I have a little listy. I know Heather has it pulled up. I only have one screen. Heather's working on 50 screens, so it must be nice.
- [04:28]
A
On NASA Houston, we have problems.
- [04:30]
B
But the major one, number one thing when it comes to photography is just the marketing aspect aspect of it. People are visual. That is what they are. That is who we are. So we buy with our eyes, we eat with our eyes. When things look appealing, our mouths water. When things don't look appealing, we say, oh, I know.
- [04:51]
A
I've read a study and I have to mute Facebook. So sorry. Got a lot of things running here. I read a study on, you know, like companies like ihop. Yeah. Their menus to have photographs of some of the plates. I'm always more inclined to order something with a picture of it. Call me a five year old, I want to see a picture.
- [05:14]
B
I also know you as a shopper. When we go into a store that sells clothing, me and you will stop
- [05:20]
A
and look at the mannequins first. The mannequins are the best part. Did you ask a question that's going viral? I have got to find this, fucking destroy it.
- [05:28]
B
I asked, what will you never sell again?
- [05:31]
A
I like to leave many instances of Facebook up on my computer because, you know, because I use Facebook planner and then I schedule in the groups, then I never close out of them. They're forever there. And then it just. Every notification pings about five times. Yeah. So explain us through that back to what you were saying.
- [05:48]
B
Yeah.
- [05:49]
A
The visual representation of a product is more inclined. I'm going to see if I can find that study. I read the.
- [05:55]
B
And Heather is right. I know when we go to restaurants, granted when you go to a higher end restaurant, they're not going to have photos in there. But if you go to places like IHOP. I know I went got my son McDonald's the other day and they have these giant things that you order from and they're electric and it had photos, everything popping up. Trying to upsell you. Does this look good? Do you want to add this to your order? Do you want a little apple pie thing? So photography is huge when it comes to marketing. And I know there's this new restaurant that opened near us and it's like a high end restaurant. Ish. Bourbon and Fig is what it's called. And people were wondering about it because no one knew what the food looked like. So anytime someone posts a picture of their meal, that post almost goes viral in the local group because people are like, oh my goodness, that looks so good.
- [06:41]
A
I mean, I wouldn't know what it was. Especially in the location. The location where this new restaurant opened up is fascinating because it's actually a poor location. Just the age of the building, the access to it, but the environment, the pictures. It's actually a high end restaurant. But you wouldn't have known that judging the book by its cover. Here is that steady menus with high quality photos can increase restaurant orders sales by up to 44%. So menus with photos delivery platforms can increase by 15 to 44%. When you see a photo, and I know I am that person, and it says, through this article, customers remember 65% of what they see, but only recall 10% of what they read. I am very guilty of never reading the description on much on a menu.
- [07:26]
B
True, true. And just to the point that you said this restaurant that's opening is in a very outdated kind of strip mall. And that's why Heather's saying it doesn't seem like that place when we're baking from our home. As home bakers, a lot of people have a stigma around other people's homes. You know, you've seen that, you know, the dog and the little paw biscuits,
- [07:48]
A
and you're like, are.
- [07:49]
B
Is their home? Discussing the company. Potluck risk. Yeah, the potlucks. The potlucks. And we all have these ideas of what other people's homes are in. Your photos can actually demystify, mystify that a lot and kind of dispel rumors and dispel thoughts and concerns folks might have.
- [08:07]
A
Well, you know, it's the same thing. Anything you order online, if I am buying a piece of furniture, if I'm renting an Airbnb, or if I'm going to a beachside vacation, or if I'm getting food from ihop, when I can see a high quality image, it allows me to almost picture myself there. And with cookies, I think it allows us to picture the reaction of the person we give it to, you know?
- [08:30]
B
Yeah, yeah, you can almost. It's like, it's that last little. That last little mental image that you need to be like. I think I could see myself bringing these to a party and the party person just being like, oh, my soul, I can't believe you brought me these cookies.
- [08:44]
A
In a weird world. And I. When I first started dating, dating apps weren't out yet, but now they are. And what you see is people are like, hey, here's a bunch of photos of me. Can you picture yourself in these photos with me? If so, swipe right, right. So that the pictures breed. What was that? This is you. You could be right here. You and me could be holding this fish together. So you kind of say, like, the visual representation of the product allows the user, the end user, me, to imagine myself there at the restaurant, at the Airbnb, giving the gift. Without that, though, the brain is forced to do a lot More decision making.
- [09:23]
B
You're, you're going off of the, the copy that somebody's using to describe something. It's very hard to visualize. So you can say order St. Patrick's Day cookies now.
- [09:33]
A
Okay.
- [09:34]
B
Yeah, St. Patrick's Day. Right now I'm just, my brain goes to clovers. I guess, you know, maybe the rainbow.
- [09:39]
A
Let me tell you, it's a shamrock. I had to learn that for the cookie classic. I knew somebody's gonna be like, it's a you saying four leaf clover, but it's this. The four leaf clover has four leaves. The shamrock has three leaves. I think the shamrock is more closely associated with Ireland than the four leaf clover, which is associated with luck. It is.
- [09:55]
B
Good job.
- [09:56]
A
Good job.
- [09:56]
B
So you're right. Like we can describe a photo, but if the, the phrase runs true, a picture is worth a thousand wor. Photo is doing the heavy lifting. Your copy is accompanying that. So in a world where we are digesting images, reels, videos at an all time high. I mean, social media is literally everywhere. You have the news stations, when I go to the gym, it's constant commercials on my phone. Constant commercials. And all of them are very creative, heavy. And creative is just a fancy term to say video or imagery. Yeah. And that's because it's what draws people, it stops people from scrolling. And then it's your copy or your discount, your deal, your ad that really gets them to turn into buyers.
- [10:42]
A
Question for you. Would you rather a baker with one quality photo or 10 decent photos? Which one would you tell them to post?
- [10:52]
B
One quality photo. I actually went through my insights of the last 28 days on my personal baking account where I sell to the end user and they come up, pick up my house and things like that. My number, number one engagement driver wasn't a cluster of photos. It wasn't reels. It was a singular photo in the feed.
- [11:13]
A
Sometimes I like to see what Gary Vaynerchuk is up to because I feel like he's always testing something and the new one is interesting. He'll ask a text based question but put it in a graphic and at the bottom of the graphic it said answer in the comments.
- [11:28]
B
I mean people, that's what like comment, subscribe. When you tell them what to do, people are more apt to do it.
- [11:35]
A
I think it's fascinating that even a text based question he has turned into an image because he knows, likely knows they perform better. I mean you can see it on your own page. Unless I do something that's virally humorous as a text Based thing. It's always the image that performs better. It's just more visually appealing.
- [11:51]
B
Yeah, it's just eye catching. And as the world consumes more media on social media, we become more bred to stop for things with images and for things with video. And that's why it's so important to showcase what you're making and what you're baking in the best light possible. Lighting being a great thing that you'll learn in the bootcamp because that's what leads to sales. And I can 100% attribute most of my sales. Most of my first person newcomer sales comes from the photos I post. Reoccurring orders come because they like the customer service and they like the product. But getting someone in the door who's new, who's never heard about me, it's my photos that bring them in.
- [12:31]
A
I don't believe anybody would buy a car from a listing with no images.
- [12:37]
B
Thousand percent no.
- [12:38]
A
Right.
- [12:38]
B
I want 60 plus images or more. I want to see what the trend every little.
- [12:44]
A
I don't want your fancy car show image. I want to zoom in on that scratch you keep talking about, you know, that kind of one. But I think I always ask myself if you question if this marketing approach is right or wrong, ask yourself what you do as a consumer. Yeah, and I'm if it ain't a picture, you ain't got my order. And I find myself very heavily when I go to restaurants with pictures that I'll order from the picture. Yeah.
- [13:06]
B
Sometimes I see bakers for pre sales, like they run out of time. You know, there's only 24 hours a day. I get it. They'll take the cutter shop image and they'll be like, here's the ideas that I have. And I'm like, wow, you have you. You know, you probably will get some sales from that, but you would get so many more with a photo of the end product of what your user would actually be coming in picking up that day.
- [13:29]
A
I think you guys as a bakers can see a cutter shape and translate it into a design in a cookie. But us other folk, the eaters, we are like, what is that?
- [13:38]
B
I mean, cutter chefs, do they look like cartoon images? Honestly, you could just put a cartoon up there and it looks the same. So I do think bakers, because we've been doing it for so long, we can imagine it as a cookie. I don't know if the end user who's never been associated with cutter buying cutter shops, Royal icing can picture it as well. It's better than Nothing. But it's not the best you could
- [14:02]
A
be if you were going to buy a Mercedes used. Right. And so somebody's like, I have a great Mercedes. I was unable to take photos, but here's what it looked like when it came out at the dealership. Like, here's a professional images Mercedes pushed out. Would you still like to buy the car? It's like, that's hard for me to translate. Even though it is the exact same car. It's from Mercedes. They built the car. It's the other car that they sent out to you. I need to see the representation of reality.
- [14:25]
B
Yes.
- [14:25]
A
To make the person. Yeah.
- [14:26]
B
The representation of reality. I mean, I know that there's crumbs on real, real cookies. There better be crumbs on your graphic, you know, to really kind of sell it. Because you're right, you're painting a picture. And the final step is you give them this photo that they can see in their feeds and it's their brain connecting the fact that they can take this little thing, give it to their kid on St. Patrick's Day, and the kids like over the moon, literally eating the moon. Lucky charm. And that's what your photos are trying to do.
- [14:53]
A
Right? I agree very much. But it's. Yeah. So you have here perceived values. These aren't Oreos. And presentation matters when you're asking a lot of money for something that will literally eat and see in the toilet at the end of the day. That is so graphic. You typed that out and I just read it out to you people. You guys enjoy that. I'll say, check out the most recent Oreo commercial. They show up every once in a while. I don't have kids, but I assume they're being blasted on a kids network. It makes Oreos look really appealing. So how Oreos unappealing, but I love them. Oreo. No Oreo hate here. They know the power of advertisement. They know the power of photography and imagery. We can't snooze if Oreos even trying for market share, you know.
- [15:32]
B
Yeah. I mean, Oreos not pretty. So then they can go overboard with their marketing because they can have a little, you know, caricature come in and eat an Oreo and it's all like, you know, 3D rendering. But because our cookies are so pretty and so specific and so detailed, we don't have to go over overboard with our photography. We just have to capture, capture one really good photo to show our end users to do the selling for us. Gotta be like, hey, these little brown guys, they've looked the same for 54 years.
- [16:05]
A
I said it on the last podcast. I'll say this one mega stuffed is just the double stuffed. They've switched it out on us. And yeah, I believe in Reese's and KitKat Chocolate conspiracy theory that the chocolate's been switched out even though the Reese's family said no, it ain't taste the same. You have this interesting next point. Proof of skill asking higher prices. You've got to show why you're asking for more money. Saying copy like you're paying for years of knowledge doesn't show them why they need to buy from. The imagery is proof of the quality. So I'll say new bakers, seasoned bakers alike. Photography will still improve your sales even if your skills are different from somebody who's been in the game for a while. Better photography, better ingredients. Papa John's right, you know, it's just all related there. You always laugh at that joke. I do, I do.
- [16:54]
B
I know you're going to do it when you pause for so long.
- [17:00]
A
So. Well, question for you, since you want this to be conversational. If a baker took a terrible photo, but it is the only photo, would you tell them to post it or post nothing? Terrible photo as in bad lighting. It was late at night. They used overhead kitchen lights. It was all they had. They ran out of time.
- [17:20]
B
It's, it's, it's better than nothing. You can't go back and undo it, I would say. And what we cover in the boot camp is how to incorporate that photography time into your baking schedule. Something is better than nothing. People buy with their eyes. If they can't see it, they don't know you can do it.
- [17:39]
A
I know I'm going to add a subtext here that I didn't give you as an option in my question, but if you had a terrible photo or you had an old photo that was better, I'd post the older photo that was better before I posted the terrible photo. Just to put content up. Because that photo, it's not like good photography sells and bad photography doesn't sell. It's bad photography actually takes away from sales.
- [18:00]
B
It can actually be a turn off.
- [18:02]
A
Yeah, a deterrent.
- [18:03]
B
If I see a lot of bakers sometimes run into. And I see them all the time, photo dump. I'm like, photo dump. But all your hard work, why are you dumping it?
- [18:13]
A
Because it's always like, I've been busy.
- [18:15]
B
Yeah, you've been busy. You're trying to play catch up. Life is life. But it'll be a Photo dump. And it will be like the cookies, maybe next to piles of royal icing. And you know, the icing's leaked out, which is totally normal. As a baker, I know that happens. Your end user doesn't know that your dirty workspace that is filled with icing that you probably cleaned and Clorox before you used it is normal. But what you're showcasing to them is, you know, my house is a little dirty. But whether it is or not, your photo, I. We have an older sister and if you send a photo to her, you best believe she's checking everything but the subject. We call it picture perimeter. Down Picture perimetering.
- [18:59]
A
You know we call it picture perimeter. I'm not even saying no and I sound like an idiot. The perimeter of the picture she is scanning. She's not looking at what you sent. She's looking at everything around it.
- [19:08]
B
And that's why your photography is so important, because you don't know what that other person is looking for in their photos. I know one time someone posted that they sold a bunch of DIY kits and they posted it as a win in the baking group. And you were like, oh, wow, congratulations. A lot of bakers said your DIY kit boxes on the floor, that's gross. You got Nathan walking in with his shoes from the outside. You know, you don't know how someone is going to interpret something. So you don't want your photos to be a turn off. And you're just posting it because it's some content. And content's king. We want to make sure that our business and our brand and if we're asking a lot of money, it shows why we're asking a lot of money in our photos. And it translates. So your brand runs through the entire process from your cookies are high end. You know, I've yet to meet a baker who said their cookies look good and taste bad. So the things that are going to sell it are how you're presenting your stuff to your market.
- [20:07]
A
You know, we always say that when you blame competition. Yeah. The only solution is murder. Right. So we can't, we can't clear out competition by often our enemies. Right. But what we can do is up our offering. And I think a lot of times people are like, I can do increase. I get better ingredients. Better piece of Papa John's. I can do better ingredients. That's going to increase my cost. I can do more fancy packaging. I think a lot of a massive win, A massive win over your competition is better photos and it doesn't cost much money. That's part of bootcamp is Corey's telling you guys how to take photos with a. With a high end camera, but also with a cell phone. I think you even leaned more into the cell phone. Better photos are an easy, cheap way to gain an edge over your competition, especially in a saturated market. If your competition doesn't have photos dialed in, easy, easy way to gain more market shares right there is to have better photos and yes, community over competition for sure. We still got to make the sale. Still got to get your bag. So what you're going to do is instead of saying, nobody buy from Corey. She's a loser. I'm going to say, let me see Corey's photos. How can I increase my photos to be a little bit sharper than that? A little bit faster, better, stronger, you know?
- [21:16]
B
Yeah, not maliciously, but it is work.
- [21:18]
A
It is business.
- [21:19]
B
Oh, it sure is. Competition is there. And maybe someone has like a God given talent and they're really good at really hard decorating skills.
- [21:28]
A
Darn it.
- [21:29]
B
But I'm really good at making cute stuff. Cute stuff. You can outsell someone who is more talented than you by how you present yourself to your audience. It's. It's unfair, but it's fair for us who just like making cute cookies, you know?
- [21:43]
A
You know what ads I see a lot? McDonald's. And I'll never rag on McDonald's. I love them. I love their public bathroom network. That on a road trip you're thankful that McDonald's exists. Sometimes on a road trip in the middle of nowhere, I'm like, what would we do if the McDonald's wasn't here? But I went on Sunday to a I found a TikTok of this local couple in Leesburg and they said they found the best burger in Loudoun County. It was hard to find that location. I even had to say, am I in the right place? It didn't have a sign. I'm not sure it was trying to give speakeasy vibes. But I said, I'm here for a burger. And they're like upstairs, like, do I need a secret handshake? I get there. The burger is much better than a McDonald's burger and the price reflected that. However, McDonald's has more market share than this best burger place would ever have because it has great marketing and a lot of that comes down to great photography. I only went to the best burger place in loud and because I found that Tick tock. But I know if I need a burger quick. McDonald's my girl.
- [22:40]
B
Imagine someone saying I know the best cookie baker in Northern Virginia. They tag mixing bowl. Someone goes to see, why is mixing bowl the best baker? And then they're wowed by photos. That's a slam dunk sale. If they're just taking the words, my photos are like a little cringe, a little gross. You're seeing my dinner crumbs around my photos. My workspace is bad. I said I ran out of time, but here's what I've been making. They're going to have to take someone else's word for it. And they might, but they might not. And you won't know how many sales you lose for the fact that you're
- [23:15]
A
just never had the order. I don't want to say like a dirty workspace. You can have the cleanest workspace in the world, but if your photo looks dingy, it reflects on your clean workspace negatively.
- [23:27]
B
Well, your. Your cookies can be pristine. They can be amazing. The details, top notch. The color is amazing. You know, your icing settled just so perfectly. But a bad photo doesn't showcase that. So people will look at the photo and be like, oh, those are cookies that are kind of cute, but you lose the. The awe factor, the wow, the. Oh, my goodness, I see why she's charging that much. Because your photos just don't do it justice. They. They don't add the perceived value. You know, your cookies are worth it. You've tasted them, you tried them, you know the work that go. But you're trying to convince somebody who's finding you on places like social media and the Internet why they should literally part with a big chunk of cash to invest in cookies that they're literally going to eat and not see again.
- [24:12]
A
Yes. Yeah, I like to loiter in the car groups. Not buying anything, have nothing, add, don't know how to change my own oil, barely. But I love to see the listings and I don't know. And you can get mad at me. I'm going to say boomer behavior. When somebody. Somebody touches a photo that's more horizontal than it is vertical, it creates those massive black bars above and below the photo. And then this person screenshots that, and then they list their car with that image, which is now pixelated because you took a small image, screenshot it on your phone, which compressed it, and then uploaded again to Facebook, which compressed it. And now the most of the images of these two black bars and a little tiny car that's a couple pixels wide, and you're like. And they're like, why is nobody buying this. And it's because I can't picture myself in that car. Car.
- [24:57]
B
Yeah. They're asking thousands of dollars for the vehicle and giving you nothing but crumbs to eat.
- [25:04]
A
It's funny because some of these cars, you know, are over 100 grand or whatever. No, I'm not buying them, but I
- [25:09]
B
love to click on them.
- [25:10]
A
But the comments will be like, you know, because they have three photos and someone's like, whoa. Was it like too many photos? Sarcastically, no, too much about this car. You're asking for over $100,000 for. Please get away.
- [25:20]
B
Yeah, yeah. The higher you ask, the higher the asking, the more force. Right in upfront. You want to be with what you're offering. You don't want to hide behind a cookie cutter's graphic and saying, okay, but I'm trying.
- [25:34]
A
Give me a hundred dollars for this one cookie.
- [25:36]
B
That. That's like, well, what am I getting? What does it look like?
- [25:40]
A
Give me your money. You'll find out later. It's a surprise, boss. You have your trust and reliability. They need to see that you can make what you say you can. If you have luxury, your cookies prove it. Photos do just that. I agree. The photos are worth a thousand words. You can have the best reviews, you can have the best social media strategy. You can have the best copy. But if your photos are the stopping point, the clog in your funnel, you won't make those sales because it's hard for us to trust the process.
- [26:06]
B
Yeah, we live in a very saturated cookie area and I. I'm fighting in their streets. You know, the thing that I like to say differentiates me sometimes from the competition is I have very cle line work. I go to the edge of the cookie. My lines are clean. My photos need to show that because the competition is so stiff. So stiff.
- [26:30]
A
I have to much like your icing lines. So stuff.
- [26:33]
B
My icing lines are so stiff, I have to rely on things like that. And when my competitors are offering the identical thank you cookie because they found it in the sugar cookie market group, can't blame them. They're putting tool bows thank you cards. The differentiator, the thing that I can showcase, the thing they can't replicate is what I can do behind a piping bag. And my photos show it.
- [26:57]
A
Yeah. I think the two equal bakers in skill and production. The one with better photos and the one with better customer service will win. Those are two things you can increase without a huge monetary investment. Yeah.
- [27:12]
B
And there's different ways. I know people just entering their baking journey don't have a huge disposable income. Cause you're trying to get orders. The orders aren't consistent, but there's way that you can work around it. So bathroom backdrops, they are slightly expensive. There's so many to choose from. You don't have to just choose the ones that are most common in the baking groups, in the marketing groups. I see a lot of people start off with poster board and a plate.
- [27:37]
A
White is white, not white.
- [27:39]
B
That's great, and that's affordable. I got a plate, and I can get a poster board.
- [27:44]
A
Yeah. Getting the fundamentals, which is a lot. I was watching your bootcamp videos yesterday. You're welcome. I'm with you. Getting the fundamentals dialed in and then slowly increasing the quality of the fundamentals will allow you to get the that edge up. But there is a foundation that needs to be built correctly. A lot of times when I see people put the cookies directly on granite countertops, I'm like, you're missing the plot here. You are getting that photo. Your cookies are cute. You're very, very busy. Granite countertop, which was meant to be busy so you couldn't see spills. Functional for a home is not functional for photography setup. Right. So you have the two things working. The thing that hides spills so well is also the thing that's distracting from your spirit set. Because that's what it was designed to do.
- [28:24]
B
When my competitors take photos on a kitchen countertop or a busy kitchen table, I'm like, they're doing my work for me. I ain't got to sweat it as much. It's when they start catching on to the foundational parts of photography, which are very easy. And the boot camp covers the foundation, because if you can just do the foundation, which is just basically three things, your photos will look marginally better.
- [28:50]
A
Better.
- [28:51]
B
And I do punch the air when my competitors start catching on.
- [28:55]
A
Shoot, check. Darn it. I gotta be better at customer service. Gotta talk to people. Then lastly, we have marketing material for years to come. I still use photos from three years ago in my marketing today because I got good at my photography three years ago. It saves me more time and makes me more money. And I like that because you went recently, you went through your phone and did a purge, a photo purge, photo reorg. You got them bagged and tagged and in file structure. I think bank, you said, I do. And now you say because my photos were. I invested four years ago. Even if your skill set increase, there's still a lot of usable content there. Absolutely right. Once you get the line work done, once you get the flooding dialed in, the likelihood of you getting so increasingly better that that stuff is an embarrassment to you isn't right there. You know, we reached the the best of what we got and it's great enough to make sales. And that's where we really want to sit. Right. Is good enough, great enough to make the sales. Now we can take the photos. And what Corey's saying is that she did invest in photogr that long ago that now all that material over the past four years she's still able to use today because it represents her brand and a product. Yeah.
- [29:59]
B
Imagine if I only started photography taking really good photos just the past five months and someone in a local group asked for a princess set. But the photo I have of the princess set that I did wasn't a good photo. I'm going to probably still post it, but I might lose out on the sale because of it. The sooner you invest in your photography journey, the more marketing content you have for the the years. I post photos from years ago that you would never know. You would think I have made it yesterday because I invested so long ago. My photography, it's working for me. So the amount of time and energy I put in there and the money sucked that it was so many years ago to make the princess set, I can still use it to this day. So I'm getting more return off my hard work and my efforts by just having good photography. And Heather's right. I did a full folder structure so I have princess themed cookies. Any princess themed cookie on my phone is under that folder instructor. So when someone in a local community group is asking for a princess set, I have a good photo. I have a targeted photo. I have a photo to stop the scroll. My copy's good, my website's good. My photography on my website is good. Like I'm locked and loaded. I'm ready for that sale. I'm ready to take it and take no prisoners.
- [31:15]
A
She's fired up, boy, she's fired up. You're lucky. Not lucky you. Your photography hobby preceded getting in before your cookie journey which accelerated your for for you know, new to market length of time. Because Corey's photography I want to tell you she got this camera and there aunt no flower in Virginia that wasn't photographed. Corey was taking photos of every bloomin bloom and then I think you took pictures of your dog and I think it's now your tattoo on your arm. If I'm honest, I think that was your photo.
- [31:47]
B
It's my own Photo.
- [31:48]
A
Yeah. From this little hobby time where you said, I really want to be good at photography. I remember you saying that. Then you say, well, I want to get in this hobby of baking. But the photography was already there to prop up your even not dialed in cookies at the beginning. But people are still like, this looks great, I'll take it. So I don't. I know it's like we're very big on increasing skills, increasing production, increasing product. But photography can be a bridge that can accelerate those sales to allow you to invest in better tools, better pizza pop johns.
- [32:19]
B
Yeah. If you're just starting your business out, you might not have the budget for a website.
- [32:24]
A
Website.
- [32:25]
B
Totally understandable. You might not have the budget for a custom email, custom domain and things like that. Totally understandable. But what you do have and what we all have is a cell phone
- [32:36]
A
and we're gonna making cookies.
- [32:38]
B
So if you're tracking with me here, you can actually accelerate your revenue in your business by just focusing on good photos. You have the Facebook page, you post to the Facebook page, you're in the community groups, you're posting it. But your photos look good. Your photos look better than the competitors. You're starting to get more sales and
- [32:55]
A
you're like, oh, wow.
- [32:56]
B
You know, I think people are discovering me. No, they discovered your photos. Your photos was what they bought into. So they don't know you from Adam. They don't know me from the next cookie person down the road. It's the photos that catch their attention. And then it's up to me on my, my social profiles to keep them up to date, to keep my website up to date, to show customer service, you know, replying to reviews, replying to comments. Comments. And really sell them on me as a whole. Me as a baker. But it's my photos that started that relationship.
- [33:28]
A
I think it is. Okay, we started this conversation with. By taking photos, you can increase your sales by 44%. That's what the study said, right? 44%. I think we're like, hey, that's cool. Yeah, 44%. If I told you in Q1, you'd make a hundred sales and 44 of those would come from your photos. How now? That's almost 50%. That's almost. It's saying photos are accounting to almost 50% of your sales. If we. So meaning bad photos or no photos at all is actually taking 44% of your sales. So I think when it comes to food, when it comes to food and product, photos are so imperative that a lot of bakers are like, you know, I see this, I'm like, I sold out. I've sold out for everything. I'm the best, biggest seller in the history of the world. And people are like, I haven't sold anything. And a lot of times I'll be like, I wonder what the photo looks like. I wonder what your photo looks like. And unfortunately, that's why they call it 17 hats. Because when you're a business owner, you're wearing the 17 hats. You could have the best photos in the world, but if you don't have a Facebook page, what's the point? You can have the best Facebook page in the world, but if you don't have a website to place an order, what's the point? It all has to work together. I just think that photography in this line of business is a lot of bigger of an impact than some people are giving it credit for. If they did give it enough credit for what it does, you'd be glued to a camera photography course.
- [34:48]
B
I know a lot of bakers, because they don't like their photos or they run out of time, will use something like a background delete software. So it deletes the background. So you might have taken it on your busy granite countertop. It'll delete the background and throw it up on something. Those apps have come a long way. But the cookies floating in the corners of the rainbow don't paint the picture that it's a cookie in rainbows. Ginormous. Why is your cookie the size of a rainbow? Am I getting a huge cookie? Perspective does a lot for helping someone understand what they're looking at.
- [35:24]
A
It really does. Your next point, point number two. So that was your marketing component is just the, the high impact to your bottom line that taking a good photo or taking a bad photo has in your business. The other day, in like in a group that's not ours, because then I would have had to deleted it. This baker had posted a photo. I think she dropped something. So it was kind of like a, oh, oopsies, look, I dropped something. However, the rest of the home was in disarray and she said, I think the question was, should I post this for my audience? And people are pointing out the perimeter of the picture and no, this will take sales from you. While you may think it was funny and kitschy and it was oops, I dropped something. The outside, what it actually reflects to your business, to your audience, is do not order from this person. Yeah. So pictures are worth a thousand words and a thousand sales. Like so it's just really important. So that marketing component we drilled into you guys, it is huge. I think it's just bigger than people realize. Moving on. Lighting, you say lighting can make your posts scroll. Stopping now. I, in the bootcamp query had me in charge of worksheets and I did a worksheet on shadowing. Because a lot of times, you know, I have now AI is maybe taking my Photoshop job, but in Photoshop everyone's like, hey, can you change this? But I'm like, we have to pay attention to the shadows because that's where the dead giveaway that something's been edited is because the shadows tell the truth. You know, I can take you out of the room, put you in another room, but the shadowing will not match. And being able to create the shadowing is called like compositing. So image composites is being able to take two images and merge them to one and the end user can't tell. But lighting is one of those foundational things because is to. To add it or edit it in post, which means really, I think when we say lighting, what we we're talking about is shadowing. To edit that in post is so difficult.
- [37:13]
B
It is so difficult. And in the bootcamp I say trash in equals trash out. You have to have a good foundation to feed your camera lens, because it's going to. Your camera can only it's capturing what's in front of it. It's not a magician. It's doing its best with what it's given. And if you give it a good foundation, like good lighting one to make your colors true to life. So your clients are going to know, you know, especially I have some clients that are super picky when it comes to colors. If they say mauve, they want whatever mauve is, you know, and then I
- [37:47]
A
have clients who are like, specifically can't see mauve.
- [37:50]
B
I cannot. And that's why anytime someone says mav, it throws me for a loop. But you have clients who are super particular. They want the cookies to match whatever the invite is. And it's important that your photos replicate that. When you have bad lighting, when you take photos in dark lighting and you refuse to edit it to make it look more true to life, you're doing yourself a disservice. And your customers might have been more excited if the lighting was correct in the photo. But when you give them a dark photo, they're like, oh, this looks great.
- [38:21]
A
Every once in a while we'll get that person like, oh, no, I sent this photo to my customer and they're saying the color's off.
- [38:27]
B
Yeah.
- [38:28]
A
And the comment section will be like, the color's off because the lighting is like, now that I've gotten into hairy homeowner territory, I've seen. I saw this TikTok. And this girl takes those paint swatches you get from Home Depot, and she walks around from her interior warm light with the paint swatch to the exterior indirect sunlight. And that paint swatch completely changes colors because of the effects of the lighting on that paint's. You know, it's a reflection, right. So, like, you always see people are like, you know, try to make it true to color. But you can. And once you send it to the customer, you can't. But you could edit that photo to be more true to color because the environment around the cookie has changed. You know, camera adds 10 pounds. Camera also adds 10 shades. Like, it's going to have an effect on what that product is.
- [39:12]
B
And I know AI is becoming bigger and bigger. And I still will rely on my own photos more than AI because AI takes an image and it will edit it all together. So it takes something that's from your kitchen table, puts it in a box that you weren't going to normally put it in. And maybe your box is sailing on a boat because it's. It's a first Anchors Away set thing like that. AI doesn't necessarily care about what the shade of your cookies are. You're saying, fix the background on there, put it in a box, and it might add a third eye to the baby. But your cookies look better than sitting on the granite countertop. But the cookie does have a third eye.
- [39:52]
A
AI AI is super cool, man. It's super cool. But I was trying to get it to paint the. I took picture of the house and I was like, paint the walls. And it was like, okay, here you go. And I was like, like, okay, close. Can you change this thing you just did? And it was like, okay, here you go. But I'm like, but you didn't change it. But it's like, okay, here you go. I was like, but we're still out there. Here's a great example. If you guys are watching this on YouTube, look behind Corey. There's a sign that she's gotten made. It's made of wood, right? I know because I've been there that that sign is white. The cookie area is white, but it is actually green in this video. It's a shade of green. If I used a color picker, you could see that it's slightly tan, slightly green. Depending on what the sun is doing to her left. If you look out her window onto the left, it is. Is blue, but I know that is a white panel. So the cameras. Because she's got in front of her a warm light, I can tell it is changing the colors of the things around her. So lighting is important. And then you say, well, Corey, this is your photography studio. And it's still not. You know, she's using post processing to get back to that true white color. Because right now, everything in this image is a shade of green, because I can see the white behind her is a shade of dull green or tan. Right. So that lighting is important. And then the overhead lighting and we talk about indirect natural lighting. That's mostly what you talk about in that first PowerPoint walkthrough, is really sourcing that light. I have some. If you can see on YouTube, you see I have a shadow on my face, Right. This is diffuse light. I actually bought these on Amazon. They're warm lights, and they come in with diffuse light bars. They were like 20 bucks. This is better than if you saw a really harsh light. I got one next to me right here. I have to move, so my lamp
- [41:25]
B
is on the floor.
- [41:25]
A
I can't move in toward me. But if this is a really harsh line, you see how it's barely there?
- [41:29]
B
Yeah.
- [41:30]
A
This is a nice, decent light for just casting my face.
- [41:33]
B
But if I had looked really nice, let me tell you, Congrats.
- [41:36]
A
Yeah. It's all a lighting game.
- [41:38]
B
Right.
- [41:38]
A
You kind of see, like, when 4K TVs came out, they're like, we can see too much detail.
- [41:42]
B
Same.
- [41:43]
A
Same with photos. So while we want to live in kind of warm lighting, that's. That's where we want to live. That overhead, like, if you go to candy store and it's all that white light, that's kind of better for photography, especially when it's diffused, because we can get that true, real color white.
- [42:00]
B
Yeah. And you know why you go to the candy store in the jewelry store and the lights are blinding is because it makes everything better. The jewelry is flashy. It's catching all the lights. You can see every shape of the diamond, and you're like, wow, that is really pretty. But when you come home, you're like, my diamond seems a little. That's because we. We live in bulbs because our eyes cannot handle such bright lighting giving us a headache.
- [42:25]
A
But our products. Yeah.
- [42:27]
B
Need the right light. Because I can tell you on a. On a feed in a group where someone asked for. I'm looking For a baker who. And I see the photos lined up, and it's a dark photo. They might have a good background. The background is not their kitchen table, but their photo is dark as heck. I'm like, oh, I got it. I still got it because I focused on my lighting. Brighter is better. When it comes to food, dark and dingy food is not palpable. Brighter photos makes more sales. I wish I wrote the book. I wish that I wrote the standard. I didn't. It's been around long before me, and I'll be around long after. After me.
- [43:05]
A
Maybe one day you could do, like, an intermediate course on sultry dark photos. Because I have seen you do that, and it incorporates light.
- [43:11]
B
Favorite thing to do. Especially you'll see royal icing cookies. And, you know, that's what sugar cookie marketing is about, is all about those fun, punchy colors, those bright backgrounds. So we never really get to the sultry of it because we're always making fun themes, bright themes, wedding themes. And you always think brighter, wider is a little bit better. But if you are a drop cookie baker.
- [43:31]
A
I knew you were gonna say drop cookie muffin sound outer.
- [43:34]
B
Yeah. You can. You can really, honestly paint a really sultry photo that stands out on social media. People you like do the, you know, rest in peace to my 30s, you know, that can be a dark soul tree photo that can make you more
- [43:47]
A
sales Valentine's Day, you know.
- [43:49]
B
Yeah. Nailing the foundation and then figuring out the style that you want to go with. I know. People have said, I always know it's a Corey photo before I even see who posted it. And that's because I have, you know, my style isn't like, oh, my gosh, where did she get that backdrop? No, mine is replicable. You could absolutely do it. But you see it over and over and over again that people say, I knew that was your photo before I even. Because I have. I've grown to like my photos, and I like how I've tested them against my audience. My audience responds well to the photos I've taken, so I've been able to really hone in on that and make some sales from it.
- [44:29]
A
I'm dogging on people right now, folks. Bakers who steal photos, which you're not allowed to. Right. If you don't have explicit permission to own a photo, you can't use somebody else's. The biggest tell that somebody steals photos is a lack of cohesiveness in their product images. I can say that's not you because your staging is so wildly different. And Blah, blah, blah. Because like this one staged a certain way almost it becomes a watermark of sorts. Your photo stock style.
- [44:54]
B
I see a lot of bakers now using AI images. Like maybe they're like they had an idea, they didn't want to bake it, so they've made AI make the image. But if you scroll back through their posts, they have it, it contradicts each other, their contrast. And what we really want to do is when our clients show up to pick up what they ordered, we really want them to be like, wow, this is exactly what I thought I was going to get. These look exactly like they did in the photo. I am wowed. I am not displaying disappointed. If you find that you are not getting a lot of return customers. It's something along the lines of what you're doing, whether you're like portraying your cookies and AI makes them a perfect circle. I have not ever been able to bake a perfect circle. I'm always having to do the edges with a grater to make them perfect circles. But AI doesn't know that. Maybe circles spread a little bit and you're portraying something that has perfect. No, no issues, no lines. But it looks different when the customer picks it up, it up. They might say, wow, these are great. And you might never hear from them again. And you don't know because you're not looking introspectively. How did I lose this person as a reoccurring client?
- [46:00]
A
I know some of you guys are like, well, you guys give the freebie photos into cookie college. You're part of the problem. But here's what I want to tell you. When we give those photos, I tell people, if you can't replicate this within 90% of what the photo includes, don't use it. You're going to cost yourself sales and you're going to leave yourself wide open to bad reviews. If you're able to replicate this photo within 90%, this is a great way to save time and effort as a pre sale image before you have to order the cutters. So again, you got to kind of keep them all aligned. If you're not there yet and that photo is there, you still got to work on it before you can use that photo to, you know, to streamline the ordering process. Then you have backgrounds. Your home probably isn't picture ready. Back to backdrops is what Corey's talking about. There are white boxes. They are the bane of my existence. I bought one. You buy this little cheap thing on Amazon or you make your own. It's just Hard to replicate natural light. Can you? Yes. But then you're constricted by space because it's in a box. So then you get a bigger white box. But now it's taking up your whole house. They're always so frustrating. I just hate them.
- [47:03]
B
I want to say Replica Surfaces. I'm not a big believer in white boxes just for the reasons Heather said. You know, they're tiny, and then you see the corners. Then you get a bigger one, and now it's the size of your house. Replica Surfaces has this device thing, and it's almost like a portable backpack drop stand, and you can wheel it around your house. It's got four wheels. You can reel it towards the better lighting in your house.
- [47:27]
A
Didn't she stop selling those?
- [47:29]
B
No, she still does, actually. Okay.
- [47:30]
A
Okay.
- [47:31]
B
She must have restarted. I know that I get a lot of pushback from Bakers.
- [47:35]
A
I live in a.
- [47:36]
B
In a dark place. The sun never shines. Okay.
- [47:39]
A
Alaska.
- [47:40]
B
Yeah. I live in a center townhome, so I only have lighting on the front of the house and the back of the house.
- [47:46]
A
Boss.
- [47:46]
B
I'm constantly chasing it, too, but I'm willing to go to it so I can get better photos. You can have your excuses. Oh, I live in a condo. I, I. You know, my kids are out there playing. I don't want to interrupt them. Or you can have better photos. It's whatever you want, but you're gonna have one or the other.
- [48:03]
A
Yeah. It's inconvenient. I'm gonna. I'm gonna validate everyone. Camera set up, staging set up. Finding that perfect light. It's rainy. The kids, people are running in. It's hard to do. Do it. It's just so frustrating. However, it is an integral part of the sales process, so if you can start clearing out a corner of your house and have it dedicated space there, nobody's allowed to touch it. I would say it's worth the investment. I understand. It is a massive struggle.
- [48:31]
B
I know. I know. Ikea. Heather gave me this table once. It was a short table. It was an inexpensive table, but it was a white table, and it fits a little backer on it perfectly. That's something you could keep in the corner, bring out when you need a photo. You couldn't create a stage. Just create a photo set up for
- [48:49]
A
the first quarter of the year.
- [48:50]
B
We know we got Valentine's Day. We know we have St. Patrick's and then you change it as you go through the year, but you kind of set it and forget it. And that works with A lot of people who have time constraints, I don't have this. I have space constraints. So I can't leave one out because people would be like, what is that? It would take up my living room. So I have it, you know, well stored to the side by my, my couch. So it's grabbable. So my excuses aren't there. Well, it's all the way downstairs. No, it's, it's literally right there.
- [49:16]
A
It's in the mid. I like that. Bake in the easiness of it. As easy as you can get it, have it there. And if that. I do think that requires a lot of decluttering to pine, you know, claw back some space where you can leave something that has to be not touched, but you can do it. And I think it's worth it.
- [49:36]
B
I think it's worth it if you are like, I really want to make more sales and I really want to support my family in the this avenue. Wouldn't you want to do everything you can within your power to do that? So you know what?
- [49:50]
A
Go ahead, go ahead. Wouldn't. Sorry. If everyone's listening, there's a lag in zoom, such as life. But it's impressive how zoom works now that I understand that it is taking two lags and still forcing us to be able to hear each other. When you guys are building out your cookie rooms, factor this in. When you guys have that like, hey guys, I have bless your life that you're able to build out a room dedicated to your business. But build in a place, a space to have a dedicated area to take photos that you, I mean, how cool if you could leave your. If you do use a three point lighting system or some manufacturer to bounce board. If you could just leave that set up and just come and go. Oh, your photography is just gonna be so nice.
- [50:28]
B
I know my cookie room isn't conducive for photos. Most of the time I actually go down to my front door. My neighbors think I'm insane. They know what I'm doing. They've bought cookies from me. Thank goodness.
- [50:38]
A
Free advertising.
- [50:40]
B
Free advertising. So I take a little field trip with them and I do, I love being like a person that has to it down like a server all the way down the stairs. I've many had many a close call of almost falling. But I do it for the photo, I do it for the plot, as the kids say, because I want to make more money and I put a lot of time into decorating these cookies and I'm okay with people taking them and eating them. If I can have this one photo that I can use for from now for years on.
- [51:10]
A
Yeah, it's always interesting to see like the cookie world now. We've been in it for like five or six years. The like ebbs and flows of the opinions for a while. When we first got started the opinion was that you should never take photos of the customer's cookies. You should make an extra set to take photos of so you didn't have to handle the customer's cookies. I'm glad that that little, that little mantra has been buried. Do you imagine making two dozen but just one you keep to take photos of and throw away.
- [51:37]
B
That's a lot of work. That's like a whole extra four hours.
- [51:40]
A
That's a tremendous cost. But anyways staging is your point for staging can take a photo from blah to some something worth stopping for and maybe even leaving a reaction or better case a sale. Now I was, I had to record Corey so I had to take the boot camp student, one recruit one right here. And Corey said, you know, you, she, you did the, the PowerPoint mark three. And then we went to building the pyramid. And I like that because it's pretty simple. I think when we're like stage it. That's, that's so ambiguous. It becomes overwhelming. Stage it. Wow. And I think you use an example what it's like when someone's just like I bought the stuff and I put it on the plate. Why isn't it working? Like it's not working? Because you're not. There's no strateg behind the stuff you bought. So I think what you do is you start with the backer. You laid out the tea towels. You got a baking mat or a baking sheet or baking grate, whatever you call those things. What am I saying? That thing with the. That's that you can see through and it's made of metal and you put your cookies making a tray, tray and then on top of that you put the plate and then you put the cookies. So you can see that each layer is smaller but it builds on top of the other. Creating a visual pyramid. And then once the pyramid is built then you add the props. But those are croppable. Crop out.
- [52:49]
B
Croppable and probable. I know when someone's like stage it. What do those words mean? And that's in the boot camp. We take it down and we, we dissect it into a more easy to digest way so it doesn't just feel like all right now you did the foundational pieces. Now Go on your own. You're staging. Everyone's staging. If you've cleared out the backdrop and you put your cookies on a white backdrop, congratulations, you've staged. If you've gone and found good lighting in your home, congratulations, you're a stage. There's so many different aspects to staging that you can make work for your business. You might like just the flat lay photo of the cookies lined up with the. The space in between them that's just a finger length apart. Congratulations, you're a stager. You have found staging that you like. I know that when I offer a dozen cookies, I do. I do six designs. Two of each designs, I use a plate because I really like how it makes the cookies stand up. And one of each design will be on the plate. And the excess cookies are now my props and I. And that's the way I do it. And you can see the edge of them. Not every cookie needs to end up in the photo. So we go over, you know, what should end up in the photo, what shouldn't end up in the photo. Props are fun. Props can create a feeling. So when I'm doing back our teacher appreciation, I like a lot of wood grains because it really feels like I'm back in school.
- [54:10]
A
I'm rulers, desk, pencils, the wooden things like that.
- [54:14]
B
You have that. The red color that goes with the apple. And while we're staring at our cookies, we know the color palettes that we're working with. So if I'm doing a light pastel set for Easter, I'm probably not going to do a black, you know, backdrop, because it contrast, it takes away from the end unit. But this is a fun part. You have. You've done the hard work of making and baking the cookies, and now we get to showcase them. And that hard work is going to make you cash money. That's the fun part. I love taking a photo of an order. I hate me. I love making the sale. I hate baking the sale. Making the sale, high of all highs,
- [54:51]
A
baking sale, low of all lows.
- [54:53]
B
But the photography lets me make and bake more because it's attracting people to my business.
- [55:00]
A
I liked it in the PowerPoint for the bootcamp, you had a picture of a bunch of flower cookies. You decorated, right? And you have one image, and it's showing every flower is in the image, right? And Corey's like, because everything's in the image, nothing's truly an image. We don't know where to focus. And then the other one, she's like, but I took this photo And I cropped out a large majority the flowers that she baked that are for sale. But these three in the front here are fully in the image, and your eyes go right to them. And that's because the. The crop put our focus back on the cookies instead of the overwhelm, like, you know, where's Waldo? Where's Waldo? Where's the sale? There's so much in this. There's so much going on. I don't know what Corey said. The biggest question you can ask yourself is, what if I look at this photo right now? What does it. What does it sell? And if the word isn't cookies, go back to the drawing board. Take it with. Start taking stuff away. It's getting too complicated. And I think with staging, we hear like, buy the plates, buy the details by the beads. I did nothing's. I tried everything, and nothing's working. And I think it's because of that over complexity, you can take it back down. And that flower example is a great one to just cookies on a backer. That's all it was. And she was able to still use the cookies as the supportive props that draw our focus back to those three cookies that were the ones we were selling.
- [56:07]
B
Yeah. So in the bootcamp, I go over my go to props that would be
- [56:11]
A
easy to start with.
- [56:12]
B
People get overwhelmed, and that's why they quit. That's why the photo part is the worst part of the whole thing. And it's going back to the basics. You back to things like just using a cutting board, just using a baking sheet, just using a plate. Those are all things. Those are props. They can actually make your photos look a ton better, even. There's only one thing that you're using. When you get comfortable with adding that first thing, you're going to be like, I kind of like my photos. I think I can add something like a tea towel that kind of has the same color palette, and you'll see that you start building a scene for your audience. I don't have a prop for every single set. I do. I promise you. I don't. I. I did a s' more set. It's more fun to be one. And I happen to have a Hershey bar that I got for my son's birthday that I said, do you mind if I take this back and use
- [56:56]
A
it for a photo?
- [56:57]
B
But if I did not have that using just a wooden cutting board and a plate still. Still brings the fact in the colors in. And you're like, wow, I. I see that's a smore. Fun to be one set. That's kind of nice. It staged well. The lighting's good.
- [57:13]
A
Good.
- [57:13]
B
And it stops your scroll.
- [57:15]
A
I think some bakers could be like, s' more fun to be one s'. Mores. Okay, let me build s' mores around the s' more cookie. But I'm like, are we selling s' mores or we're selling that. That. That pun on the cookie? Right.
- [57:26]
B
And it's always asking yourself, if I look at this photo, what am I buying? Am I buying a s' more kit from you? Probably not. Am I buying s' more cookies that are themed out for a first birthday?
- [57:36]
A
Probably.
- [57:37]
B
And that's the. When you answer that question question every time, you're going to know what your photos are going to sell, and that's what it is.
- [57:43]
A
I think back to that one just to add the point. If sometimes the baker's like, well, I think this is selling the smarts cookie. That's why I staged it this way. Ask a stranger, Ask your husband, Ask your wife. Ask your grandmother. Text posted in the sugar cookie marketing group saying, guys, what was the focal point of this photography? And if all those people are like, hey, it's kind of distracting, what they're going to do? If you ask that the sugar cookie marketing group, which you're absolutely allowed to do, someone's going to crop the image for you and be like, if you crop it like this, my eyes go more towards that. So feel free to use that group as a sounding board if you feel like there's something about this image. I kind of like it, but kind of don't. Yeah, I would go there.
- [58:18]
B
Yeah.
- [58:19]
A
And.
- [58:19]
B
And then the last part of it is the.
- [58:22]
A
Is the editing.
- [58:23]
B
And that's where the magic does happen. And we cover how to edit. And I'm not. I'm not in Lightroom touching every single button in there to make my photo look good.
- [58:33]
A
I actually turned yours into a step process. And I think we only got to six steps, and that was me pushing one one into two.
- [58:41]
B
Yeah. There's not a lot of steps. I do because we fed the phone and the camera lens something good to work with. I don't have to spend hours in Lightroom trying to make it the whole process, Especially when time is not on my side. The photos don't take me a ton of time. You know, I grab the backer, I grab a plate, throw the cookies on there, take the photo, take it Into Lightroom, click 3, 4, 5, 6 at the most, and I got a good photo for social Media. The editing is that separates the men from the boys. When I see a dark photo on someone's thing, I'm like, they forgot the last step there. But the editing. And I show you the free version of Lightroom. It's not even the paid version. Like we're even like outside of those
- [59:21]
A
excuses, like another subscription. Nah.
- [59:24]
B
No. It's got premium features in there and I don't even click them. I don't even use them myself. And because we have a good foundation, good lighting, good backdrop, good setup, good staging, it's so easy in Lightroom just to make it a little bit brighter, make it a little bit scroll, stopping, make sure the colors are what the colors are. There's not a green cookie in there that it looks white and true to color. I then you're working with sauce man. You are going to make sales. You are. And I've seen so many bakers over the years who've taken the steps that I've given them and they've like, wow, wow. I'm actually super proud of this. And the photography has turned to my favorite part of the whole thing.
- [60:06]
A
Thing. I think once it clicks, you feel it. I think some people are like, it's not clicking for me yet. We're close. You're on the right path. Keep going. Take this boot camp, which is a.05. You can. The boot camp will drop on May. May? Yeah, I've been typing out the word May in the countdown march. Where did the first two months go? Usually I complained about those being long. They were way too short. One girl short. Go to the Cookie college dot com. You can enroll for that boot camp. The course will, will drop on the fifth and the sixth. It's a two day boot camp. Two modules. Cory and I will do a Facebook live intro on Thursday and then we'll do a live Q and A on Friday afternoon. So you guys get to hear these lovely voices two more times this week for 13 bucks. But when you sign up, you can also access the cookie college and get $13 off. We get you your money back. But the cool thing is that $13 off counts for every renewal as long as your membership is active.
- [60:58]
B
So you get the Cookie College at a stark discount. And if you're like, I really liked the photography course and I, you know, I missed the in person one and I would like to, you can catch it all in the Cookie College. So when you get that subscription, you can go back and find the in person cookie class. Take that one as well.
- [61:15]
A
Yeah, I'm going to Pull up my. My worksheets you made me make. I gotta open it up as the owner because I give them. I actually give you guys the worksheets I make as Canva templates. So you can reuse them them because I want you to be able to. But I was really happy with how these came out. Let me open my projects. And here is what we've got. We do a lighting analysis. Just kind of be a visual representation of why that diffused. Indirect light diffused using a window to diffuse it versus walking directly into the sun and saying, whoa, the shadows are harsh. Then we go through a photography checklist. Kind of the what I would start record start with if it's set up. Prop staging and post processing. The approach there, reverse calendarizing. So reverse calendarizing is where you start from the due date of the order and work it backwards. A lot of times I see people their excuses. I didn't take good photos because I ran out of time. By the time I was ready to take the photos, it was dark outside and the order was picked up the next morning. So in this one you say here's the order pickup date. So if that has to be the pickup date, where are the two times I can hit golden hour preceding this date? And that means that order has to be ready by not the due date, but rather by the photography day. Because that's where we get those photos. That's how more then we also do a visual representation of the pyramid Corey talks about. I think think that helps because I think saying pyramid is kind of confusing. But when you see that it's a very, very short pyramid, a very, very stout pyramid, you kind of get that. And then we end up with kind of the photo room configuration to kind of consider when you're building out that room, what the shadows, where they're coming from, how harsh they'll be and what you're going to look for when you run from the kitchen, overhead lights screaming. And then last up post processing process. That's Corey. And we did get to only five steps. Nice. And it was built off of a cute little video that you gave me which is now in the bootcamp. So if you guys want to sign up for the bootcamp, you can@thecookiecollege.com and next month's bootcamp will be everything about pre sales. And then we're doing one on 3D printing following that. So each bootcamp is each month, they last between two and three days, depending on the content. And once you join, you get into this Facebook group Which I got to get people into today.
- [63:22]
B
Yeah. Nice.
- [63:23]
A
Excited about it.
- [63:24]
B
It'll be a great foundational one. It'll be one that works for you for to come. Your photography is going to be the basis of your business. And if you're like, I really like my photos, that's going to be a job well done on my part.
- [63:39]
A
And I think you can. I think you can truly fall in love with something that right now, you're kind of stuck on.
- [63:44]
B
Yeah.
- [63:44]
A
And having Corey, she gives you a 65 slide deck, PowerPoint. Then we walk through it together. And then the next one, she creates the pyramid, the shallow staging, why she picked this, why she didn't pick this. And then the final module, she opens her phone and edits the photo photos from there. But the bootcamps are more than just that. It is this Facebook group where we ask questions, take polls, have discussion topics. We have before and after photos you've been posting. I see core. Thank you. So it is worth 13. We want to make sure it is worth so much more than 13 that you do want to sign up for the cookie college and join us for all the future boot camps. Yeah.
- [64:19]
B
Imagine if you bought the boot camp for 13 and you made the next set was a 50 sale because your photos were good. I will have paid for myself and then some.
- [64:29]
A
And then you say, I want more. More of that, twins. Where do I go? And we say, come on, baby girl. I got you. I got you. Also, if you join the cookie college, you get more than just the boot camps. You get the content that was already there, but you also get the content of our other memberships, which Corey has just dropped. The cutest Irish icings class. We're not teaching St. Patrick's classes, but it makes me wish we were.
- [64:49]
B
It's cutie patootie.
- [64:51]
A
We're not teaching them locally. We're skipping over to Easter or something. However, these are intermediate classes, which means more icing colors and more icing bag cuts. Not consistency. Bag cut flows.
- [65:02]
B
Yeah, there's five colors versus four colors, and there's an outline bag and a flooding bag. And the outline bag outlines it, but also adds the details, like the little nose on our little leprechaun and, you know, the details on the clover and things like that.
- [65:19]
A
Yeah, I wanted to name him Sean the Leprechaun, but it ran out of PowerPoint space, so I just called him the Leprechaun. But it was. It was Sean in my head. But, yeah, the people said, thank you so much for the 40 beginner classes, we want intermediate options and that's what we've been doing in 2026. And the digital downloads kits have gone through their rebirth last year and we're continuing on with that. You get seven printable files and this month's, last month's because now it's a new month. February's was some sweet treats for my peeps and I made some chunky as my 3D printing friend said. He said you made very chonky peeps. And I did a set of three. I think they're very cute and they use some similar colors but more punchy. So a little, a little spin on it and you get the cookie tag front back. You get a cookie backer. You get the STL file that matches. You get the print image if you want to Eddie print it. You get the what do you call it? Transfer sheet and you get a social media post. And I feel like there's something missing but you get all that.
- [66:16]
B
I don't actually sell a ton of like mini cookies with the cookie Carter cookie tag, but I did for St. Patrick's Day and I sold more of those than I thought. I thought they'd be like a loss leader. Like no one would, would order them. They're priced at $3. You get a mini cookie and a cookie car. That's what sold the best. People ordered them. I think it was just, it was short enough that you could give to all your kids, you know, something to, to hand out on, you know, for their lunchbox.
- [66:41]
A
Very nice, Very nice. Corey's a pre sale queen. Now that she's done the pre sale test run for the boot camp. She said, I have tasted of my own nectar. I am here for the pre sales.
- [66:51]
B
I just know consistency first to market, ease of access and the photos really honestly is what carries me.
- [66:58]
A
But pre sales are great because it gives you more control over order what people get, which you want to make
- [67:04]
B
a lot more money in one day using a pre sale and you have a full control over everything. So if you want to do, do easier sets and in the Valentine's Day one I went with pastel colors and made it easier on myself and sold out.
- [67:16]
A
So that was great. I feel like sometimes bakers are like I'm really burnt out because what the clients are ordering is not necessarily what I want to make. Being able to incorporate and grow because it's a different avenue. Pre sales allows you to kind of build in that anti burnout because you get a bake which you want.
- [67:32]
B
Yeah, yeah. Customs and then they'll be like, look for pop ups and pre sales. Like that's their natural ebb and flow. That's where they go. And then, you know, as always, they get the custom bug and they come on back.
- [67:45]
A
Hey, Christmas will do that too. That Christmas money will make you okay with a lot of stuff. Okay, moving on to our gossip column. This one's a bit longer. You guys can submit your gossip column. It should be pinned up. I'll post a reminder in the group if you guys want to. So it says, let's get ready to crumble. Funny, I like that. Plain words. A friend of my son's father was getting married and I was approached by the woman that was paying for the cake. I know the groom for years through my son's father. I hang out with them when they go camping. Because of that, I only charge the cost of the cake, which is just a under $500. I let the friend of the bride know that she can pay in two installments and she agreed. Needless to say, she missed the first installment. No problem, I'll get the full payment at the wedding. I made the cake, delivered it, set it up, attended the wedding. The friend of the bride approached me to ask for my Venmo info so her husband can pay me. I gave her the info, but I only received half of the payment. I go to find her at the wedding to let her know that I only received half the payment. She tells me that she thought it was strange when her husband asked to get my Venmo if he'd already paid the first installment. She let him know to pay the other half. Things got busy at the wedding and I forgot to check in with her about the payment. When I left the wedding, knew it would be a problem to get the other half because it was no longer in front of them and the cake had been consumed. So for two weeks there was back and forth about me getting paid. She kept saying her husband would pay me and no money ever came through. Finally, I called my son. I told him what was going on and I asked about the couple, like, do they pay their bills? He tells me he's surprised that they would volunteer to pay since they had just lost a portion of their house due to a house fire and said they had no money. Plus they hadn't been around lately and they were a little sketchy now. He said he was going to call his dad so he could make them pay. I told him to hold off, let me see if I could get. I could still get paid on my own. I was really not trying to cause any trouble between friends. They just wanted my money. As soon as we hung up, my son called his dad, who then calls the groom who told him what was going on. The groom said he'll pay me if they didn't. Finally, those heathens paid me by Venmo and my husband. And the husband left a message with his payment that said, thanks for throwing me under the bus. I was going to pay you the money. A lesson learned. Seriously, from the situation. If I ever see those two out of functions, I I. And I hear one walk away with a sideways always remark punching emoji. That is. That's a rough one. I love this kind of gossip, though. This is a rough one because it's a friend of a friend. It's like a friend, you know, but it's a friend that's a proxy friend. So you can't be rude. You can't be like, come on, what are you doing here? I say, yeah, now you're burning the bridge. And it's always like the referral friend is like, oh, no, my name is on the line. But they're mad, but they won't pay. And then you have that, like, dirty L. I was going to pay you. No, if you were going to pay, you would have. If you were going to you. If he wanted to, he would. He did not. And then you add that last little thing in instead of him. So sorry. You say, thanks for throwing me to the bus. Yeah. Punch emoji. I. I'm going to add a punch emoji to this one. There you go.
- [70:33]
B
Two punch. Add one for me too.
- [70:35]
A
While you're at three, punch one, shoot at two. So we're at four punch emojis. That's the scale of one to five punch emojis. Where you at? Have you ever had an issue like chasing payment Chase.
- [70:47]
B
I'm so sorry.
- [70:48]
A
It always reminds me of the Adele song should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavement? But it's like, should I just keep chasing payment? Like, when do you call it areas?
- [70:58]
B
Have I ever had someone not pay? No. Have I chased payment?
- [71:02]
A
Yes, a little bit.
- [71:03]
B
What I want to do is make sure I get their payment for I start baking. Pre sales has taught me that you're chasing just a little bit more than I thought you would like all. You know, sending the confirmation sent you the payment. And that's why collecting payment at time of booking is so much easier than chasing it after the fact.
- [71:21]
A
Then you have like, Virginia has a weird cottage law where they want you to Manu. They want you to handle the transaction in person. It's like an archaic law that makes no sense. They're trying to change it, but. So when you want to abide by cottage laws, you're setting yourself up for failure. Someone in the college had asked last night that they were doing this big. Like it might have been a government event, but it was definitely a corporate event. And the order was over $1,000 and it was recurring. So she was like, yep, pay, pay at time of order. And they said, hey, can we break it into two payments? So she said because the order was so large, she was willing to. They said, okay, we'll pay a deposit and then we'll pay at time of delivery. And she was like, like, she's like, I can risk it for the biscuit, but that's just cutting it too close. So she wanted to reword it. Can you pay a deposit and then pay the rest one month out before she starts baking? Which I thought was a good compromise, especially when you were talking about orders in the thousands of dollars. But again, you run that risk. You run that, run that risk.
- [72:14]
B
I get that risk. I know we've talked about Neiman Marcus on here before and the man is a gem. Hard to get him to pay. He always pays. But eventually do I, do I sacrifice this order so you see where your. Your boundaries are always malleable and you're always like, do I bend them?
- [72:31]
A
Uhuh. But you gotta get paid. And then that can really sour the experience. Like this baker right here in the gossip column, this anonymous get ready to crumble baker. Like that's frustrating. And now she's gonna one, not look at the friend the same, but two, she's gonna be like, well, now I'm not gon next person who would have paid that, you know, we'll pay at the wedding. I'm not going to cut them that because somebody else took advantage of it.
- [72:50]
B
Yes.
- [72:51]
A
Yeah. And you like that. Thank you for the gossip column. Corey will take us through upcoming events countdown.
- [72:58]
B
Hold on, I've got to find.
- [72:59]
A
Oh, so sorry. I forgot you're working from a phone.
- [73:02]
B
I know I am. Okay.
- [73:03]
A
Why she scrolls. I will read. We have our march AI cookie collab that's coming up in two weeks. You can still register for the reminders. Corey is going to be working on getting me that image to show you kind of what she's going to do for. It doesn't require a selfie this time. You're going to take that AI generated image and you're going to knock it up against which you're able to recreate and that's how we're going to use AI as a tool instead of a big scary thing we don't know about in April. We're doing a pipe a park cookie collapse leaning into the spring here. I'm excited for the warm weather as it drizzles snow outside and that will I'll have more information on that next week. Are you there?
- [73:38]
B
I am on the collab and I'm at events ahead. Take it away for events we have what's popping Con and that is April 16th me and Heather, yours truly will be there. Cookie Con June 24 Me and Heather will not be there. Vandy Blendy November 27 Me and Heather unfortunately will be there.
- [73:58]
A
It's not I'm not at the vending. There's a version of me that only reveals itself pre and post Vendee blendy in that day. That's the version of me that'll be there.
- [74:05]
B
Thank goodness. 38 weeks away.
- [74:08]
A
I think Cookie Con. I know I'm not even thinking about it. I think Cookie Con's add on class is be to going on sale tomorrow Wednesday. Oh good to know.
- [74:15]
B
Good to know. And if you wanted to learn a little bit more about Cookie Con, Heather Campbell Brookshire did a live you can catch it for the next I want to say maybe 25 days. It expires in 30 days. You can find that in the huh.
- [74:27]
A
She sent me. I gotta upload it to YouTube so it forever archives.
- [74:31]
B
You can find it in the sugar cookie marketing group and she is a Cookie Con pro so she can tell you all about what to expect. It is confusing when you hear add ons core classes.
- [74:41]
A
What is it all mean?
- [74:43]
B
Can I shop till I drop? What is the tickets cover? And she goes over that. I tune into her live and she really breaks it down for you.
- [74:50]
A
I like that. Also tomorrow on Wednesday the add on classes for people for ticket holders go on sale for non ticket holders it goes on sale later date. Also confusing.
- [74:59]
B
Interesting. Did not know holidays that are coming up we have St. Patrick's Day is March 17th. That is fast approaching. April Fool's Day is April 1st. No jokes there. Easter sooner than it was April 5th this year teacher Appreciation Week big for me. I love this one is May 4th. Nurse Appreciation Week is also shared and that typically starts May 6th. And then you have Mother's Day right after May 10th.
- [75:26]
A
That'd be a nice little lineup there. After the now that Easter is so early into April that leaves all of April with like oasis, like desert, like nothing's there. And then we get the little oasis of teacher, nurse and Mother's Day within a week of each other.
- [75:40]
B
And then you have like grad orders coming in like all the graduation coming
- [75:44]
A
in during that month. So I always feel like Q1's like eh and like you know, we got Valentine's Day but like January, March, eh, then we have Q the beginning of Q2. So then we have like, you know, April, May, June, grad orders. Then we get the J months again which are like. But then August kicks it off. And then we get our super bowl months which are the last four months of the year starting in September. But definitely, definitely October, November and December blur every year.
- [76:12]
B
I never remember. I'm always busy baking.
- [76:15]
A
You know, I like to talk to Corey and I like to go to season 52 and talk to the waits half and they're like oh our. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day because we work but we like do it another day. But bakers, they like don't celebrate Christmas on the day they celebrate like two months out because that's when it starts. You know, it's always like shifts the calendar over but interesting stuff that's coming up, you know. Okay. Every month I say the best selling bakes threads in the sugar cookie marketing group. So it's the Easter one that you know hundreds and hundreds of comments but the April Fool's day one one comment that understood the assignment. So April, I should take that off the calendar countdown because it's just not a big baking day.
- [76:53]
B
It's not a baking day. I don't see anyone has ever ordered from April Fools. For me I it's a great posting content day. So if you like did brown ease or you know the cake pop that's sprout, that's funny and that's content. The deviled eggs. I know people try to do it all the time.
- [77:11]
A
I try to tell Cory to make it a vegetable tray, but it's all. That's a fun one.
- [77:15]
B
That is a fun one. So that would be a good one.
- [77:17]
A
But yeah, I don't, I don't think I try to only keep these with like days that like matter to the baking industry. Like big sales day.
- [77:25]
B
Otherwise it'd be like everyone's like right on off there.
- [77:29]
A
Goodbye is your last year with this April 1 stl me about it segment. So if you text in a 571-556-5644, you can win a month of cookie design. Lab. And I know two of you claimed it. I gotta get to you. Sorry. Been working on the bootcamp, but I'll definitely get to you. If you guys claim it within the seven days and I don't respond within the seven days, you still get it. It's my problem, not yours. But you claimed it, so you still gotta. But the cor. I have three.
- [77:57]
B
Okay, I'm gonna choose one.
- [78:00]
A
One, this is 617 from Boston. So Boston, you are the winner. We must have been bored in your endless snowstorm. So if you text me at heather@sugarcookiemarketing.com with the rest of your phone number, I'll connect you with Amalia, who is with Cookie design Lab. They said I'm trying to launch my first cookie class after taking the bootcamp. About classes, do you think Easter or Mother's Day is better? Is a better bet for filling seats? I have my opinion. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. I have my opinion because we're teaching an Easter class and we have sold out of the Easter class. I believe the Easter class is that Corey and I did do a Mother's Day class. It's actually in the class kits and we taught that in person. That was a hard sell. We thought it would be a mommy and me type thing and it didn't. We actually had to sell tickets to our own mommy. She came.
- [78:46]
B
Just like Mother's Day sales. Oftentimes the person that is buying the cookies is typically the mom. So making a pre sale that's Mother's Day specific is a lot harder because the. The men in their woman's life aren't always buying the cookies. Mother's Day classes, you would think a little bit easier because, you know, a mom could bring her mom and they could decorate together.
- [79:06]
A
Together.
- [79:06]
B
By far though, Easter is the number one beater out of those two beater outer. You can quote me on that is because it's so pushed by so many brands and things. You know, they're getting pummeled by Walmart, Target, everything like that. So Easter is just an easier one to do. A lot of people are coming into town for Easter, Mother's Day a little bit harder to work with.
- [79:31]
A
Yeah. Cory and I have found that at least that Mother's Day class we did teach at a new location. It was a partnership with AR Workshop. I think it was. Maybe we should have kept all things the same before we added a hyper specific class.
- [79:43]
B
You said it was a mason jar flower.
- [79:47]
A
We didn't teach the cookie class. Kids. Mother's day set. We taught that Mason jar. But it was to mom was with the cookie tags. And it did.
- [79:53]
B
Yeah.
- [79:53]
A
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. No. We are teaching an Easter class. We're teaching one of the beginner classes. Because I prefer to teach those. I can teach them in an hour and a half. And that is almost sold out. I published it. I actually published it in the boot camp that they're talking about as my example class. Yeah. Nice. I didn't delete it in time. People signed up for it. Another question. I thought this one was interesting. Fire round a question for the twins about being twins. I've always wondered these things and I figured the best place to ask was at the source. Okay, then there's a couple questions here. Who is older and by how much? I am older. The Corey and I allege that my mom had no clue who is who. So who's to know? And it was a C section. So we think by like, here's your first kid and here's your second kid. Like that was. We don't know. It was.
- [80:37]
B
It was a race to the bottom.
- [80:39]
A
I feel older and wiser. So I do think. My mom said I had a lot of hair and I was fatter. So that's how they told us apart. Yeah. It's a little complex I'll carry with me for the rest of my life. Who started dating first? Corey did. Corey's a lot more popular in kindergarten than I was. I don't know why. She was voted queen or leader of the girls club. And I was like, can I be like the secretary? We're the same person. I don't know.
- [81:07]
B
I had all the girls dance around the mud puddle and say boys are in the mud puddle.
- [81:11]
A
Really have that chant is in my head sometimes.
- [81:14]
B
Boys are in the mud puddle.
- [81:15]
A
Boys. We would just skip around this as the ruler.
- [81:18]
B
You have to do some camaraderie.
- [81:19]
A
Building.
- [81:20]
B
I was.
- [81:20]
A
I was gonna march to my death. Boys are in that mud puddle. And you know what? At 37, they're still in the mud puddle. Is one of you taller than the other? I. I don't think so.
- [81:31]
B
I think Heather has some hair height on me. Hair. That's.
- [81:34]
A
But that's. I got. I gave Corey my. My old Dyson and she's getting the hair height now.
- [81:38]
B
I'm gonna give it. I got more than I normally do.
- [81:40]
A
This was a f. Just to get. This is a lot of. A lot of heat and a lot of pride.
- [81:44]
B
I think I need a haircut. Look how long this is. So it's very heavy.
- [81:48]
A
Go to my girl, dude. Go to my girl.
- [81:50]
B
I know you say she's a talker. I have to get my mindset ready
- [81:53]
A
to be talked to. Would you get the haircut of your dreams Are like little sister hair cuttery. If you guys don't have them. They're actually based out here. They're like the McDonald's of haircut places. Everyone in our area has gone to a hair cuttery or a Bubbles, which are owned by the same company. It was a couple. They got divorced. But you gotta love like the chain vibe of just a quick haircut. Haircuttery was 20 bucks and that was it. And they. And they're gonna upsell.
- [82:18]
B
Yeah. On some bottles.
- [82:19]
A
That's really where they make their money. But anyways, I say if you go to haircuttery for a trim, but you go to a salon for a style. Our little sister refused to list. Went to haircuttery for style and now she says she has the mom bob. But she's not a mom. It was very cute, though. But she was in a. It was cute.
- [82:35]
B
They chopped probably 5 inches off her hair.
- [82:38]
A
Yeah, she was upset. She was upset.
- [82:41]
B
Yeah.
- [82:43]
A
So no, I don't believe one is taller than. I was going to sign up for Costco. Costco. People who have Costco, can you text into the podcast and tell me, good idea, bad idea, executive member, worth the money. Not worth the money. I don't want to get their credit card. Okay. But Corey's like, I'll go houses at Costco. We don't live together. But I was like, but you look like me, so you could really be a stunt double. So little benefit of being a twin Costco. Do you guys write with the same hand, right? Yeah, I do my right hand and my left hand is incapable of functioning at all for anything.
- [83:16]
B
Funny. Is my son left handed?
- [83:18]
A
Our dad ambidextrous but kind of eats with his left hand. Rights with his right or something.
- [83:24]
B
Yeah, same.
- [83:25]
A
Same hand here. Okay. Do guys part your hair the same? Yes.
- [83:30]
B
Heather's just parted higher.
- [83:32]
A
And I know I, I the the word is made up, but my mom calls it clutching. It's when you touch something with no point. I pledge with my hair a lot. I don't know why. I guess to keep the volume there. But I'm constantly. Erin, my salon girl, she said I cut your hair so you could part it on either side because you always come in with it differently. Actually come in it with a mop on top. Top of my head. But she makes me take it down. Nothing makes you question your will to live. Like, when you look at yourself with that black tarp around you where you're just ahead and your hair looks insanely stupid. I say, can you just turn me right around? I don't want to see much eye contact with myself. Like, if one gets injured. Huh?
- [84:15]
B
I'm reading it.
- [84:15]
A
Two together. Together. Injured. Does the other one.
- [84:21]
B
Everyone feel it?
- [84:22]
A
We tested that last year with Corey's cancer diagnosis. No, didn't feel that.
- [84:26]
B
Did you feel a little pang in your stomach?
- [84:31]
A
I think it was my. My greasy burger, but yeah. No. I've never been able to tell if Cory's what got hurt or not. For some reason, me, I do a lot of crazier things. Jumping out of planes, motorcycles, snowboarding. But Corey is the one who gets injured.
- [84:45]
B
I know. I don't think Heather's been injured enough for me to even know if I've
- [84:48]
A
had a. I know.
- [84:50]
B
I pinched my finger broken and I felt that.
- [84:53]
A
Oh, you have a heart murmur. And I don't know. I feel. I think one time you said, you're really unlucky. Unlucky? The queen leader of the girls club. So how unlucky could you really be?
- [85:07]
B
I know. Really? Honestly, with such a title, if.
- [85:11]
A
Can you read each other's minds? I mumble a lot. Ashley. My mom, my father. That's how I like to talk. Not talking at all, just kind of squeaking out some sounds. I said something to Corey on the weekend, and our older sister said that whatever that was, Corey understood it, but
- [85:29]
B
it wasn't a real word, so people say. Heather mumbles. I can catch most everything she says, so I don't see it as mumbling. But when she talks to my dad, my dad has not been able to understand. Understand her in the last 12 years, so he just kind of looks at her and, like, shakes his head, hoping that he. She, you know, said, I try.
- [85:50]
A
I try when he does that, like, oh. I try to restate what I said in a different way and maybe drop an octave a bit. My older sister Ashley is very annoyed with how I talk. And I can see it. She reaches the breaking point every time we have a conversation. And she's like, I just don't know what you said. But she thinks I have this hidden extra voice that I withhold from. From people. And, like, it's very clear and loud. But I was like, no. Where does she use this extra voice at? Apparently anywhere. She's not my super extra voice.
- [86:23]
B
My voice projects more than Heather's, and it's lower than Heather's and apparently because it projects while I do mumble, I get the point across. And that's probably why I was elected leader of the girls club.
- [86:37]
A
I think because you had Archer like, okay, you and I, I used to record videos when we went on trips so I could remember things because I know I won't remember anything. But Archer was probably seven or something and you're like arch, Arch. And then finally you're like arch.
- [86:53]
B
Yeah, Arch was. He's a silent man now, but he was quite the rambunctious one.
- [87:00]
A
Going a mile a minute.
- [87:01]
B
You had to say his name with some depth and projection to get him to pay attention. Otherwise he was running in the road.
- [87:07]
A
I think that's why you able to project. Sorry, I got blurry again. Come on, game. Come on. Right back there. That was the end of the questions. I really like this.
- [87:16]
B
Nice questions.
- [87:18]
A
Last up, Orlando. You want to read Orlando?
- [87:21]
B
Since I'm in the land of Cookie Con, I was wondering if you think the add on classes are worth it. I know we get the core classes and that sounds great, but the add on classes go on sale on Wednesday. Should I buy in? What happens if you they sell out. So I've been to CookieCon once and I did take an ad on class and it was fantastic. It was I want to say her name is Jodi the flowered canvas and she we decorated these four. Four ladies. The class took four hours and you learned a lot of skills there. There's classes that are eight hours. The class I was supposed to take but we were core speakers so I wasn't able to take take it was flowers on a toothpick tip. That would have been great for me to know. I've never learned since and I've missed the opportunity to know what it was in there. So if you are looking to up your decorating game in some form or fashion, those would be great classes to take. And they're from a lot of your favorite people you see online. If you were trying to learn something with fondant modeling of stuff, you know, moldable royal icing, how to paint eyes, hand painted. Those are great classes and options that you can find there. If they are sold out though, I think you people start reselling their tickets closer to CookieCon. You could snag them that way. But once they're sold out, they're sold out.
- [88:43]
A
I do believe if you buy your Cookie Con ticket. Heather Campbell Brookshire mentioned this in her Facebook live. You can now join the Cookie Con attendees group and that's run by Cookie Con. You can only join after you purchase the ticket because they match you up to an account. When you get in the Cookie Con attendees group, if you miss out on the class that you want, turn notifications on for that group. As they get closer to the event in June, people will start hemorrhaging off their add on classes as life changed. Right. Because to buy an add on class in March, you have no idea what life brings in June. So people will be like, well I'm selling my ticket with my add ons but you can actually ask them to break that out and just sell you the add on if you already got the ticket. If you're like hey, I'm in Orlando and I could go if I, I would like it if I went but I wouldn't care if I didn't wait until right before Cookie Con because somebody will sell off that ticket for half price. Yeah, you may not get the classes you want. If you, you miss out on the, the add on classes that you wanted, you could possibly find it. What I find is that people closer to the event will say hey guys, anybody selling this add on class, I want it. So you get in front of that. You know when somebody's selling their ticket, you get in front of that and buy it out from somebody else.
- [89:48]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [89:49]
A
Worth the thought. I think if you went to CookieCon and you didn't buy an add on class, you'd still have a good time.
- [89:55]
B
Yeah. Because you still have access to the core classes. It's not as much hand on instructor which I kind of liked. You know, baking something, making it, taking it and taking a photo of it. Like this is what I made. Some people ship it back to themselves. I think I donated mine to the backers co they had a little set up there. So I said I was gonna use my cookies for your, you know, to sell some more backers there.
- [90:18]
A
Heather in her Facebook live I thought interesting thing she had she recommended was bringing an extra piece of luggage empty so that you could fill it up because I do believe you end up with a lot more stuff. Cory and I drove so it was easy to throw it in the back. But if you're flying be worth to have an extra luggage because if you're packed to the hilt and then you go to Cookie Con you're not going to have space to bring that stuff back easily. I know.
- [90:40]
B
And you're going to find things that you want, things that are new to the market. They have tons of people in the vendor hall that are Selling cookie cutters and supplies and sometimes you can get them at a discount there and, you know, save on shipping because you're there buying it in person.
- [90:54]
A
Yes. Not bad. Corey bought a airbrush.
- [90:59]
B
Don't talk about it.
- [91:04]
A
Sponsors. I'm working on interviewing the sponsors. I know Malia has volunteered for it and so I'll get on there. I think Baking Me Crazy has also volunteered, so I got to reach out to them. I think they'd be fun to have them on the podcast. Cookie Design Lab. Use Code twins to get 15% off or text under the podcast and you might get it for free. Baking Me Crazy is code favorite twin for 10% off. Bakety bake is code twins for 10% off. What's popping con is code twins for $25 off your ticket. And Bosch and Nutri Meal is code sugar cookies for $20 off. Primera. And Eddie has no code, but it is a very, very cool tool. I think they'll be at CookieCon. They've been at CookieCon every year. So if you want an upfront live demo, they have actual bakers teach the up the demo classes. You just walk up to their booth and you can check it out there.
- [91:52]
B
Yeah, pretty, pretty neat. Twin Trust. You have a twin terrace there. Twinny.
- [91:58]
A
As I've been moving my crappioli, I've also strategically been binging hoarding buried alive. And I know I worked in property restoration for a time and in property restoration, the best way to market to people was to teach their required continuing education classes. When I first started working with them, hoarding wasn't a protected mental illness. And then it became halfway through so that the terminology around it shifted and the legal course you'd have to take great greatly changed because before you could just evict somebody using those eviction laws and then when it's protective mental illness, you couldn't. So it was very interesting to see how that shifted. However, in every single one of the hoarding buried alive that I like to watch, I like to get the hour long segment on YouTube. You can still watch them for free. It's fascinating to see how miserable people are with these things. They can't let go. I know, and that is me. I'm not a hoarder. But that same pathology of I bought this thing, I never used it, but I can't let it go, but I'll never use it is so watching my own brain work because we fall in
- [93:06]
B
love with the person we could be with that thing if we did use it right.
- [93:11]
A
So I had all this heat protectant. I don't know. I wanted volume heat protectant. I don't know. Right? You go to Sephora, you go to literally Target, and you're reading the stuff and you buy the thing, and you're like, this will change my life. This. Behind this bottle lies the healthy hair I've always want. Then you take it home, you try it, and you're like, I don't really love that. That wasn't really it for me. But because I only used it once, I can't get rid of it.
- [93:34]
B
But I don't like it.
- [93:35]
A
So what I did, and I really had to take this big, deep old breath, is I put them all, and I brought them down to my cousins and my grandmother, and I said, have at. And you should have seen the inner turmoil when somebody's like, oh, this smells so good. I'm like, wait, yeah. Yeah. So I.
- [93:53]
B
You liked ours?
- [93:54]
A
I did it with my Bath and Bodyworks candles. I did it with all the perfumes that I have. I took two of each that I wanted to keep. It was hard. And then I did it with Body Works candles. I thought. I thought. Because I said, heather, you're buying more and more, which feels great, but you're not possibly burning them fast enough. Yeah. And Jen took most of them. D took. D took the one from the beach. The beach scent. Oh, no. Then she took the beach body spray.
- [94:21]
B
Were they all randomly burnt?
- [94:24]
A
A little bit? I'll say 30% burnt a little bit. 70% new. A lot of them were the flavor of leaves. I just loved it. But Ruthanne took a leaf, her favorite smell as well, from the Bath and Bodyworks fall candle line. And she was stoked to use it. Right. Then she put that bad boy up right now.
- [94:43]
B
Question for you. Don't think you would have burnt that through them. And then continue burning through the ones you hadn't burned through, like you just wanted to restart. Because I know you buy another Bath
- [94:52]
A
and Body Works candle, right? But I'm trying to do one in, one out. One in, one out. I think I have the mentality if I buy a lot of my favorite things, but there's always newer things that come out that I like better. You and I always go to Bath and Body Works and we always smell the candles. But which one did we find the other day that you said, this is a great scent? It was that from that suede? Yeah.
- [95:16]
B
Yeah. It was selectable. Me and Heather, anytime we go to the mall, we'll never buy them, but we go and smell every Single candle. And then they have like a candle off where we have the two favorites go against each other.
- [95:26]
A
And Heather's like, hold it, hold it, hold it. This one, that one, this one. And then we put them back and leave, which is we choose and we leave. So, yeah, maybe that's actually the joy of the candle experience, the shopping for them. So I'm like, well, if I like the shopping experience, I'll feel bad shopping for anymore if I have all these still at home. So if the joy, if I can reassign where the joy is, and that's what they say in hoarding, Buried Alive is like, the joy comes from purchasing. If we can get the joy coming from purging, we can save this house.
- [95:58]
B
You know, I did a charity with my old job, and the charity event was helping someone who is a hoarder declutter. And I've never worked with someone who is a certified declutterer, but I was able to sit in there and I watched her. She had the patience of a saint. You had the homeowner had five of the same cups and think, you know, old time circus cups, they're plastic, you know, they have the circus name on there, but it's been rubbed away because it's been washed so much. But she had five of the identical same one. And to see her thought process of why she needed to keep all five, you'd be like, that makes sense because what if one broke? What if some. What if her kids wanted one? What if she lost one? And what if she was using one and someone else wanted to borrow one? So, like, the mindset is there. So it was, it was almost heartbreaking to see her have to decide with each and everything. And a lot of things she could not get rid of because her, her reasoning was so solid in her brain.
- [97:00]
A
If you watch Hoarding Bear to Live, which is the A and e channel on YouTube, they always give you the declutter and they give you a psychiatrist. That's those two people always show up. And the psychiatrist I was watching one last time, night I was getting ready for bed, trying to talk myself out of my own horde. And the psychiatrist said when the homeowner gets rid of stuff without thinking, they're like, this is not good because they're decluttering for show, but they're not changing their mindset. So if you actually declutter too fast on that show, they don't allow you to do that.
- [97:28]
B
I'm like, they're doing what you want. And what are you happy with? You're like, you're not doing it right.
- [97:32]
A
Yeah. And they won't let people come in and make decisions for them because they're like, if you, you're going to get rid of all, you have no attachment to it. We need the person's mental state to change. And that changes by having repetitive decision. Decision making, which I thought was interesting.
- [97:44]
B
What's so crazy is I got rid of all my dishware because I use plastic plates because I didn't want to ruin the dishware. Okay. The dishware's never been touched. It was pristine and taking up a ton of space. Never used. So what was the point? The dishware owned me. I did not own the dishware.
- [98:04]
A
So always. Yeah.
- [98:06]
B
So I sold it. Pennies on the dollar. This kid who just moved to Virginia who was like, I can't believe this was a real thing. I thought you guys were fake. Got the whole thing, dishware.
- [98:15]
A
And you know what?
- [98:15]
B
He has no attachment to the niceness of the dishware. He'll use it. And that's what it needed to be used.
- [98:20]
A
Kind of what's been helping me. Like, especially like, I like business suit jackets. I don't know, I just. I guess I just liked how they look or something. But I said, I'm not wearing this. If, if I had to pick one from this closet, I would pick this one right here. I wouldn't pick this one. If I give this one away, somebody could go and interview with this jacket on and get a job. Like, that's so much better than rotting away in my. My closet. Yeah. So Ashley was helping me move and she's like, why do you have so many clear bins? And I was like, cuz I call em bins of sin. And if I can see what's in them, I'll be less likely. Like when you get a opaque bin, you can put anything in that, you never have to acknowledge that it's there. Like, I've been looking at these storage systems, Costco cells. Like, I. I'd put something in there and never look at it again. I'd be like, I don't even know. That's a, that's a black hole of my stuff. I don't have to look at it. It doesn't have to look at me. When I get the clear bins, it really helps me be like, do I really want to see this? Because forever or can we donate it?
- [99:13]
B
True, true. I need to go through my closet and really have some.
- [99:18]
A
You talk about your closet, but you actually never let me see the closet.
- [99:22]
B
Not willing to let someone see that portion of my life.
- [99:25]
A
Gory shows up to film the boot camp, and I'm like, that's so funny. I swear I've seen that shirt before, because I swear I've had it crazy. Like, you gave it to me. I was like, oh, yeah, that was a while ago.
- [99:34]
B
I don't buy new clothes. Clothes a lot.
- [99:37]
A
You used to, but then you really don't anymore.
- [99:40]
B
Yeah, I don't anymore. So everything in the closet's probably 10 or 12 years old. A lot of things in the closet never been worn, so just have been hanging out, but you don't like them
- [99:50]
A
because you're not wearing them.
- [99:52]
B
I don't dress up. I don't dress up a lot.
- [99:56]
A
Okay. How many times a year do you dress up?
- [99:59]
B
I dress up for a lot of client pickups, I will say, but I usually just throw on the same outfit every single time.
- [100:05]
A
Okay, so that's one outfit. Yeah, it's the same outfit.
- [100:08]
B
I dress up for people's birthdays, holidays, and if I have to go to anything at Archer school, I try to look a little presentable.
- [100:14]
A
So what if you had 10 outfits, 10 nice outfits? Would that be enough? Outfits? I don't. Do not let me judge you with my hoard. I've just had to reckon with the. I. Corey tried to listen to them, but the minimalist podcast, I think they've monetized their podcast now, so you can't just listen. But their initial thing was, even if you're not moving, put everything in into a box. And after three months, whatever hasn't been taken out of the box because you needed it, donate it all. Don't even look at the box.
- [100:42]
B
Moving is. You know, the grateful part is I've moved because Nate's job and things like that, it's been a reset that not many people get. So my neighbor, she's been in her townhome for over 20 years, and she says, I'm not excited. And they were trying to clear stuff out, and my neighbor, he brought me these. The tiniest little cookie cutter was this big, and he was like, hey, I just thought you could use it. And I was like, thank you so much. But he couldn't get rid of it, so he had to put it. He's like, don't bring it back if you don't want it. Just toss it. I just can't toss it. Someone got it for me.
- [101:18]
A
He needed somebody else to toss it.
- [101:19]
B
Yeah, they're going through that. And I was like, oh, that's Wild
- [101:23]
A
Ruthanne, our grandmother, who I've lived with for the past six years. She has five shirts total.
- [101:31]
B
Okay. But to her detriment. She's a shirt buyer, but she.
- [101:35]
A
Oh, she'll only ever have five. She'll donate one and then start with a new one. But I'm still fascinated by that behavior because she has no emotional attachment to the shirt she's worn for the last six months.
- [101:46]
B
I'm hoping at. How old is she?
- [101:47]
A
86?
- [101:48]
B
87.
- [101:49]
A
87.
- [101:49]
B
That I can just say, stuff is stuff. You don't need it.
- [101:54]
A
Well, that's always the thing when the hoarding takes the question of, I get this rid of this times a thousand. Right? Yeah. And people are like, it's costing you your friendships, which is what I believe happiness is, is relationships.
- [102:07]
B
Yeah. Your relationship with your kids. They don't want to come over. I mean, I've watched all of the Hoarders Buried Alive multiple times.
- [102:14]
A
Right.
- [102:14]
B
And yeah, it's a source of contention. You. You lose your family over it. You're surrounded by your stuff, but you have no good relationships left over.
- [102:23]
A
I mean, two out of 10 episodes I'm watching, CPS is called or Adult Protective Services. Like, it's not ending well in the final scene, which recording beard live, like, skips a massive part of that clean out every episode. But when they go back in and it's just the bare bones, they're so ecstatic. Oh, yeah.
- [102:40]
B
Yeah. I wonder what the percentage of people who continue with a clean home is.
- [102:45]
A
You always get that little, like, two sentences in the last screen. But I'd be curious if it was maintainable because they seem so excited to see their bed again.
- [102:53]
B
I know. I wonder because it's took a lifetime of money and buying and collecting to make the hoard originally do that. Can they withstand it for, you know, the next year or two, or is
- [103:04]
A
it a beginning thing again? I would love to know. I love to know.
- [103:09]
B
Do you have a twin lect?
- [103:11]
A
I don't think you had a twin dress.
- [103:12]
B
Yeah, that was long enough. I. I joined in on yours, the twin select.
- [103:16]
A
I've really, honestly just been focusing on this hoarding stuff. Not that I'm a hoarder. Okay, guys, back off. Back off. I tried. I claimed minimalism. I revoked. I rescinded my license, my minimalist license. And we'll have go back to the drawing board. But I had to ask myself, because I moved. Why do you have this? What was it for? What are you planning? Why can't you let it go? And really, that's like, like, shoot. So I really been trying to, like, listen to Hoarding, Buried Alive, and you. I had the little AI Chatbot. I said, act like the minimalist and let's walk through. It was interesting. I said, you know, because the big thing about the minimalist podcast, which are these two guys, they said, Walmart is your storage facility and you only have to pay the rental space fee when you need to pick it up. I. E. If you need a stapler, you go buy it when you need it. You don't have a stapler for your whole life and only use it once. Right? You go buy it when it's needed. But I was like, okay. But then now you have the stapler. And it was like, right, you should. It said, if you use. I said, I probably staple things twice a year. And it said, well, then go to FedEx the AI thing that was acting like them. Or go to a friend's house and borrow their stapler so you don't have to. But it's like. But if you use it enough, you can keep it. But if you want the methodology of what they. How they approach it, stapler it is. Do not have the stapler if it's not used frequently. And unstable things a lot.
- [104:36]
B
What's frequent?
- [104:37]
A
Because when you need a stapler, you want a stapler. I think it comes down to the individual. Right. How often are you stapling things?
- [104:44]
B
Well, I make an out. I like paper, so I staple more often than you probably.
- [104:50]
A
And I hate paper. Huh. I hate paper. But I have a scanner, which you're. You. That's a great example. You. You use my scanner a lot. You'll be like, can you scan this for me? You don't want to buy one because you don't use a scanner. But every twice a year when you need something scanned, you'll just bring it to me.
- [105:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [105:08]
A
Okay, great. You just borrowed my air pump, which is wild because you pump up tires so much more than I do. But you're borrowing mine because sheets and
- [105:16]
B
wawas have free air. So I will just go get more air there.
- [105:21]
A
So Corey's pro borrow compressor.
- [105:23]
B
I guess I am pro borrow.
- [105:26]
A
So, yeah, that's what it's saying is when it's the option to buy which air compressor that was like 20 bucks. May. I think that one you have is kind of nice. So don't break it. But like to buy or to borrow? Opt for borrow.
- [105:38]
B
Yeah. And I see more now is there's limited space in your home and you might Use the air compressor. The reason why I need an air compressor is Heather finally got my bike to me after all these years. I've never ridden it. You could have gotten. You could have got. No, I know. And I don't have a car to bring it over. So Heather brought it with her little U Haul thing. And I was like, yeah, I'll definitely ride it. But the flat. The tire was as flat as could be. And Heather's like, don't you have an air compressor? I said, I don't. And it's because I would not use it enough to want one. So I was like, if Heather doesn't have one, how can I get this bicycle to Wawa?
- [106:12]
A
So I have done bike transport and air compressor transport. Have you compressed your tires?
- [106:18]
B
I. I said, I asked Nate to do it. I'm delegating as the leader of the girls club would do.
- [106:24]
A
Boys, get out of the mud puddle, pump up the tires, back in the mud puddle immediately. So interesting. Yeah.
- [106:31]
B
My twintellect is my son wants to go bike riding with me, so he's buying his own bike. What's funny is he tried to buy the bike on Walmart.
- [106:44]
A
Okay.
- [106:45]
B
Walmart did not like his little baby checking account. I don't know why Archer. I could have intervened, but I did not. He probably spent four hours on the phone with Navy Federal to try to figure it out. Nair. Did they ever figure it out before Navy Federal was like, I don't know. It seems like it's something on Walmart's end. And it doesn't like your card, man. You're gonna have to ask your mom to buy it for you. Really? I'm sitting with the problem. So him.
- [107:13]
A
He would. I could pay money to watch Archer call a customer support line.
- [107:17]
B
Yeah, it was so funny because he. He wants to ask my opinion. But, like, the. The thing is listening. First you get the automated AI and
- [107:23]
A
it's listening to every little sniffle.
- [107:25]
B
You wake and be like, I didn't think I'd catch that.
- [107:28]
A
That drives me up a wall. That I. I'm sorry.
- [107:33]
B
So the first time he types in his account number wrong. They can't find him. He has to hang up. The second time, he sits on the phone on the. Wait for a. Over 60 minutes and accidentally hangs up on it. Then the next time he leaves his phone number for a call back, they call back. He can't hear him. They hang up. He calls back. Finally get somebody.
- [107:56]
A
And this is why I can't take phone calls because of this trauma that everybody has to go through and making a call.
- [108:01]
B
And I said, you know what, this
- [108:02]
A
is a right of hand.
- [108:03]
B
He needs to know that it's difficult to get things when you need help. And, and he was willing to sit on the phone for all this.
- [108:11]
A
I wish he had gotten the satisfaction of it being resolved though.
- [108:14]
B
He did not get it and that was unfortunate. I just got woke up to a text message because I went to bed. By the time, you know, he was still at it, it was like payment failed.
- [108:26]
A
Did you. It's probably because his bank accounts are new. There's no transaction.
- [108:29]
B
I said, I'll teach you how to make a transfer. You can transfer me the money and we'll buy it together using my card so you can get the bike finally. But I was like, good for him to stick it out. And he stuck it out. He stayed on it. I was more frustrated for him than he was, than he was for himself. But he was willing to sit there. He actually got on the chat.
- [108:50]
A
That's not going to help you. That's just going to refer you back
- [108:52]
B
to the phone number. At least you're doing it, dude.
- [108:55]
A
At least you're doing it. Did he order the bike?
- [108:58]
B
We have not ordered the bike. Last night I gave him a one hour span to come, come and contact me to get the bike. The time went up so he has to wait another day.
- [109:08]
A
Oh, Corey is these. Corey's teaching archers and life lessons here. We hear about them every Saturday. Can't wait for this week's update.
- [109:15]
B
Yeah, they do. But yeah, him sitting with the struggle and you know, back to the boot camp. You're going to sit with the struggle of trying to find the right lighting and everything like that. And it's. Are you willing to, are you going to give up because you're frustrated? But do you to want, want the bike? Do you want the better photos? Do you want more money in your business? You're going to sit with it longer, you're going to figure it out and hopefully you'll get a bike and hopefully you'll get better photos and make more sales. So that's my.
- [109:38]
A
We're all archers and life is just the Navy federal support line. That's just summary of today's podcast.
- [109:44]
B
It really, really, truly is. That's all I have for today. I've got to get to bacon. We got an Easter class I'm working on.
- [109:51]
A
Okay, crocky, top of the morning to you. I'll see you when I see you.
- [109:54]
B
Take care. Alligators, crocodiles, crocodile.