260. Baking it Down - Business Weeding

Summary

Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

Episode 260: Business Weeding
Date: May 12, 2026
Hosts: Heather & Corrie Miracle

Episode Overview

This week, Heather and Corrie explore the theme of "Business Weeding"—the idea that small, overlooked business habits, like weeds, can grow into much bigger problems if not addressed early. Using gardening as a colorful and memorable metaphor, the sisters share practical, sometimes hilarious, and always honest insights into recognizing and “pulling” problematic habits before they take root—whether in social media, order handling, pricing, boundaries, family/friend discounts, or handling donations. The episode is packed with actionable advice, personal anecdotes, and the signature fun and sisterly banter that fans have come to love.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Weeding Metaphor: Small Problems Become Big Problems

[11:58] Heather: "When you do not pick weeds early, you have a major weed problem later."

• Heather describes her real-life struggle with yard weeds, turning the chore into a metaphor for business: “If you don't pick weeds early, you end up with a weed forest.”
• Corrie brings in the perfect pun:
  [12:00] Corey: “Give a weed an inch, and it will take a yard.”

2. Social Media: Mind Your Digital Footprint

[13:35] Heather]: "Group comments and posts follow the group profile. Posts last forever. If you write it online, think of how it'll sound if read in court."

• Early comments or posts might seem harmless, but internet history gets dredged up, impacting your reputation and business.
• Both hosts stress the increasing transparency of Facebook groups for admins, making reputation management more pronounced and trackable.
• [16:28] Heather: Highlights that admins can now easily see member histories and mutual friends.
• [17:54] Heather: Suggests if you've got a “toxic” history, it may be worth creating a new (genuine) profile, albeit acknowledging the Facebook TOS risks and downsides.

3. Order Intake: Establish Systems to Prevent Disasters

[22:20] Heather: "When you take orders haphazardly...it's not if, it's when you forget an order."

• Taking orders via text, DM, or scattered messages works at first, but quickly turns into chaos as business grows.
• [23:01] Corey: Shares from experience—being unorganized leads to forgotten orders, mistakes, and negative reviews.
• Heather and Corrie recommend directing all orders through a form or dedicated channel to create a necessary “paper trail”.

Tips:

• Use note apps, text shortcuts, or canned responses for common inquiries.
• Don’t be afraid to “weed” out old methods—process improvements will save you later.

4. Pricing for Profits vs. Pricing for Sales

[28:07] Corey: "A lot of people price not for the health of their business, but for the chance at a sale."

• The “race to the bottom” pricing mentality is damaging; starting low makes it difficult to raise prices without creating customer resentment.
• Heather uses a “salad” analogy: [31:33] Heather: "Because I’d fallen in love with it at a cheap price, when it raised, all I could see was the injustice of the price."
• Corrie adds that “nightmare clients” are often attracted by lowest prices and become the hardest to serve when prices rise.

5. Boundaries: The Dangers of Saying Yes Too Much

[39:26] Heather: "Not setting a boundary is actually giving private permission."

• Both hosts use pet anecdotes (cats, dogs) to illustrate: the more you reward needy or boundary-testing behavior, the more clients expect.
• Business ‘people pleasing’ is natural at first but creates persistent problems and resentment over time.

6. Friends & Family Discount: Communicate Up Front

[45:32] Corey: "When you give your friends and family orders for free ...you’re in a hostage situation."

• Giving free or discounted product to loved ones without clear communication leads to awkward conversations and expectations.
• Pro Tip: Offer a standing, clear, percentage discount (e.g., “15% off for friends & family”) and require everyone to use the standard ordering channel.

7. Donation Requests: How to Avoid the “Needy Weedy”

[51:04] Corey: "When you do donations without clear expectations...they keep coming back."

• Set clear expectations for recognition (business card on table, social media mention, QR code, etc.) when agreeing to donate; otherwise, it fosters repeat asks and resentment.
• Corrie shares her process: always ask about marketing opportunities in exchange for donations.
• Heather: [54:04] "I can actually borrow from my marketing budget if you guys could help me market."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [12:00] Corey: “Give a weed an inch, and it will take a yard.”
• [13:35] Heather: “If you write it online, think of how it'll sound if read in court.”
• [23:01] Corey: “You start forgetting things because you’re doing the work and you’re marketing... That’s when it becomes an issue and your weed grows.”
• [28:07] Corey: “A lot of people price not for the health of their business, but for the chance at a sale.”
• [31:32] Heather: "I had known it to be a $4 salad. To see it reach double digits … I never bought it again."
• [39:26] Heather: "Not setting a boundary is actually giving private permission."
• [47:29] Corey: “Pay what you feel. I hate that.”
• [53:53] Heather: “Oh yeah, I'd love to take that [donation]. I can actually borrow from my marketing budget if you guys could help me market.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 11:58 | The business weeding metaphor | | 13:35 | Social media reputation management | | 17:54 | Creating new FB profiles and admin transparency | | 22:20 | Mishandling order intakes (paper trail) | | 28:07 | Pricing for profits vs. pricing for sales | | 31:32 | Customer price anchoring—salad analogy | | 39:26 | Setting boundaries—pet (cat/dog) anecdotes | | 45:32 | Friends and family discounts | | 51:04 | The “needy weedy” of donations | | 54:04 | Framing donations as joint marketing | | 70:43 | The AI cookie photo issue discussed | | 81:18 | Upcoming Main Street Collab |

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Additional Highlights

Parasocial Relationships & Building Audience Trust

• Extended metaphor: listeners form “parasocial relationships” with hosts as they reveal personal stories, becoming distant “family”.
• Corrie: [07:02] "Anyone who listens to us, I am in a relationship with you... one of my extended family…”

AI & Cookie Marketing

• [70:43] Heather: The emergence of bakers using AI to enhance cookie photos, with some passing off unattainable results.
• [73:06] Heather: “The market always self-corrects. If someone oversells with AI photos, reality will catch up through dissatisfied customers.”

Practical Tips & Tools

• Saved text snippets and keyboard shortcuts for responding to inquiries (e.g., CCCCHANGE triggers a canned response).
• Use website forms to keep everything streamlined and findable.

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Upcoming Events, Projects & Resources

• Main Street May Collab: A collaborative marketing event for local visibility.
• Cookie Videos Bootcamp: Training for bakers on filming social content.
• 3D Printing Bootcamp: Recap of a course on cookie cutter creation (resources still available).
• June: Meet the Baker Collab: Easy, selfie-based collab to encourage audience engagement in a slow month.
• Cookie College: Ongoing membership with access to resources and challenges.

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Community Interaction

• Several listeners texted in with questions about blog posts, handling followers from outside their delivery area, and experience with pricing and ghosting.
• [96:17] Listener tip: Don’t assume ghosting is about pricing; sometimes people just forget.

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Final Recap of the “Business Weeds” to Pull Early

1. Social Media Commenting: Watch your digital footprint.
2. Order Handling: Create a reliable system—no loose ends.
3. Pricing: Start fair, communicate value, avoid underpricing traps.
4. Boundaries: Set and stick to them with clients and yourself.
5. Friends & Family: Set structured discounts and expectations.
6. Donations: Be clear about your expectations to avoid constant asks.

[56:28] Corey: “A business is going to put you in awkward moments. No matter how hard you try to avoid them, it is going to happen.”

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Closing Tone

Warm, encouraging, and loaded with sisterly humor—Heather and Corrie keep it real about business weeds: “If you don’t pull them now, you’ll be tangled up later! But you’re not alone—everyone faces these, and they can be fixed.”

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Stay connected, keep pulling those weeds, and happy baking!
Listeners can reach out via text, join the Facebook group, and keep up with weekly collabs and challenges.

Transcript

[Heather]

That's that Cory singing.

[Corey]

That's a beanie baby.

[Heather]

Yeah, you're relate. So I'm letting you two get a bean preview. That's my little beanie bear. If you guys are randomly jumping into the podcast in the random

[Corey]

face me, I want to see your eyes when you talk. I know you're like looking at two different things. The camera and then you.

[Heather]

Your.

[Corey]

Your computer screen. It's discombob.

[Heather]

And the notes are over here discombing to talk to your ear. I'm sorry, I don't know what you want me to.

[Corey]

No, that's fine.

[Heather]

I'll get over.

[Corey]

It's.

[Heather]

You know, I've been moving my. I don't have any furniture in this house. Which is the funny part. You literally have to sit on the floor. I cannot convince.

[Corey]

I. I've been there in the flesh. I tell you, if a bachelor life met a bachelorette houses.

[Heather]

There's a chair. I want to explain it.

[Corey]

There's one chair that faces the backyard. It is a singular circle chair.

[Heather]

I put it in the basement. It's gone. I thought there was two. I thought you had two. They were always intended to be the basement. When the cats got overwhelming, I needed the seating limited. In the.

[Corey]

In the middle floor there, there's one

[Heather]

giant tall skinny table.

[Corey]

Like a fold out table.

[Heather]

He's gone too. I cleaned him off. What? Yeah.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

It's a whole new work on him. And he was like. Where the kitchen table should be was this pile.

[Corey]

When you.

[Heather]

When I. There was so much paperwork and I wanted to create a system because I believe that we live and die by our systems of paper organization. Sometimes though, when I'm overwhelmed with the amount of work, it starts to pile up. Pile up.

[Corey]

It did.

[Heather]

And on this white table, Corey kept making fun of. So last week, I'm a carrot person. Let me put a carrot in front of myself and I will move heaven and earth. The carrot was this burger from this restaurant. I can't seem to shake the Lees. Burger Ridge Grill. Yeah. So I said, heather, Heather, Heather, if you can get this pile of paper gone, you can go to Blue Ridge Grill. So I asked myself, and this kind of has to do with business. What's the. What's stopping the progress here? And I said, it's because I don't have Google Drive folders organized. So then I asked myself, does Google Drive need to be organized right now to be able to scan and shred the papers? It does not. So I said, really? If I just have a systematic naming of the Scanned files and upload it to a catch all folder. I can come back and get drive organized and then file them. So that's what I did. And it was much easier when I sat down and said, where is. What is the roadblock here that's stopping the progress? And is there a way to work around the roadblock? So we moved the roadblock. It is needing to be done. But now it doesn't need to take up physical space. Yeah.

[Corey]

But it was adding to the ambiance of the room because now it's a barren room.

[Heather]

I was like, had a. The house is a. Is a. I liked it because it was affordable. But it is a new build home. It was a nice small space. I thought, like, there's such a thing as, you know, I'm by myself, so there's too much house.

[Corey]

Sure.

[Heather]

So this was like what I thought was like a how a small apartment with a two car garage. That was the vibe I was going for because I don't feel small.

[Corey]

To me, it's townhousey big. Like I live in a townhouse. And yours is townhouse esque.

[Heather]

Yes. With a two car garage. Which is just what I wanted. Really wanted to focus on that. So the siding blew off. I'm on the windiest corner in West Virginia. You are.

[Corey]

I want to tell you guys, it's.

[Heather]

It's pummeled. Tornadoes start here and then they move other places. So the wind was so violent it blew off the siding. And then because it was a new build home, it had a warranty on it. So I can submit that. And they get to decide if they think it's worth fixing on their end. So the guy came and I was like, hey. Like I actually found this like piece, I think, of the puzzle of siding in the yard. It's in the living room. Can you come get it? I'm like, this guy thinks I'm a freak. There's no freak.

[Corey]

They're just cats. But wait, I'm trying to remember back.

[Heather]

We were just up there, me and my son.

[Corey]

You do have chairs at the little countertop. Correct.

[Heather]

Mom gave me those and I bought one from the Walmart. My mom's like, this is funny. What all of you guys are doing is like, hey, I don't want this anymore, but you could use it. I don't care what you do after you get something to replace it, but just keep it for now.

[Corey]

Yeah, just keep it for now.

[Heather]

Corey had this TV that we actually take to our cookie classes. Yeah. And she was like, I don't Use it. You can use it. But she lost the controller. So I'm so sorry.

[Corey]

I got too organized and I've organized it from my.

[Heather]

So I got the universal remote off Amazon and now we've been. Me and the cats have been watching. It's nice Betty Broderick documentary called a

[Corey]

woman's Porn but a tv. A little nice.

[Heather]

A little nice. Just a little reference point. That's why I moved the chair down there so now the cat, you and

[Corey]

the cat could sit together.

[Heather]

We did not sit together. We sat on individual chairs. Pete sat with me much because we didn't want anything to do with me.

[Corey]

If you are wondering what this podcast about. No, it's not Homeownership 101.

[Heather]

Believe me, you wouldn't want to take a class. It's not interior design, let me tell you.

[Corey]

It is about baking and marketing your bakery and we are niche down because this is what I like to do best to sugar cookies. So that's why it's called baking it down with Sugar Cookie Marketing. We're a group that's on Facebook. If you haven't joined, please do just answer the questions. We will get you in. But it's a great way. If you started this podcast from five years ago when we first started and listen to this day, you you'd have a very efficiently well run business with no blind spots. We have overly talked about the same topics ad nauseam.

[Heather]

I'll say this though, I'll say this. As somebody who follows podcasts for a while, right. Mostly I find them when they're already successful so I go back and binge. Yeah. Then I do follow the follow along. If suddenly these podcasters stopped, I feel like I lost a little something.

[Corey]

You know, it's not just that we regurgitate the same concepts each week. It's also that they know your sighting

[Heather]

blew off and you live in a windy part of West Virginia.

[Corey]

Like they've gotten to know you just a little bit better.

[Heather]

Give me a parasocial relationship and sick of forking me. I'm happy.

[Corey]

I love my parasocial relationships. Relationship with me And Paige on TikTok.

[Heather]

She doesn't know.

[Corey]

I'll watch every single video she ever, ever does.

[Heather]

She's just a teacher. She's a teacher in North Carolina. I found her a couple years ago. Stop posting.

[Corey]

Oh, would she? She did get into a relationship and stopped posting at the beginning of the year. And I said she's gone.

[Heather]

We're gonna need you two to break up. We need more. Yeah, it's something about creating a relationship with somebody who doesn't know exists. But then you start chuckling about their inside jokes, and you're like, oh, I got that reference. And you're like, oh, no, it's me. I'm in a parasocial relationship. Okay?

[Corey]

I like them.

[Heather]

I like mine.

[Corey]

And anyone who listens to us, I am in a relationship with you. I hope you know we're sisters. You're one of my extended family members. I will see you at the family reunion come July.

[Heather]

We don't do family reunions, but, yes,

[Corey]

we're doing one now. I got many sisters and brothers that are listening.

[Heather]

Oh, yeah. Thanks. Family reunion. So today's podcast is called Business Weeding. And yes, it does have to do with homeownership, because I was weeding the yard. When you buy these, like, cookie cutter homes that they just throw up in two minutes. Cause they're building the one next to me. They are not. They're just slapping sod on clay. Like, I've been trying to get the water to grow. It's not rained at all here.

[Corey]

Get the water to grow. Paid for all the water for a tooth.

[Heather]

If I can get water to grow, I do that because it's costing me a fortune. I got an email from the water company, and it was like, warning, warning. We have not detected a leak, but a massive amount of water is flowing through the airpods. I want to tell you, you gotta experience a few high bills, and then you'll.

[Corey]

You'll taper that water, right?

[Heather]

I got on landscaping Reddit, and they were like, you have to just swallow the cost if you want the sod to take. But the cost of replacing sod is much higher.

[Corey]

Yeah, sod gone. Just me. I'm. I'm a hand grower of my grass seed.

[Heather]

I hand plant.

[Corey]

I'm not sure what you guys call that.

[Heather]

The sod squares where the side square goes like. I'm like, square up sauce. The neighbors. I met my neighbors, and they're very nice, but they're like, you.

[Corey]

You water a lot.

[Heather]

And I'm like. And you don't water at all. It's. So does it? Yeah, I watched him. His name is Francis. He, like, did this with the water hose, like. And I was like, brother. No, like, brother, we're out.

[Corey]

I did talk to my lawn guy. I get it. Aerated something you'll have to do.

[Heather]

I'm so sorry. You went from hand clipping scissors.

[Corey]

I don't have an aerator. I actually used to hand aerate. Do you Know how long that takes to poke holes?

[Heather]

Oh, I was thinking about it. The manual aerator.

[Corey]

I did it with a poke like it was a poker.

[Heather]

Did it. How long did it take? You have like a two by two. No.

[Corey]

Yeah, but it still took a long time. So that when I said to the next year, that took way too long. I'll hire the guy to do the aeration.

[Heather]

Do you think it did something good?

[Corey]

Oh, yeah, my grass looks great.

[Heather]

Oh, shoot.

[Corey]

I did it last last year and this year the grass looks great.

[Heather]

I bought this on Amazon. I only need to use it once, but, you know, I like the little divots between the yard and like the cement the sidewalk.

[Corey]

Yes, I got that.

[Heather]

And I was pressing back. I was creating a little.

[Corey]

A little. I have one of those.

[Heather]

You should have asked. I bought a dad's and then I. But I had bought one. I didn't realize he brought one. Oh, that's so funny.

[Corey]

Yeah, a little edger. Well edgy. But I want to say what he said is when you're watering your grass, you want it to puddle up so you can see the water amongst the grass.

[Heather]

I was, I took your advice and I let it puddle. And I said like everyone keeps saying, just water a lot. And I said, like how that. That means to me, watering a lot

[Corey]

is what your neighbor did. You did a little spray?

[Heather]

Yeah. Someone said on Reddit, take a empty tin can for like. Yes. What do you call it? Tuna. Yeah, empty tuna can. Put it outside and then measure out how many millimeters in that watering time. And that'll tell you the exact amount that you're actually watering. Yes. And then compare it from there. Okay, whatever. He said the business. Oh, so sorry.

[Corey]

Go ahead, go ahead.

[Heather]

My bad. No, no, he said, he said when

[Corey]

it puddles on top, that means the ground is super saturated and that's how you know it can't take any more water. So that's why you want to look for the little puddles, because it'll continue sucking it down, but you won't over water and you won't underwater.

[Heather]

That was his thing. Good to know. Well, actually, the today's podcast is on landscaping, your business called business weeding. So I was weeding outside and I had noticed the weeds coming in a couple weeks ago, maybe two weeks. And I said, I'll get to those. And then I got to those. I was letting the cats play outside, which was like herding cats means something. It means it's hard to do. Right. So I was herding cats and then I was also weeding, which got impossible. I had to throw them inside. The weeds that I'd seen two weeks ago have taken root, and they were actually really hard to get out without destroying the plants around them. Yeah. And the grass will happen. Yeah. And I was doing this, like, twisty maneuver to see if I can get the roots to release, because everything on the Internet's like, if you don't get

[Corey]

the roots, you created a bigger problem.

[Heather]

So I was trying to get these roots. It was disappointing when the roots didn't come, and I just snapped it because I'll never find the base when the weeds. So the weeds are now having weed babies. When I went to the weed baby and he was little, he was so easy to pull out, root and all. Like, the entire thing was like, boop. Like, but the bigger weed that had gained some footing and some ground, literally, yeah, he was harder to pull out. So I was thinking while I was doing this, I said this would be such a dumb podcast topic, but it makes so much sense, is when you do not pick weeds early, you have a major weed problem later.

[Corey]

I love a metaphorical podcast.

[Heather]

Are you kidding me? Okay, well, great, because Corey found today's podcast quote, which I thought was hilarious. It said, give a weed an inch, and it will take a yard. Do you get it? Double on it. Just a tiny little yard.

[Corey]

It's a measurement.

[Heather]

It is also your yard. So before we jump in with sugar cookie marketing, I was just updating the website. So sugarcookiemarketing.com is where you can find a lot of the resources. We talk about things. I want to talk about what's coming. The main street may Collab. We have 50 people signed up for that one. That one's one of our harder collabs. But it also is the biggest bang for the buck. Tends to be how life works. The harder it is, the better it pays off. The video how to record cookie videos. Bootcamp is coming. We just wrapped up the 3D printing bootcamp. We'll talk about that in a minute. And the cherry cookie class kit dropped last week, and Corey's already working on the next class kit, which is Summerween. Summerween. If you saw my countdowns, Corey said, hey, listen, we're tired of your countdowns. We've been doing for five years, change them up. So they're including what the group has coming, what the cookie college has coming, and the upcoming holidays. So I retooled that this week so you can kind of see when these, like, collabs are coming. Because they're free to participate in the

[Corey]

biggest thing we heard when the collabs come. I didn't know this was happening. So I said, we gotta, we gotta tell them. High, low, west, north, south, east. Tell them all the time.

[Heather]

I'm gonna tell you what. If you think your marketing is annoying people, it's not. They're not seeing it.

[Corey]

They are not seeing it. And that's something even that you're like, wow, I see the twins post every single day. Not everybody does. And people will always say, I didn't

[Heather]

know this was a thing.

[Corey]

I didn't know that was going down. If I only knew.

[Heather]

And that's the vending bunny teaches us one thing. It's half the people are like, you guys never shut up about it. And the other half are. Is what is the vending bunny. So. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So moving on to today's topic of weeding out bad behavior. So kind of behaviors things that you're doing today that seem innocent, but when the weed takes root, it actually is harder to get rid of than if you just stop it early. So I'm gonna tell you what the bakers in front of you have learned the hard way. So if you're new to baking or you're just getting started or you a long break in your back, weed this out. Now, why the little weed root is easy to get because when it takes root and it's really deep in there, it's going to be such a bigger pain. Social media commenting is the first one. How you commented years ago can affect you today. Group comments and posts Follow the group profile. Posts last forever. If you write it online, think of how it'll sound if read in court. It's not going to be read in court, but if you think about that when you go to post that thing or say it that way, you might rephrase it or completely say, you know what, it's not worth it for the reputation of my business.

[Corey]

Yeah, a lot of these people, me and Heather included, have been on social media. And I like to see when you try to join the group, it tells me how long you've been on social media. A lot of people have been on Facebook since 2009.

[Heather]

My original profile. 2009. This one. Yeah. I do a. I do a bit of like, I do a bit of a porridge with my own profile. Delete the whole thing and disappear this one. This one second profile.

[Corey]

So in mine, I got booted for smelling gardening.

[Heather]

Ho.

[Corey]

Back on topic, back on topic.

[Heather]

Real quick recap. Corey wrote to somebody. Ho did you meet your husband? It was in the sugar cookie marketing group and it was about four years ago. And Facebook said, what did you just call me? And Corey got to spend it for 30 days. It actually took a lot of my abilities away as well because I think it looks like we're a duplicate profile. Yeah.

[Corey]

So I had to create a new one. So this one is four years old. I just had my celebration of life. The other one's still out there. If you friend her, she will not respond. I have no access.

[Heather]

Heather and Corey America. I was like, yeah, that's not her. She's Mira.

[Corey]

When you are like, let's say if you are new to this world and you're still thinking of it as a hobby or you had a business at one point, close it down and you're coming back. What you don't know is you have a whole paper trail behind you. Everything you've posted, everything you commented on. If I search your name just for funsies, it'll pull up things that you've been tagged in, things you've commented on. And what I can see there is I can build a personal profile in my brain of who you are as a person. If you like Internet drama and you like mudslinging in the comment section, it's going to pull that up. And that's something that if you let it grow, if you let the weeds grow, if you never police yourself on social media can come to bite you in the buns.

[Heather]

I'll say that as Facebook groups are being appreciated on Facebook, not depreciated. So they're growing, they're giving us more tools. It's also bringing a lot more of my ability to see what the group member is potentially going to do and what they've done. So now when you request to join a group, I can see all the groups you're in, I can see how long you're on Facebook. I can see where you live and where any mutuals and things like that, I can see if you have friends who are already in the group. Right. So it seems like the reputation management on Facebook is increasingly becoming more transparent to give group admins more of a visibility of what your likely actions will be.

[Corey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Heather]

When Facebook first came around, it was like, oh, it's whatever. Nobody can see.

[Corey]

Yeah. And now it's like when I had

[Heather]

profile since the rebrand, they did some tweaking with profiles. I can see how many times you've posted to your own page, your own profile, ever since, ever. So that track record is still there. It's still there.

[Corey]

So it's so funny. Now AI is pulling up things about people. If I see a post online, if I search myself, like I looked at my marketplace, my Facebook marketplace profile, and AI is like, do you want us to give you a synopsis of Corey?

[Heather]

And I said, yeah, sure.

[Corey]

It was like, she likes to sell home.

[Heather]

Home stuff. No way. Yeah, it's.

[Corey]

She likes to home stuff. She's posted just a few times on her personal profile. It still is pretty active. She's posted in the last few months.

[Heather]

Reputation management. I'll say this, this would be brazen, I guess. You tell me if it's a bad take. If you have a history of violence, mudslinging, attacks and assaults on Facebook, it might be worth it to create a new profile which would violate the terms of service. You'd almost have to delete the old one. But then you have the other battle of creating that profile to look genuine because you've got to build it back up again.

[Corey]

I always say to me and Heather, what's the end goal? My end goal on social media? Honestly, I, I wouldn't be on social media if I wasn't a business on social media. I'm trying to make more cookie sales. So you'll see on my personal profile, while it is got some personal things

[Heather]

on there, it's not much.

[Corey]

It's always trying to tie it back to cookies in some form or fashion. My work history, it says cookies. My website, it's my cookie website. My banner image says something about cookies. Because my goal is to make more money on social media through cookie orders.

[Heather]

You know what? I don't see Corey ever arguing in a community group, I never see there.

[Corey]

No, you won't see it because not the fact that even if I separated myself from and I took that my bakery off of my work history, I changed my banner image and I hid all the. The shares of my cookies from that. Just them being able to search. Corey will see a comment in a Facebook group where I tagged my company because someone was looking for a local baker. Like it's not that hard to connect the two and people are doing it all the time. If you get in a argument with somebody and they have the time in their day and they have you in their sights, that is a recipe for a weed disaster.

[Heather]

So weed it out now. Self correct your behavior on Facebook. One of the biggest perpetrators of this issue. And I always get that email saying, hey Heather, I've got a problem. I got into a political argument in a group and now they've taken it and they're running through and. And I think people have this like thing. Well, you know, I'm going to say something here. I'm going to stand up for something. When you have a business, when you have a business that gets a prime a majority of its leads from Facebook, you do not have the same platform as somebody with nothing to lose.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

And I find myself like if I want to, if I wanted to comment something that maybe was just an alternative opinion, just someone said, you know, I hate this, this business and I want to be. I like clap back and be like, have you even gone there? So and so is great. Like I even find myself hesitating getting in a fight with somebody just because we don't know how much time they have on their hands. If they belong to bigger groups that they can showcase. And this is where bakers. I've seen it happen where they posted something political in a small group and somebody's taken that to a larger group and then that larger group has on slotted their business page.

[Heather]

We were talking about this with my little sister. And so I'm not sure if it's as prevalent. If you guys don't realize it, but these nicknames and Anonymous, the nickname profiles, the admin can always see who you are. There's no anonymity. There's no true anonymity. So my little sister's like, oh, I didn't realize. With a nickname it actually creates a nickname profile for you in the group. So you can actually scroll back and see what that person's done in the group as a nickname. So if you wouldn't say it, if you wouldn't say it with your mama there and a lawyer and a judge, don't write it if you have something to lose. Which you. If you're listening to this, you have a business. I see people try to do this where they remove everything about their business from their Facebook profile. It is still impossible to separate the two.

[Corey]

It is. And it's just a quick search. We'll pull up that like a comment you made on a post and then I can scroll through the comments and see where you tagged your business. Like it's. They're. They're there. It is intertwined regardless. If you think like you've like hidden it then. So if you wanted to. Your weed right now. Pick your little weeds before. If you're like, I really want to start marketing more on social media. Here's your weed picking. Your baby weed picking is to go back through the Groups search your name in that group and then go delete those comments. If you're like against deleting your whole profile, just go in where you mudslung a little bit where you were maybe a little off.

[Heather]

Delete those.

[Corey]

Just remove them from the surface of the Internet. The post is probably done, been gone, buried and you're not, you're not missing

[Heather]

out on anything there. Don't leave a group and then rejoin thinking that'll clean it up. The pro the comments in the the post still follow. The posts follow forever. The comments follow for 30 days. However, the comments can always be dredged up when you do search. Especially with groups switching from private to public which is an insane.

[Corey]

Oh, and now all these groups that I'm in are switching to public.

[Heather]

I hate it. Yeah, point number two, mishandling order intake, no paper trail. When you take orders haphazardly, which you would start doing to get to secure the orders early. When you're getting started. The small weed there's no single reference point like an inbox where you can organize that order. You'll forget an order. It's not if it's when. So I saw somebody yesterday and they were like hey, I took an order. I took it where I wouldn't, shouldn't have. I really wanted to do the order and I forgot a bunch of details and now we got a problem. So yeah, small weed is. Well I need orders so I'm going to take any of them anywhere that creates the big weed of but I forgot one. I'm about to get a bad review. What should I do?

[Corey]

Yeah, I, I want to say and I've been where this person is that you're a baker. You're really trying to market your business. You don't have a ton of leads coming in so you don't feel overwhelmed in the moment to take via text. Your friend at church might have mentioned some. You got a DM on Facebook and you're like, no, I can handle this. It isn't so bad. As your business grows and as your number gets out into the world and as people DM you more and more, that's when it becomes the issue. That's where your weed actually grows and becomes overwhelming. You start forgetting things because you're doing the work, you're marketing, you're getting business out there. You're going to make more business, you're going to get more business. And that's the issue is when you are overwhelmed. When you were at, you know, your kids soccer game, someone DM'd you cuz they wanted to change the name on the cookie and you totally forgot because you were busy. That's why. Having one specific place where they can and Heather has covered this in the forms course we did on the pre sale course is a great way for you to stay organized so you don't have that issue.

[Heather]

Yeah. Even those comments you used to make in a Facebook group. I hate making posts and Facebook groups. I don't want people to be a man to me. And if the admins are absent, people tend to find a way to be snarky even for the most benign of questions. Yes. So what I'll do is I'll search the group to find the referrals for a post I don't want to make. Right. So if some, if I'm like, oh, I want to hire a sugar cookie baker, I'll search the group, find a thread where somebody else asks a question and look there. And if you initially started by telling people, hey, just send me a message on my personal profile and we can handle it, I'd go back and almost edit that comment or delete it completely as well. If you have time on your hands to burn.

[Corey]

A great thing that I've started doing in the last couple of years is on my notes app. I have a whole notes app and it'll be a long form sales post, short form sales post, personal sales post, comment sales post. And that allows me to copy and paste the information that someone would need if they wanted to make an order which always starts on my website. So I can have that there just ready to go. So I'm never leaving it out, never saying DM me for more info because I'm busy. Like maybe I'm in the school pickup line. My son's talking to me.

[Heather]

He doesn't talk much so it shouldn't happen.

[Corey]

Yeah. So if he is talking, I will have to listen.

[Heather]

On Android users. Android user here you can create. They're called text shortcuts and I'll make them with a long form text. So I always make it. So if it has a. Like when somebody says how can I switch my plan within the cookie College? I type CCC H A N G E. So change with three Cs. And when I know it has the three Cs it triggers that texture cut that explains to them exactly how to do it. So you can set, you can set those up in your settings. I do address A, aa, DDR, E S S and it triggers my address so I don't have to type it out. All the time. Interesting.

[Corey]

Yeah. So that's a great way. What you don't want to do is say yes to every form or fashion to take a lead. And it feels natural to do that because you're like, I'm just glad someone wants to buy from me. What you want to do is make it one. It's going to be easier on the end user. It's a more professional experience on their ends. If messenger goes down, which we did discover that a couple years ago, Facebook went down for about eight hours. People could not access the information. And just having it in a spot that you can reference back is a great way. A paper trail. So you know that they had the name change, you know that the color scheme, you know that they wanted this cookie that they didn't want originally. So that is a great way.

[Heather]

Something also I like with the paper trail is that if you're forcing him into definitely a website, or let's say you got really good and you're dialed in on a CRM is you can see when somebody returns. If you. If you're used to taking those through messenger. One messenger is always glitchy and never works. But let's say somebody returns and they return to a different avenue. If you originally took it through messenger, it's going to be next to impossible. Unless you have a phenomenal memory to recall their first order and see that they are a recurring client and have rapport with them.

[Corey]

Yeah. Or you do. Or you're like, you know, you don't have a good memory, so you keep the old chats. But then you lose a chat that you actually needed and you can't find it because you baked for 20 Sarahs in the last five years and you're like. Then I see the bakers go to their Facebook page and they're like, if your name is Sarah, I don't have a last name. You have an order on the books for your 4 year old.

[Heather]

I'm going to sneeze, so please take over. I love that we're going to let her sneeze, but you have to sneeze when you quiet it. I think Zoom muted you, but it was there. She sneezed. Guys, who we made Zoom's ability to edit out, like surround noise. It's pretty impressive, Miss. Okay, point three, pricing to make the sale. This is a small weed that makes a ton of sense until it becomes a big bad weed. So it says this breeds bad client behavior and really awkward conversations. You start off incredibly low, but when the client returns expecting the same Magically low price. You sticker shock them. This makes a ton of sense as to why we initially start this way because a couple reasons. Our skill set's lower, so our price should be lower. Right. Our, our hourly rate is lower, so it's able to translate to a lower price. But oftentimes the intention is to price so low that you undercut the next guy to secure the lead.

[Corey]

When me and Heather first entered this industry, I do say I'm going to pat you on the back here.

[Heather]

Pat myself.

[Corey]

The biggest thing that we saw in cookie groups before sugar cookie marketing existed was people said, look around and find the lowest priced Baker and $1 less

[Heather]

because you are new. It was a lot of the reason. Because you're new, you should be the lowest. I disagree. Your prices are set by ingredients cost and labor cost. However, your labor cost is lower because you're not as skilled. Yes.

[Corey]

So a lot of people price all over the planet up, down, high because they don't know the cost of ingredients or the time. So they're actually pricing not for the health of their business, but for the chance at a sale. And I'm going to tell you, there's nothing that's going to close you up faster or lead to burnout than just pricing for an idea that maybe potentially would result in a sale versus pricing for profit.

[Heather]

Right. Because initially, kind of when we started this, that mantra of find the cheapest and charge lower, less. The issue is you're actually working at a loss per sale, which will put you in financial ruin faster than an ant in your. Oh, macaron Joe.

[Corey]

It's a, it's a race to the bottom. Especially if we see, you know, it's natural that people who maybe are stay at home moms would start a bakery business because they're naturally at home. So it makes sense that to tell everyone to always price lower than the person next to you, we are then going to get to $10 a dozen and we are going to hate this and we're going to quit.

[Heather]

Yeah. Oh, the, the market, the invisible hand. The market will always self correct that because the person will be like, I'm not making any money and this is costing me time and angst. Also, when you're the lowest price, you do more leads because who doesn't want the best baker at the lowest price? Right. So you get those types of leads that are like, I'm not here for a good time, I'm here for a long time. I'm going to make your life hell because I want to make sure my $10 is spent. There's a different type of lead. You remember I told you my friend Mike who works in it, they provide server infrastructure for medium to small to medium sized businesses. And he said, it's funny, the company paying us 15,000amonth is so much easier to work with than the company paying us 1500amonth. The 1500 is a big portion of that company's budget. The company with margin, the 15,000. We're just here to make problems go away.

[Corey]

Yeah. And I want you to know that if you get someone at a lower price point just to make the sale and then they stick with you and you raise the price on them and they're willing to stick with you, the amount of pressure you will feel from them is so much higher. Because what was $10 and now is $20, that means it's twice as big a deal on there. And because you raised your prices where they saw maybe the value at $10, they're not seeing the value at $20.

[Heather]

So.

[Corey]

So they become a nightmare client. And me and Heather washrooms repeat, we've done that many times in our marketing company. We're like, well, we'll give them extra stuff for a lower price because it'll make them happy. No, it makes them demanding.

[Heather]

It all always bites me in the bun cheeks. It never was like a great strategy. Not one time. It never, I was like, that was good. That was a good thing we did there. That really paid off in the long run. I lived for for six years directly next to the Wegmans. It was my closest neighbor. And then for the four years prior, I lived within driving distance of two minutes. So I saw Wegmans, had these, this salad, I loved it. It was just a regular salad and it had the little balls of cheese. What are those called?

[Corey]

Mozzarella balls.

[Heather]

Mozzarella balls. And then I had pine nuts, which I know people with allergies are screaming right now. Apparently that's like the most allergy laden nut. Anyways, I really like the salad. It was $4, it was delectable and it had like a vinaigrette. I would go and get it all the time. Over the 10 years, this salad doubled in price. So it went up to eight, to the point where I think it was finally at over double digits, over ten. But I had known it to be a four dollar salad. Yeah, I'd fallen in love with it as a four dollar salad. To see it reach the double digits. Having known what it was originally costed at, I never bought it Again. So.

[Corey]

Yeah, because the value was no longer.

[Heather]

You look so different with now glasses on. I don't think I ever see without glasses on. You look like me. Yeah. Because. Because I'd fallen in love with it at a cheap price. When it raised, all I could see was the injustice of the price. Not that it had actually become an. A barely priced salad. I saw it as an overpriced salad. So what she's.

[Corey]

How you would translate it is you get the customer at $10 a dozen. You know, they're not super picky, but you raise your prices because your, your business can't constitute $10 a dozen. Unfortunately, what they no longer in the $20.

[Heather]

They're not growing with you. They're not like, you know what? I did get a steal from you before. You deserve this. Some people, but the large majority of people, it's really hard to break away from price anchoring.

[Corey]

Yeah. Yeah. It really isn't. And we actually had.

[Heather]

There was a lady in the sugar

[Corey]

cookie marketing group who had posted that she raised her prices and that she is seeing a decline in her orders and she's wondering should she go back to the lower price. The thing is you've grown your audience off the lower price. So when you just raise the prices and there isn't necessarily the value for like, hey, and I'm using vanilla bean paste now. And here's the price of vanilla bean paste. And that's why if you're raising it because your skills have gotten better, it's hard for the person who paid less to be like, I can justify that and pay more. So you'll see a fall off from people who can't justify that price increase. Heather at the Wegmans. But then what Wegmans is focused on is no longer Heather. Heather is not their ideal client. Wegman's job is to market to a new clientele who wants a fresh salad at $10.

[Heather]

Let me tell you guys, it ain't worth it. It was like it should have been more than $4. But I can't, I cannot help myself. Yeah.

[Corey]

So you do yourself a disservice trying to make the sale just out under the, you know, the floor of other bakers around you. At the end of the day, run your business however you want, run it into the ground for all I care. But what you want to do is if you want to do this long term is know your pricing, price it fair to yourself and fair to your customers so you don't have to pull out the rug from under them when you realize you've. You've priced just for sales and not for profit.

[Heather]

Your lower price. Your price should be lower if you're new because your labor costs are lower. And you may think, but, Heather, it's taking me just as much time. Yeah, but your skill set is less so. The same way you would hire a really seasoned carpenter or a carpenter handyman who got started yesterday. Their labor rates are going to be different, even though it may take the same amount of time. This guy is new. This guy is skilled. Right. And he will be skilled one day. That's where your prices would differ. But I think a lot of times we're just saying, let me charge the lease. Forget what all the rates are. Corey, we. We have a zoom meeting before this meeting so we can prep for the podcast. Corey started off with that. Her driver insurance. Who is it again? By Progressive. Progressive lowered her rate, which rarely happens. She was ecstatic. She just did all the math. She saves this much money a year. It's so fantastic. She was going to switch. Here's a change. What's going to happen is Progressive is going to raise her rate again, but she is not going to be like, oh, this is what it was. She's going to say, that's not fair. I didn't do anything wrong.

[Corey]

Yeah. Yes.

[Heather]

Even though she was fine with paying this price, they'd given her a discount. She's ecstatic. They're going to raise it again.

[Corey]

As if they raise it again, I will be more dissatisfied. Well, you know, when I did get the chip in my windshield, it was a hassle to get someone out to fix it. I'm gonna not say, wow, you know what? They actually.

[Heather]

They were really fair to me when they lowered price.

[Corey]

No, that's not how it works. And people are people, and that's how we work. Especially if there's no. I'm not, you know, cousins with Mr. Progressive. I'm not going to be like, well, you know, I really want the best for Mr. Progressive. Progressive. I'm just a number to it. It's just a number to me. So when the value doesn't equal how much I'm paying, you're going to see me go to Elephant Insurance and try something. Or Liberty Biberty and try to find something a little cheaper on Reddit one

[Heather]

it was, I'm gonna slaughter her Instagram. Hannah. Atlanta bakes ETL bakes, which in my head is Atlanta. She was a Liberty Memory cookie maker and she heard the podcast and she's like, it's so funny. I know I did those. So she went and found the ad. It's a emu. Emu. Emu Emu. The I saw on Reddit or maybe it was on TikTok, I don't know where it's Instagram. And it was like no one has committed to an unfunnier bit than liberty. Someone said. Someone said Geico in the comments section. It was just a picture of the. What is he, the gecko? Yeah. If you go back to the original Geico Gecko commercials, he didn't know how to speak. It was just a confusion that they thought Geico was spelled Gecko. Now he's like this eloquent speaker. Someone says get go at the beginning.

[Corey]

Why do insurance company market so hard

[Heather]

when it's something we're required to have? Who's the one? And I saw the rest of the comments on that video. The one with the like mayhem like me. Oh, yes. What is he?

[Corey]

You know, he actually came from.

[Heather]

Yeah, he's an extra guy in everything ever made.

[Corey]

That's crazy that you only remember him and not who he is actually promoting. Yeah.

[Heather]

How about Are we. Are you in good hands? Dude?

[Corey]

Isn't that guy who's also.

[Heather]

He's in other things too, but it's all state. And then you got the one. The Progressive girl. The. Yes.

[Corey]

I. I saw her little docu series about like how she hated progressive and

[Heather]

I was like, yeah, same. Ditto. Okay, so pricing to make the sale point for boundary setting. Not setting boundaries is actually giving people private permission. And this is something I'm. I gotta get rid of the cat that you are banished. Goodbye.

[Corey]

Boundaries in your business are so important. And when you're starting out in your business or you feel a lull in your sales come coming J. Months are approaching. You're going to say, let me bend my boundaries to make a sale to, you know, accommodate this person so they're more apt to buy from me. I want to tell you the. The little weed with the short little root system that's easy to correct, you can create some nightmare clients.

[Heather]

Ask me how I know this is what. So not setting a boundary is actually giving a private permission. This is what I keep having to tell myself. I had an issue with these two cats. Okay. I'm. I'm. I'm not the best cat owner. So I did get to. And I like to call it the AI So I sound like a boomer. I got to the AI and I was like, hey, I'm having this issue. And it was like when your big cat Meows stop responding immediately. Yeah. And I'm like. But that means I was like, no, no. You've just trained the cat that meowing gets something from you. Yeah. So it's like, not so it's like, when you do that, you're saying yes, but when you don't do that, you're saying no. So in my mind, not saying no. Like, I'll be like, they'll know that it's a no. Right? They'll. No, no. They just email twice as hard. So not. Not setting a boundary is setting a boundary in the other direction. Right. So not saying no is saying yes.

[Corey]

You're. You're all. You're changing. You're like, no, I'm not bending my mouth. You've made a nude bad boundary for yourself.

[Heather]

The cat meows at the garage door constantly. And now he has at the front door because he likes to go outside. He does not get any quieter when I don't get up, he doubles his volume. Yeah.

[Corey]

But you would think, like, I'll just know. Heather has trained him. And we train our clients with how we treat them, what we allow them to do.

[Heather]

Right.

[Corey]

It was so funny. Someone asked for custom cookies and they messaged my business page. My business page has an autoresponder that says, you want to make an order. Blah. But in the comments of the group, when I commented to Tour, I said, just email me at blah. That's how I can take your. That's how I can keep myself organized. She bypassed that and just went to my messenger. And in the messenger, I had to say, hey, just a quick reminder, just email me. And she's probably like, you crazy old. You're here.

[Heather]

Just quote me now.

[Corey]

But it wasn't. That's not. The boundary is to keep both of us safe. So I don't forget her order, because that's not typically where I take orders. But also, she can follow through. If you do want the cookies, it's just email away.

[Heather]

Yeah. So one thing in my head, this is how my brain works. Like, surely the cat sufficed that we went out already once a day, so he'll respect my. No, no. He was twice as frustrated we didn't go out again. So I think sometimes you're like, if I do you a favor, you'll remember that when I say, no, absolutely not. That's not how the brain works.

[Corey]

Here's a thing that I've done with my dog. My dog turned 10 last week, so we've been through it for a decade now. I used to bring Him a piece of cheese at the end of the night before I went to bed.

[Heather]

But then toys created her own hill.

[Corey]

Yeah. He started expecting it. So he wouldn't go to bed. He would look at me until he got a piece of cheese. So now it's a variable reward system. Sometimes I come up with cheese, sometimes I don't. Now he can't expect it. He doesn't know when he's getting it. So if you can't just do the hard cold, like cold. No.

[Heather]

You could do the variable reward that sometimes he meows against it, sometimes he doesn't. That creates an addict.

[Corey]

That's my dog is addicted to me.

[Heather]

They say, and I love the rat in a trap. They put a rat in a trap with a. It was in a what, A bin or whatever cage. And they had a lever and one rat. When he hit the lever, a tree would come out. One rat. When he hit the lever, nothing would happen. And one rat when he hit the lever was intermittent reinforcement of a variable reward system where it would come out. Sometimes the first rat, who always got the treat, only hit the lever when he was hungry. The second rat, who did not get anything, stopped hitting the lever, like, nearly immediately. And the variable reward rat went a hundred times more than the other two. Yeah, that's my dog. That's my dog in a picture. Piece of cheese. I went to K the other day, and the dog's like, are you a weak link as well? Absolutely I am. Come right on here. Don't say please.

[Corey]

I trained him how to say please with a whisper. So it's honestly him just opening his mouth and he looks like he's going to bite you, but it's him saying please. And if you say, say please, he will say please in a whisper.

[Heather]

He just closes his mouth real fast. That's all it. It's like.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

So you're like. He looks like he's. He's hungry or eating something. There's nothing in his mouth.

[Corey]

He's saying please. So you can say, say please and I'll say please. But now he just says, say please to anybody.

[Heather]

He'll. He'll please anybody.

[Corey]

If you.

[Heather]

If you look at him long enough, he's like, let me just shut my mouth real quick. See if something. Let me try please on this person. I go in there, I'm like, oh, yeah. He said please. I didn't even ask. Here's a treat. So again, that's an easy weed to pluck when it's little, but. And that's why we come to it so often is because a lot of the complex issues asked in Sugar Cookie Marketing Group regarding client relations were born from a boundary not set years ago. And.

[Corey]

And I would tell you, you never, at the beginning, years ago, say, this is going to bite me in the butt later. No, it feels natural and it feels good. I'm being accommodating to this client, so they're going to buy from me and they're going to recommend me to other people. That's so natural, I can't even fault you for it. The problem is, is the years down the road where you're like, I'm kind of hating this customer and they've been here since and I don't know how

[Heather]

to break up with them, right? It's. I have to keep telling myself, I said this. These cats just meowing, meowing, meowing, because they're upset because I've changed my consistency habits with them. And I had to say out loud, saying yes is actually the most disrespectful thing to do here because I'm gonna hate them and then they're gonna be frustrated with me. So saying no is the best thing for all the parties involved. We'll all have a better experience if there's a boundary that's clearly communicated versus no boundary that's communicated. And you hate me behind my back. I would hate to be the client where people roll their eyes before I get there. Like, you give me what I want, but you hate to see me coming and then you love to watch me leave.

[Corey]

Yeah, it's so funny. As a mom of one and me and you being twins, I always wondered what twindom would be like. And you are now a mom of two cats. And I can see you are growing resentful to the louder one.

[Heather]

What I did. Okay, the Jackson Galaxy Method's going to be my twintress, but I'll talk about it then. But I separated the two cats this week and they're meowing at their respective doors, right? They have plenty of toys and food and sustenance. They just want to be where they should. But I said, I'm the boss and what's respectful is drawing the lines and the boundary and knowing that, oh, you get time out, you get time in. And it caused me a lot more peace. It did. I'm day two.

[Corey]

You even said you had to go to a Thai restaurant to escape your cats on Sunday.

[Heather]

The Jackson Galaxy Method started Monday. Yeah, I said Sunday. Yeah, Monday. We gotta change something because I'm not having a good time. I Even asked Corey like, do you want to count? Yeah. She, Heather is like, hey, which one,

[Corey]

which one do you think is cuter?

[Heather]

Wow. Archer picked the one that's the biggest problem. I know. 0.5. I actually saw this asked about in a different variation yesterday in the sugar cookie marketing group, but it was friends and family discount discounting for friends and family early on, without communicating that is. Is that it's a discount. You gotta communicate that. Or giving your friends and family orders for free can create long term expectations and underpricing for cookies when you finally feel justified in charging the appropriate amount if it can be seen as greedy. Yeah, yeah.

[Corey]

It, it, it's so common. Your friends and family do want to be your biggest supporter. But when there are friends and family, us as bakers, we'll be like, wow, thanks for supporting me. Here's a discount. Or I'll bake it for free. Or I'll bring this to the event. I was already going to it it. And then you are in a hostage situation. Especially with people with big families, a lot of extended family members around them, they might not know what goes into cookie baking. They're not around you all the time. So for them to assume that you can bring 24 cookies in short notice to their kids baptism, it's going to make you resent your family.

[Heather]

Corey has created this issue for herself, whether or not she realizes it. Initially you would take family's orders first and move them up front and then you would never ask for money. Which ended up. They all came to me and said, what should I pay like? And I was like, well, here's what the rate is. And they're like, oh, that's so much more expensive. I wouldn't have ordered that many. I'm like, listen, she didn't charge you. So now you guys got an awkward set. You guys have to talk about it. My nephew, my nephew, my cousin does it when he details cars. Kim and Corey will have this. Like, they'll come to me, how much do you think I should pay? Should I tip? How much do you think I should charge her? I was like, you guys should have said this before this happened. Now you guys always come to me with weird questions.

[Corey]

Now what do you mean? Because Heather has moved out since, he'll be like, does this sound good? And I was like, only if I can tip this much on top of it.

[Heather]

What I would say, what I would do is if you want to do your friends and family a solid instead of ever doing anything for free or moving to the front of the line say that guys. Absolutely. Book through my booking system. It helps me stay on top of this. I don't want to let your order fall through the cracks at all. But I always say friends and family, 15% discount. That's my gift to you guys. So that way you have a set expectation. Yeah, that's a percentage discount. They feel like they got something. They're still going through your order form but you don't have that. Like when are you going to pay? Well, when are you going to ask to pay? How much are you going to pay? Well, I don't know how much you're charging. Oh, it's that the full price you're doing the ass. What Corey will do was like you made it awkward for Ash. He'll be like, pay what you feel. I hate that.

[Corey]

It's because Ashley feels like it's a service based business where she needs to tip on top of that. And I was like, I want to tell you the world ain't tipping sugar cookie makers like you think you are. You're just an overly an over tipper. Ashley also goes outside of my form. When she knows it's book, she's like your form. Look, Book, I just wondered, can you

[Heather]

take this for her? And that's because initially Corey didn't have a form. Yeah, typically don't. So that's why we're saying start when these weeds are little, pluck them then. Because when they get the root system, it's really hard and it always leads to that awkward conversation. And then you have hurt feelings because they're not going to say like this feels like you're charging too much. That would be rude to you. So they're just going to say it behind your back.

[Corey]

What's so funny? And we don't have a giant family, but I made cookies for my dad when he used to go to his office and the cookies were for his clients. Was funny. I, I went to this event that they had and some of his workers, like his employees were eating the cookies because my dad spent zero dollars on them. He didn't see the value behind getting these into the client's hands. So these workers are like food, food

[Heather]

in the break room. So I was like, okay. This took me like literally 10 hours

[Corey]

of my life to make these because they didn't see the value behind them. I never charged it for them.

[Heather]

Corey and I, when we were in high school, I don't know why we washed the car so often. I guess we just had nothing to do. It was before the Internet Was popular. And we also lived in a rural part of Northern Virginia, so we had to have that Internet by satellite, which was.

[Corey]

Yeah, the moon dish or something, whatever

[Heather]

facing the north sky. Don't matter where that thing faced. You weren't getting online. And then my parents had a 10 roll, so we really just twiddle our thumbs. God forbid we practice playing the piano. We would wash the cars, but my mom would always have a clean car so that she had no incentive not to run through a puddle to the point where I'd be like, can you please try to avoid that puddle that we're just careening towards? This is literally my life. She didn't value it.

[Corey]

Even my husband, when I. When I mop the floors, they just track all the stuff. And when he mops the floors, he's like, be careful.

[Heather]

I just mop.

[Corey]

Yeah, because you find a value in it.

[Heather]

So charging is a respectful thing to. It does convey value. It does make the people appreciate the cookies more because they're. They're in it. So if you want to do a standard discount when you first get started, be like, 15% off. That means it grows with your rates.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

They feel like they still got something. Yeah.

[Corey]

Well, you don't want to let that weed grow. And then Cheryl, at the next family picnics, like, well, well, excuse me. I. I thought I was helping you out by ordering from you. And. And now I don't like you, and I'll never order cookies again.

[Heather]

That's.

[Corey]

That's what we don't want. A weird family reunion where they hire someone else who's cheaper. And now you're offended. They're offended.

[Heather]

That's always the other side of it. They end up finding somebody else. And you're like, but they're my family. Which I see is another question. These weeds grow so big. And then you're like, hey, I noticed my auntie hired somebody else. It hurt my feelings. Should I bring it up? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. See how awkward it gets? Yes. Final one. The donation issue. Charitable donations can be an awesome way to support your community, but without communication of upfront expectations. And I came up with this. You can grow a needy weedy. I need a needy weedy. Here's the thing. Someone who is constantly hitting you up for more and more free or discounted product, which would make sense. Can you talk while I use the restroom? Real quick? I've had fun.

[Corey]

You're so crazy. Donations are huge. Especially if you're trying to grow your business. You're trying to get your business out into the community donations just seem like a natural way to do that. You're making the cookies, you're trying to practice this. So donating the ones instead of tossing them are a huge way that you can grow your bakery business. You can get into the feeds and lives of other people. It's a natural thing. The problem with donations is sometimes you create needy, weedy, donation, greedy people and they keep coming you back to you for donations. And you'd never set up a clear and concise boundary with them or expectations. What you want to do is when, if you want to take donations, and I do donations throughout the year too, is ask them where can. Can I just ask? I'm trying to also grow my business while doing donations. Is there a Facebook page that you'll be posting to? Is the PTA going to have a QR code with my information on it that people could scan? Can I leave business cards there so that I can grow my business during this? When you just do donations and you never follow up, you never find out, you're going to find that people are so busy in their lives, they're no longer worried about you. They're worried about whatever the next donation is. So you'll see that you give the donation. You feel unthanked, unappreciated.

[Heather]

Are you telling them your own experience?

[Corey]

Unthanked. Here's the thing. The people I donate to have my QR code on a laminated thing. So every time I donate, that card is out there. I also give them business cards that they can send out there too. Not saying I necessarily get a ton of business from that, but if I'm going to donate to someone, I need it to benefit me as well. So that's a great way to do it. When you can track some things and you can have your QR code, they're shouting out on social media. They're posting you in the local groups. That's a win win. So your donation is technically paying you back. The problem is, is when you don't do that and then they take your donation, you never hear back. You never hear thank you. They've never posted on your social media, but they come knocking at your door four or five times throughout the year, you actually grow resentful towards them and it creates an awkward situation. How do you break up with them because you're resentful?

[Heather]

Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Resentment is an indicator that a conversation wasn't had. And it's gonna have the conversation because you're hoping people read your mind. But we weren't mind readers. Are you hot or cold? Did it rain yesterday?

[Corey]

It poured.

[Heather]

It didn't rain here at all. Oh, it didn't. From the water bill specifically.

[Corey]

You would appreciated the rain that we had. I was hot. I had my heater going, so I've turned it off. I approach the longer in business, it's natural for people to come and ask for donations. I was at the orthodontist appointment for my son yesterday, and someone was asking the orthodontist to support their swim team. It is natural. Like, someone's gonna ask you to donate, and it's how you have that initial conversation that's going to set the tone. If this is a good thing or a bad thing for your business, it is okay to ask them where you'll be mentioned, if you're mentioned in a flyer, the newsletter, if they're going to post you in social media, if they're going to actually shout you out in this local community group that you're trying to grow.

[Heather]

I'd word it this way. Oh, yeah, I'd love to take that. I can actually borrow from my marketing budget if you guys could help me market. What do you think that sounds like? That way we're in this together. It's me and you against my budget.

[Corey]

Yeah. Teamwork. Because the thing is, if you're just like, yeah, I can donate, then there's no. There's no bottom of the bucket. So Heather saying that she's pulling from her marketing budget says, you know, there's a finite amount of money in the marketing budget and you're helping me do that yet. So the next time, maybe it won't be a good lineup for you or you're busy or you're working on orders. When they come, you'll be like, you know what? I'm actually tapped out for my marketing budget this month or in this quarter. And you can have a. A sweet breakup, new expectations with them again.

[Heather]

This is all easier to do before the weed gets roots. What happens when you do the donation at the beginning of your business because you feel guilty or you feel that you should or you feel like it's right, you'll get frustrated the 50th time they ask, but they make a natural thing. I always see around teacher appreciation week the, like, the big ask, like, does anybody want to donate 500,000 cookies for the teachers here?

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Like, wow, some baker probably was asked that directly and had to say no. And now it's like crowdsourcing it.

[Corey]

Yeah. Once I've learned over the years that I'VE done donations. When someone asks you to donate, they're leaving it open ended because the more you volunteer, the less they have to do. So I like to do something that's a lot of easier. I can do two dozen mini cookies. I can do one dozen this. You know that mini cookies aren't free. They do take time but it's a

[Heather]

lot easier on the designs.

[Corey]

But saying what I can do and then being like here are some other bakers that maybe are looking to grow their business. You could go. So a lot of times it's a bunch of bakers that maybe are tagged in the same post because we all went in on it. You know there's probably like 100 teachers at a public school around here. You know, with the staff and the admin, it's too much for one person to bake but a lot, a lot easier. Easier for to break down and have, you know, a bunch of people donate.

[Heather]

We could spend the rest of our lives talking about the small weeds that grow into big business weed problems. But just to recap the six points we wanted to cover Social media commenting Social media reputation is a big one. It's becoming more and more of an issue. Mishandling order intakes as no paper trails created. Then you have the frustration or the forgetfulness which always leads to that awkward conversation. Then you have Point three was pricing to make the sale especially when you're getting started under pricing to snag the lead and then having the issue when you charge appropriately. Point four boundary setting. If not saying no is technically saying yes and you're training your audience to and it makes it awkward for everybody. 0.5 friends and family discount. And then 0.6 that donation issue that creates a needy weedy.

[Corey]

I want to say n in my days have I had so many awkward moments than it was creating a business. A business is going to put you in an awkward moment. No matter how hard you try to avoid them, it is going to happen. Like someone said it was awkward. She ordered these cookies for me, paid full price. But then she was like hey, I want to order next year around this time. Is it discounted if I order a bunch of the same designs? But I was like nowhere did it ever say that when you ordered the first time. But I was like wow, we're going to have an awkward moment.

[Heather]

But I think we got to see people as my exes, they're just asking to see if there's a potential for it. Tell me yes, tell me no. But at least I I don't Know if you guys want to hear the resolution. In December last year, I got my car washed at the the mall car wash. And it's like they did not bend over and clean the bottom half the car so much that I had to clean it the next morning. I reached out, no response. I reach out again, no response. I reached out to corporate. Then I get a response saying, hey, bring it in. We'll rewash it. And they made specifically the poor front desk girl who was in charge. I think she was a manager, but she's younger than me. They made her deal with it. We could tell she had a lot of chagrin. Yeah. And I didn't want to escalate it, but I didn't feel that it was right. Right.

[Corey]

So unfortunately, the, the wash is not cheap. So that's why Heather felt chagrined.

[Heather]

It's. It's a normal car. It's like how I'd wash my own car. It's just extremely expensive. Because they do it while you're at the mall.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Extremely expensive in what I see that I can wash the car the same way.

[Corey]

And then you get the best spot in the house.

[Heather]

You do. So there is some benefits to it. However, not washing the car after I paid for. For it just didn't sit right. Yes. And so then Corey made me finally go in. I was never gonna go get it rewashed, but Corey made me go on Saturday last this past week and what I said. And they did just a phenomenal job. Because Corey's like, if they don't wash the car again, neither of us are ever gonna go back. I said, but if they wash the car again, they have made what was wrong. Right. And it's not necessarily that making mistake was wrong. It's how you fix the mistake that is important.

[Corey]

I told Heather to have the confrontation that the car wasn't washed and to not give them the chance or the opportunity to make it right. If I've ever made someone's order wrong, like I. I maybe counted the cookies wrong and there wasn't enough. I want the chance to make it right, to maybe salvage the business relationship. That is what I want as a business owner. So I said to Heather, you can't have the confrontation and never give her the opportunity. So confrontation is like, hey, quick question.

[Heather]

It was, I'm non confrontational, however, had. So when I go pick up the car, they were like, okay, here's what you owe. And I was like, I don't think I owe anything. I think I paid it before.

[Corey]

The problem is she Remembered Heather said,

[Heather]

do you remember me?

[Corey]

And she's like, oh, I remember you. Like she. She had gotten in trouble with her business, I'm sure, you know, for not cleaning the car or whatever. But Heather gave her the opportunity to make it right, and she made it right.

[Heather]

They made it great. And they sent me a text out of one to five. And I gave him a five. Yeah. So that was the resolution for that one. Moving on to the cookie college. You guys can find all these [e-mail] we just wrapped our 3D printing boot camp meeting. If you didn't know how to print a cutter at your house before, now you do. And it was only two days worth of courses. And I told people the buzzwords make this sound harder than it is. I'm. The buzzwords just mean this complicated thing means this. This means this. Just press print and then we're printing cutters. Not only are we printing cutters donated by Cookie cutters by Nora gave us three STL files and Cookie Design Lab gave every bootcamp attendee a week of Cookie Design Lab to try out their new skills. We were also able to create our own custom STL files using Cookie Design Lab. And then we went and tried it again in Fusion360.

[Corey]

Yeah, what a great. A great bootcamp. It's $13. You can still sign up for it if you'd like. That one will just. If you're not ordering cutters, the shipping alone is going to pay for it. But I had a customer boundary buster herself for my YouTube people. She ordered a lacrosse logo and I was able to use Cookie Design Lab to make her a custom cutter that is going to make her look good to the people on the lacrosse team. And from that, hopefully ends up in more orders. For me, I like to go above and beyond when I know it's for teams because I know there's a lot of families involved.

[Heather]

We made a cutter in the boot camp and to print it I think was 66 cents.

[Corey]

Wow. Right?

[Heather]

So there is a lot of cost savings and there's a. And I love supporting the cutter shops and still do. The thing that bothers me about ordering physical things is the shipping. It like goes to nobody.

[Corey]

Like, at least let the cutter shop keep it.

[Heather]

But like, you know, I understand we have to pay into shipment, but it's like, wow, that balloons the cost of this stuff so much. And none of the two parties involved necessarily benefit from from it.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

If you.

[Corey]

I want to say if you had a weed, having the cutter name on the side. The little weed now is to do that.

[Heather]

The big later is you're gonna have

[Corey]

a lot of cutters. You do not know what they are.

[Heather]

I'll see you in the cookie cutter identification group. Bus those groups. So we have our next boot camp coming up. Actually, you guys bullied Cory into this one. And I help so run to punch me and you guys. It's recording cookie videos. So just those simple videos that you guys are like, how do people do on my Instagram? Struggle with them. I struggle with lighting, I struggle with the stand, I struggle with setup and I struggle with editing. This is a basic getting started. Corey's going to tell us exactly what she bought that she wouldn't have bought again what she wish she bought the first time. I think Corey spends a ton of money so we don't have to. And she's going to show us exactly how she does these. You used to upload them for the cookie class kit. So I've seen your work. It's great.

[Corey]

Thank you.

[Heather]

Thank you. Now she's going to do. And I think you're going to add a voiceover and then in a. In some kind of software and then show us how to upload it. Yeah.

[Corey]

Because this is also a sugar cookie marketing. It's not. It's going to be some marketing. So we're going to talk about hooks in your video. What's a good hook? Different types of videos for your social media. So it's not just the same cookie decorated over and over again. It might be a day in the life behind the scenes cookie packaging. And then how we can take that into some software that's easy to use just on your phone and make that with maybe a voiceover. Or we can just have nice music if you need to practice your voiceover.

[Heather]

So that's what my goals are. I told people in the 3D printing bootcamp we're not getting lost in the sauce of making this really complicated. You feel overwhelmed and then nothing happens.

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

We're keeping this as basic. What I know you can get out the door and have a printer printing. I mean a printer printing a cutter. That's my goal. Then you can go crazy, go back to the Bamboo website, order whatever add ons you want. But right now, this is what we need. This is the filament we need. Here's how we're going to load it. What here. What we're going to print.

[Corey]

And I told Heather when I started making videos for us, if it's difficult, I'm not going to do it. So I said, these are the, the things I need to make it easy so that I actually produce something so it actually ends up on social media. You can have all the stands, all of the equipment, and then if you never use it, you are just as bad as someone who's using just their cell phone. So this will be a cell phone friendly course and that's really where we

[Heather]

want to get started. And once you get the basics down, you can start judging it up once you like I told Corey because Corey's like, well, I could get really compl here. I said with this rug tufting thing. People are talking so complicated. Like I want to be like, but, but what glue to use? Like I know. What glue do I need? Like, you know, it's just, there's, there's advanced people and they think, well, I need to teach people this crazy technique here. Oh, we're not even using the word technique, buddy. We're doing fundamentals. Yeah, Fundies funnies. We're having fun in the fundies. So our next boot camp is how to record cookie videos. You can sign [e-mail] Bootcamp or you can directly sign up at the cookie college.com Boot Camp 5. This will be our fifth Boot Camp this year. You can go back and purchase the other bootcamps if you want. They're always available for repurchasing. It's in person. Cookie class was February. March, we did food photography that sells April, pre sale, start, Finish. May was 3D printing cookie cutters and June will be cookie video basics. July we're going to do cracking community groups July. The J months are the slower months for bakers. Half of the time it's because our clients are out of town and the other half times because the baker's out of town down. So cracking community groups, creating a strategy to implement in July, August and September will really set you up for some leads in our Super Bowl Cookie Super Bowl.

[Corey]

If you like the boot camps, those were actually just a way for you to peek inside what the cookie college is. So all the boot camps the cookie college gets. If you're a cookie college member, join the boot camp. It goes in your monthly membership. You get that if you're just trying the boot camp for the first time, you're like, I really like this. It was, was an easy to digest way you can actually join the cookie college. And there's a discount at the end of your boot camp stay that you can join for a discounted rate. Heather, I was talking about in my brain today to myself that the Cookie College loves monthly challenges. So that's a group there. It's membership based. Once you sign up for the Cookie College, you join this group and we do challenges. They want the challenges to go with what the Boot Camp's theme is. So I thought we're gonna have one of the challenges be write a 30 second intro outline and you're gonna film yourself. So the first one will be write your outline and have a hook. The next one be like film yourself with saying it in front of the camera. And we'll upload them and go through them and what it's going to do. Because I have started with videos a few years ago, the amount of ums that I've been able to train myself to not say that I said so many times at the beginning. It just took practice to be able to talk through the. And maybe have a little bit of an outline, a little bit of a guide. So when I'm making the videos, I'm thinking about what I want to say so that I can go in software now can edit out the ums, which is craziness.

[Heather]

Yeah. So wild. So I thought that would be a good, a good challenge. I used to manually edit out Premiere Pro and the splices would just. I'd say to Corey, nobody will know what we've done here. Nobody. We know what this sounded like before. But I just need one person to recognize how much work I put in to make this person.

[Corey]

My dad, one of our clients. One of our clients was a Catholic church. We have worked with so many different verticals, it's insane.

[Heather]

One was a Catholic church and he

[Corey]

did say so much and stop. But Heather edited those out so much so he thought he was like a rock star on camera.

[Heather]

He wasn't a rock. So hard to do. There's so many. So when you film. And I haven't filmed these in a while. I filmed Corey for the boot camps, but she didn't say much. She actually just does the whole thing straight through. When you film people who have ums or pauses or need to like get their thoughts caught up, you would, you would splice that out, you'd cut it out. But to make the video flow so that you don't know that you put people in front of it. A lot of times when you're watching the murder documentaries, they'll show the town while the person's talking. Oftentimes because the person stopped or said something they wanted to take out and

[Corey]

they need you to not see their face.

[Heather]

A Stop.

[Corey]

And to see the videos, like. Oh, I think. Think they glitched?

[Heather]

No, they.

[Corey]

They edited out a boring part and put in a not so boring part.

[Heather]

Yeah. Diffuse somebody's in hand movement. It's. It creates this thing. It's a transition but it created this jelly like effect where the person looks like a glitch. Yeah. But in that Catholic video we didn't have any B roll. It was one of the harder videos I've ever had to edit.

[Corey]

It's because he wanted to stand in a specific place and it was in the sun. That's already harsh. Anyways. And you know, if you do talk, we actually spittle a lot while we talk.

[Heather]

I knew you were going to bring up the spittle.

[Corey]

And he was spitting while he was talking and it was hard.

[Heather]

Was reflecting. I had to create a mask layer but it creates a slight blur. But it was. It was one of the. I never want to think about it. Of course somebody in the comments is like, are you spitting a lot? Like, can't win for losing. I'm sorry. In July we're doing community groups. In August we're doing Procreate and Cory and I were talking about the rest of the year. We wanted to do Google business profile. Query secured a lead for Coach and she attributes it strictly to that Google business profile listing that they found. I want to do one on newsletters. And what was that other one? We were talking about a couple different options.

[Corey]

We said website or forms was a good one. You had touched on the forms in the pre sale. We said pricing would be a great one.

[Heather]

And I think we also said something about Canva and kind of creating the print materials. Yeah. So those are our boot camps. You can find that [e-mail] bootcamp or you can find links to it on sugarcookiemarketing.com or on the cookie college.com and you can always ask and we are here to help. You have anything else? D. No. Corey's my first 3D printing student and she was printing off this yesterday morning. When you print off yesterday that it is National Police week.

[Corey]

And I thought a handcuff. I. So if you're talking about donations that we had talked about donating to a cause that you think is important is huge. National Police Week is great. My husband is one.

[Heather]

So I said he's a police.

[Corey]

They do sometimes they actually post their donation donations to the page. They don't do it as much. So I thought I know the social media. So I'm gonna bake her some cookies.

[Heather]

What a great way to get a chair of a donation to work marketing. Because everyone follows the police pages because I want to know the gossip that's going on down the street. But to have them say, hey, here, look, this person donated this. Which I see them do quite a bit when the businesses donate like lunch or something. Yeah, yeah.

[Corey]

So that, that's my goal at the end. If they are just happy with cookies. Thank you for doing your please stuff. But if I can get a little marketing out of it, I'll really like it.

[Heather]

Moving on to the gossip column. Submission 1. There's a local baker who doesn't have the cleanest cookies. Like they're rushed, sloppy and weird edges that are never straight. I was fine with her selling her stuff in local groups because she showed exactly what they were getting. Well, she found AI and AI is making her cookies look better. Not just the photos, but changing the look of her cookies. The they look picture perfect. And now I know they aren't. They look picture perfect now, but I know they aren't just frustrated because I know that she's. What she's making and what she's posting aren't the same thing. Oh, this is rampant.

[Corey]

Oh yeah, go ahead.

[Heather]

It is so rampant that now in the sugar cookie marketing group, you get someone saying, hey, what's everyone's opinion on AI? And I have to babysit the thread as if we're back to when the group first started. The opinions of where AI should and shouldn't be used are all over the map. But again, I'm going to tell you guys this.

[Corey]

The.

[Heather]

The invisible hand of the market solves a problem. If the baker is producing subpar results and overselling the picture, they will make somebody upset and that person will go to the community group. I can say this because it's recently happened in our local community groups. Yeah, the foodies group. You see this like AI. Then I see the bakers like, well, I only have it change the background and then someone will be like, I think it changed the cookies a little bit. But I'm like, well, I can't see it, but maybe I'm going blind, you know. And then you have people that are having it generate cookies off of their ideas where suddenly, you know, then you have the cutter shops. And I wanted to ask this on the page, but I didn't want to get people riled up. Like, would you buy from a cutter shop that uses AI generated cookies? Which they look real to me, but they're not.

[Corey]

Or do you only buy from cutter shops that show, like an actual cookie or the ones that just have the graphics.

[Heather]

Graphics.

[Corey]

The thing is, I just want to say, if you're looking over at what the next baker's doing, there's, like I told you, I've divided my life into things I can control and things I cannot control. I cannot control what another baker does. What I can control is what I do. So I can I take better photos? Am I representing my work the best that I can? Better customer service. You cannot reach over onto their computer and delete their AI image. What they do is what they do. But what you can do is make sure that your business is marketed correctly, that you're showing up for it every single day, that you're, you know, creating videos for the algorithms that your photos look nice and tasty and toasty and

[Heather]

delicious clean and bright white. In a. In a way, we're all editing photos. We're all altering images. So your phone is correcting. If you're taking it into Lightroom and adding a filter or what do you call them, preset, you're altering the image. You're making the whites whiter, but you're like, but it's white. But no, that's not the original image. But your camera is also altering reality as well. So there's a lot of reality altering going on. On AI is the buzzword of the month. Before that it was Photoshop. Before that it was xyz. Right. So now you think of it this way. When you go to McDonald's, what the picture on the. The menu is not the burger that you're given.

[Corey]

Never seen that burger before in my life.

[Heather]

I wonder what it would taste like. But if you ever want a really interesting thing, go watch food photography from those professional commercial levels because you'll see that the cheese is actually not really cheese and the relish is actually this, and that's the. That stuff that can last a long time in a photo room. A photo studio. Yeah.

[Corey]

Your goal is to provide what the best thing for your customers. If your customers want to see exactly what they're getting, I promise you your business is going to live long and prosper because you're able to replicate that. The bakers who are making things that look like something they are not, their customers aren't dumb. They have eyeballs. And either they'll get a few sales, but those will fall off and those people will search for a new baker and maybe find you do. That's the only thing you can control. But when I see bakers take the Time out of their day to throw mud on another baker just because they use something. Utilizing Eddie. This was big when Eddie was big. You're taking the artistry out of it. Your comment isn't going to stop them from using Eddie because they've already bought them.

[Heather]

It's going to stop you from having the bandwidth to think creatively. Like, when you're so focused. I always think of that. What was that? Tim the toolman tailor. And yeah, I had the neighbor and he looked over the fence. Yeah.

[Corey]

Like.

[Heather]

And he was always looking over at what Tim was doing. Like, that's what you're becoming when you're so fre.

[Corey]

Like AI. And then you go to your page

[Heather]

and you're like, to the people who use AI, like, dude, that's not for your audience. Like, that should be an internal thought. Yeah. Not to your audience.

[Corey]

I saw baker's back when Eddie was getting popular. And this is a couple years ago now. Now it seems like everyone's got one. An edible printer of some sort. People were being like, I'm quitting decorating cookies because people aren't taking the art out of it because they're using an edible. But the only person suffocating offering in that whole equation was you, who was quitting.

[Heather]

You're also doing your. Your competitors a little bit of a favor there. Yeah.

[Corey]

But when you. When you're so negatively wound up by what other people are doing, that's all you can see. So you never say, like, I'm still true to the art or I'm still not using AI. You're so focused on what other people are doing, it's taking away. So is it frustrating? Girl, I'm with you. I've seen tit. You know, I to an extent agree, but can you do anything about it? Absolutely not. What you can do something about is your own stuff. Not saying you asked for a gospel column. This was a gossip column.

[Heather]

Going back to the gossip column. I saw this TikTok and the man. It was a man kind of our age and he's like, my mother has created the ultimate sin. She has AI'd herself. You know, you kind of see the Give them prompt now. I think the ones put yourself in like a method gala dress or something. Yes. The other ones were that sparkly dress where you're holding the candy cane. Yeah.

[Corey]

Oh, everyone did that at Christmas.

[Heather]

And he was like, my mother posted that and then took the compliment someone paid her in that photo. Someone's like, I love your outfit. And she was like, thank you so much. And he was like, there's no forgiveness for that. So I can see the. I can see all sides of it. There's. Sometimes I'm like, that's not fair. You didn't do that. I know you didn't do that. But at the end of the day, the market will correct that. The. That I'm. Summer told you. And we were supposed to go to Alexandria waterfront to do that pizza on the water.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And you had a bad attitude, so we never went. Yeah, I could see that Tik Tok yesterday. And the lady was like, every one of you liars that said that pizza was good. She's like, the view was good. The pizza was terrible. That.

[Corey]

You're welcome. You know what? I felt like something in my body.

[Heather]

Yeah. But there you go. Like, these TikToks made it look like the best pizza you've ever had. And the lady went. And she was like, it was so part. She's not going to go back. So just know that the market always corrects that type of behavior. It always solves it. You have the best marketing in the world, and then the company shuts down. You're like, oh, that was why it wasn't legitimate.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

So, yeah, it's AI. It's so new. It's still deciding where its place is. Like, people are like, I never use it. But then you'll see them like, I need to change this 2025 to 2026 because I'm trying to get some more grad orders. Are we using it or are we not?

[Heather]

Yeah. And it's funny because the kind of before, it was like you couldn't even ask a question. But I saw in the local ladies group, someone's like, those of you who do use AI, how are you using it to help you? What are you using to optimize? And a lot of people had some really great recommendations. Yeah. And then you have the AI, The. I was reading about closed loop system and open loop systems. That's the problem with AI and the environment argument is the heat produced by these servers the same way your laptop sat in your lap, will produce.

[Corey]

Produced.

[Heather]

Yes. My phone left in the sun. It'll stop when I'm driving. It'll be like, no more 3D image buildings. Your phone is gone. The heat produced by these servers need massive air conditioning units. But the most effective way to dissipate heat is through atmospheric evaporation. Right. So it creates the AC condenses and then that evaporates. A closed loop system would mean that the evaporation is piped back in. But that's a lot expensive. Oh, Pinteresting. So the sound is the air conditioning systems running to create the event.

[Corey]

Interesting.

[Heather]

So there's impact there. It's very interesting. An ever evolving world. Maybe it's a bubble, maybe it's the future. But I see more and more regular people using it. So I wonder.

[Corey]

I get. My brain thinks this is good and I have no idea. Doesn't zero research on it. I think they have let the common man have access to it and the common man is inputting every aspect of their life. Like what do I do in this situation?

[Heather]

Here's my house payment. How do I get it lower? What are subscriptions?

[Corey]

I can cancel, you know. And it's collecting all the information from the common person Now I think they're going to go to a paid structure like you get or an advertisement.

[Heather]

Yeah, GPT PT grade point average is how I was doing a goal post T. But it's not working for you

[Corey]

so it changed to grade point average.

[Heather]

Grade point average. The chat is implementing ads. It's a nonprofitable company and it's interesting to see just how unprofitable it is versus evaluation of it.

[Corey]

But that's why I think you can't. So Facebook wasn't a big advertiser. Now it's a huge advertisement platform that just happens to have your life update. But it's like an advertising platform, not

[Heather]

what you thought it was. Press Nito Burrito as AI can be. Also, for every bonus, for every positive, I find a negative. So the car that I have is piped through my phone. So just Android Auto. Maybe Apple people have it, but Android Auto, I can press this button and talk to the car to find mine. The Leaseburger place. I do it all the time. Blue Ridge. So I go to press it and it was like, hey, Heather, I'm sorry, what? I just like just told me about the place. It's like, hey Heather, interesting that you like that. Would you like to talk about some of the menu options? Just ask like no. So like while it's talking to me, trying to have a conversation, I have to click cancel so it stops talking so I can get to the navigation. Mine.

[Corey]

I was like, I can't say it.

[Heather]

I was like, because she's right here.

[Corey]

I said add sugar to my.

[Heather]

My.

[Corey]

To my shopping cart. She's like, you guys about to bake something up.

[Heather]

Crazy. Not what we want right now. I don't know. Yeah, just really funny. I had a. I had an issue with one of the cats. So I was like, well, you know, a vet's so expensive, but AI is free right now here. Let's burn down one rainforest while asking some questions. And it was like, you really, really need to go to the vet. And I was like, I actually think you're being too aggressive if that recommendation. And it was like, you know what? Smart of you to push back here. I saw this TikTok last TikTok I'm gonna reference. Yeah, but this guy was using. It was comparing AI to cutting a sandwich. So it's like he was in a subway and he was like, yeah, now just cut it in half. But it was cutting it half long ways. It was cutting it in half middle ways, like it was doing everything wrong. But he kept having to get it to cut it truly in half, like you'd cut a sandwich. So finally at the end, the AI gets that he's supposed to cut it in half, but instead of moving the. The knife, it moves the sandwich.

[Corey]

Yeah, it's like just less left of center. Like you're just left of center. It's like.

[Heather]

Must be like having a teenager.

[Corey]

Like, you're done. Let's just have the neuron fire one more time.

[Heather]

Okay. Moving to upcoming events. Very interesting gossip topic, people. Thank you. The collab. The main street collab is next week. Corey, can you. Are you going to take some photos? Are we going to go to invite me to something?

[Corey]

I have found the logo of bourbon

[Heather]

and fig, and it's gold. Golden girl gets you some left of that.

[Corey]

Yes, I thought so. I. I will do the bourbon and fig, the B and F. And they have this little plant. It must be a bourbon.

[Heather]

A fig. Bourbon plant.

[Corey]

Plant around the house in the fig barrel.

[Heather]

You can throw that away for that. What it is. Sorry. What the main street.

[Corey]

What the main street cookie collab is.

[Heather]

Sorry, I got the giggle. What the main street cookie collab is,

[Corey]

is a marketing way to get your business out there. We're getting into the J months, which is the summer months. You'll feel business to be a little slower. So how can we judge it up and become one, a resource to our audience? Two, create a relationship with some corporate people out there. And three, get some content that's worth commenting on and sharing on.

[Heather]

Not.

[Corey]

Not just, hey, I sell cookies. Hey, buy my cookies. And that's what this main street cookie collab is.

[Heather]

Then the next one, and I went super easy on you guys. I didn't make you pipe a specific cookie. It's just going to be a selfie. Of you holding any cookie for the June Meet the Baker collab. It is the most attended collab is because it's the easiest collab, but we're putting it in July. June, I'm sorry. Because it's a J month and it's a slower time. It's a good time to reconnect with your audience. And people love Facebook. Yeah.

[Corey]

And I have saw as I really am pulling from the relationship bucket in 2026. Your face does a lot. Because people want to buy from someone they know and they can only get to know you if they see you. So that's why it's a great one to do. And me neither even suggest doing Meet the Baker quarterly. As you're marketing your business, you're growing it with new people. People come and go. You end up in some feeds, you don't end up in others. It's a great content bucket to pull from.

[Heather]

From. If you posted a selfie every day, I think people be like, whoa. But if you never posted a selfie, I also think people will be like, oh, oh, that's what you look like. So it is that. If you ever look up heat maps of websites that track eyes, you know, I can't help it. I can't help it. I look at other eyes. Eyes look at eyes. We cannot help eyes want to look at your eyes. So if you look at the he maps of those website, our eyes naturally gravitate towards a part of the website where there is an eye. And that's what we're doing here as well. You get the engagement of the other bakers and we're going to do three facts. Three facts you don't know about me. That'll be very easy to respond to, but your audience will also learn more about you as well. So of course, start thinking of your three facts.

[Corey]

Question for you about the main street collab. Okay, I was thinking Bourbon and Fig because it's a new hot place. But yesterday when I was at Archer's orthodontist, by the way, he gets his

[Heather]

braces off in December. Crazy.

[Corey]

No way. Yes. The doctor there, who I've actually made videos on and chatted him out in local groups, personally thanked me. He said, thank you so much for posting me in the local groups. It really helps my business. Should I do one for his business?

[Heather]

Because he's so thankful. Not the Bourbon and Fig. No. And not the engagement. The bourbon and Fig 1 gets so much engagement because so many people are happy with the service there.

[Corey]

Here is the.

[Heather]

The.

[Corey]

The plus side to both Bourbon and fig. Brand new. Not many people know about it. The plus side to the ortho guy, he's been there for 40 years. Many people know about about it. So you would get comments on both. One would be like, oh, I didn't know. But the other one would be like, oh, my kids went there 40 years

[Heather]

ago for their prices. Orthodontist, snooze fist. Boring.

[Corey]

It is boring. You just want to go to get food.

[Heather]

Yeah. Here's the thing about bourbon and fake. The people who have gone seem to love telling everyone about it. The people who haven't gone would be interested in it. Everyone likes food. Not everyone needs Main Street.

[Corey]

We'll have to do another Main street so I can do my guy before

[Heather]

I get collabs are there to guide me. Hiatus. But do as many as you want, big girl. No, I like to go to every and do it. You don't have to not do it.

[Corey]

They order cookies from me and that's why I like that.

[Heather]

So I would probably feature them the next time they order cookies from you.

[Corey]

No, I told him I do a big video on Archer getting his braces

[Heather]

off since you know what December. You know we did in November last year the class thank you cookie collab where you went and took somebody's photo holding a thank you. You could do it then. That's a nice that.

[Corey]

Oh, that's a nice one.

[Heather]

I like that. Now the November's spoken for.

[Corey]

Orthodontist only.

[Heather]

Clap. Upcoming events. The Cookie con Happy Hour, which felt so long ago but is right around the cookie. The cookie. It's right around the corner. It's right around the cookie. It's right around the cookie corner. Cookie con Happy Hour hosted by Heather Kimmel Berkshire, who is a Disney trip planner, meaning Orlando is Cookie Con. I see. I see. If you were on the fence about cookie Con, they're starting that resale where people are like, oh, I can't go after all because they bought their tickets back in February. Now you have those People are like, I'm willing to sell this and I'm willing to sell it for cheaper than about it for a lot of times the people selling tickets are also willing to give up a room. The best thing about it is the roomies. Yeah.

[Corey]

The best thing about a Disney trip planner is that they are not paid through you.

[Heather]

It's a free service to you.

[Corey]

They are paid through Disney. So it is the best bang for the buck. When I first before I knew Heather Campbell Brookshire went to Disney, we've known

[Heather]

each Other since negative nine months. Yeah.

[Corey]

I had a Disney trip planner when me and Heather and Archer went back

[Heather]

in the day you almost have to have.

[Corey]

Yeah, I would not know what I was doing without it.

[Heather]

Right. So Heather Kimmel Berkshire is hosting it's a cookie con frappy hour at a coffee shop this time and that'll be June 24th. The details are that go to sugar cookie marketing Facebook group, click on events and she's actually posting weekly updates on things you need to know, things you can plan for about cookie content. Connor, she has been on TV and she is probably the most Disney adult person I've ever met in my life. She has a monorail dress. Yes, she does.

[Corey]

And Disney for just about everything.

[Heather]

She should wear the monorail dress to the frappy hour. So more information there if you need a contact or. The Vendee blendy is in 28 weeks. Which felt farther away but now it feels closer. I don't know why. Because they have to start planning it in the summer.

[Corey]

It's because it's an even number when it's an odd number like 21 feels

[Heather]

27 farther away than any. It feels far away. Major holidays that are upcoming. We just passed Mother's Day. Congratulations to those of you who are mothers. Graduation is in four weeks. This is location dependent. Same with last day of school. I know some of you guys kind of go into deep in June. Yeah, the school system here, the public school system 15th they said next year Loudoun county be June 22nd. And some lady said I will move if my kids have to go to school. I'd like to see you move. Graduation last day of school. Four and five weeks away. Father's Day is six weeks away. I just did the best selling bake shred on Father's Day. If you want to see some alleged it's better seller than Mother's Day purchasing

[Corey]

better seller than Mother's Day.

[Heather]

Summerween seven weeks. It's actually our cookie class kit as well. Summerween is Halloween in the summer. It's a trendy, not an established holiday but it's a good neat way. You guys could do you pre orders for Halloween or if you place your Halloween order in what is it, June 27th. You could get a discount or something like that or it's just another excuse to put Halloween content out there.

[Corey]

You're gonna find your Halloween little haunts are gonna sign up for the cookie class because they're. They're out there. We're out there. Halloween lovers are out there. We're just Waiting for the summer to end.

[Heather]

Yeah. After that is the fourth of July, which is the middle of summer. That is eight weeks away. So if you haven't ordered your cutters or you did not take the 3D printing boot camp, you would want to do that now. We're kind of clean place. I always find 4th of July is the platter holiday because people are getting together at events. You could bring a platter of a DIY kits. Good DIY kits. Get those kids out of your hair until 8pm it's the America's 250th birthday. It is.

[Corey]

I think it'll be bigger, more celebrated than it is in other because you have so I saw Kaleida cuts has a 250, 250 cutter that she came out with and I thought that was cute.

[Heather]

Yeah. I think there'll be more events around it and thus more of a hoopla. A hoopla hoopla. I live in West Virginia now where they have illegal Virginia fireworks. Who knows what I'm in for.

[Corey]

Oh, and you live right across the street from a big old firework block.

[Heather]

I could be smuggling across enemy lines a little bit of them illegalers. Them illegal fireworks which you could call in to the police in Virginia. Moving on to the STL Me about It segment. Thank you so much for Cookie Design Lab is a sponsor of the segment, which means whoever gets picked from the texting questions can win a month of Cookie Design Lab, that STL software. If you're already a member of Cookie Design Lab, she can actually tack it on to the end of your membership. If you do not win this week, use code twins for 15% off. I know they have a five day plan or a yearly plan. The annual plan is cheaper. Or if you sign up to get that boot camp about 3D printing, you can still redeem that one week of cookie Design Lab, which, you know, makes that a very cheap bootcamp for you. And you can do that until May 31st, 2026. So, Corey, we have three texting questions. They're all pretty hefty. Oh, four texting questions. They're all Pretty hefty. Number four. Number four is actually Amy Sayk. She actually emailed this one and I had to read it because she referenced my twin. So, Amy, if you don't have Cookie Design Lab, email me back. Same, same email address. I'll get you hooked up. Hi Heather, thanks for mentioning Michael Girdley on the recent podcast Basket Podcast. I just looked up his videos on YouTube based on your recommendations and they're great. I also listen to Ramit. That's a. That's the finance guy. Money for couples. I also to Ramit and he is good too. Here are two other similar ones I enjoy that you might like if you haven't already listened to them. Business wars and the economics of everyday things. If you have any other podcast or YouTube suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Thanks, Amy. I'll look this up. I'll trade you two more. One I. One channel I've been listening to to Just so everyone knows, if you have YouTube Premium, your rates are about to race on May 14th. I've been old money luxury. It's not what you think. It's. Oh, it's. I was watching the Wawa history and Wawa is a privately owned company and has been around. It started in New Jersey as a metal thing and then they moved it into cow and dairy operations. But when the refrigerator came out, they had a. They were doing a daily dairy delivery. Delivery. Interesting. Yeah. And Wawa. Do you know what a Wawa is? It's an indigenous word for goose and that's why their logo is.

[Corey]

I had no idea.

[Heather]

Now you know. And now I'm gonna be listening at lunch today to Smucker's family history. Oh, yeah, there you go. I was listening to Cartier. That one was really interesting. And how the he was a broke guy, just impoverished and just really liked studying how light moves through glass, got into metallurgy, got into diamond manufacturing. And his three sons were so business focused that one took over North America, one took over Europe, and one took over the British Empire to produce these. Just extravagant, they said. The Maharaja of India placed an order through Cartier for something that was a billion rupees, which would have been valued at $2 billion a day. A piece of jewelry. Wow, she was fascinating. And then at all, within 100 years, they lost it all to a company because the great, great game Grandkids didn't want to run it. Wow. All right, Interesting. So that was a thank you, Amy. You can email me. You know my email address since you emailed that one. Thanks for listening. Michael Gurdley was the one I've been listening to. He does a rise and fall of businesses. Oftentimes he's standing in front of him. That's what makes it interesting. Yeah. We have another text in Not a winner, but forever in my heart. Number one, San Angelo, Texas. Hi, twins. If I wanted to create an additional blog post on my website site about the businesses I feature in the Main street collab, what info would you suggest I add or how could I change it to doesn't come across as a copy and paste from my IG post. Or is that even a good idea? I love you both and I can't choose a favorite twin. Kelsey from Texas.

[Corey]

Kels, you're so sweet when it comes to blog post. You're going to want to make a beefier blog post than what an Instagram caption can handle. What we're going to do is answer the questions people would have and then imagine someone types into AI and says, where should I go to get my son's braces in the Woodbridge area? That's what we're going to focus on. You're going to go to this place because this reason and this reason pricing's around this reason they offer financing. You can have your and that's what we're going to answer with the main street. Especially if you're turning it into a blog post. Now, if you're just doing it and you're listening to it, I'm like, I'm just doing it on Instagram for the collab. This isn't pertain to any you a blog post. We're trying to answer the question so that when someone searches something, we end up in that search.

[Heather]

So you may think what Kelsey's doing is very strategic in terms of SEOs. You may think, well, Kelsey is featuring a business. Why would anyone care that she's a cookie baker? Features a business? What she's doing is creating a relationship in Google between a keyword that's hyperlocal and her the fact that she is also hyperlocal. So it's creating an association that, that this San Angelo, Texas restaurant is near Kelsey the baker, who's a San Angelo, Texas baker. And that relationship, it also drives traffic. It also can be indexed, shows that her website's active. There's a lot of benefits to it. And also it creates content. So now her Instagram post, she can actually create the blog post and link to that on Facebook or send it out in her newsletter where it might be weird to link to an Instagram post. It would make a ton of sense for us to link to a blog post. So she's taking a small piece of content and she's really squeezing the juice use out of it.

[Corey]

And that's smart because your marketing is a spiderweb. It's not just one avenue. It all works together. So if your blog post can be posted to social media and people from social media go to your website, you're indicating to Google that your website is valuable. It's content that was added, they will crawl it and they'll index it and your website becomes beefier and more powerful in the search engines.

[Heather]

Yeah. So it'd be natural for a business featured on Instagram to easily reshare to their Instagram profile. Yeah. But it would be more natural for a business featured in a blog posted to Facebook to share that blog post on their Facebook page. Yeah. Yeah. No, smart.

[Corey]

You're, you're, you're working smarter there, my friend.

[Heather]

Another text from 713 area code. Hi ladies. I wanted to comment on one of those texts from last week. When someone ghosts you, I know it's easy to assume that the reason is the price. However, I follow up every time for orders. I can still take 50% of the time. I win the sale with my follow up up. They often say something about forgetting or losing track of time. I don't know about you, but hashtag same. I lose track all the time and forget all of the time in my personal Life. For these 50%, it was never an issue of price. Assuming it's always a pricing issue is doing your business a disservice and putting words into your customer's mouths? Max, stop it. Create a follow up template and send that baby over and see what happens. Worst case, still a no. Best case, you get the sale and you can go roll in the green dough while rolling in the cookie dough. Thank you so much. Whoever that is that texted that in.

[Corey]

Yeah, that was like our topic last week. Thank you. Thinking for your clients, it must be the price. Why they ghosted me instead of thinking on behalf like, you know, as your client. I, I was busy and I forgot who I reached out to. So I hope they reach out again.

[Heather]

When you have pricing fear, you look through a pricing lens at everything. So every rejection becomes in your head, well, it must be, I'm too expensive. Which puts you in a natural state to say, let me discount. Especially because wheat. Yeah.

[Corey]

We started this whole bakery business because we looked at the price of someone else and said, that's too expensive.

[Heather]

I think you can do it myself.

[Corey]

We're always going to have pricing in the back of our mind because we are cheaper people. That's why we became sugar cookie bakers. But we realize that we, we have to realize that we're putting that on other people who are like, I never wanted to become a baker. The price is the price.

[Heather]

I just, I had to tell you this anecdotal story. I'm a yappertunist, right So I joined these rug tufting groups. But I see the similar questions from bakers like, hey, nobody's buying. So this guy said, nobody's buying my rugs. I'm the cheapest. I'm the cheapest out there, and still nobody's buying them. So I just took the opportunity and I said, would you buy the cheapest car for sale in your area, or would you think something was wrong with it? And he was like, no, I. I would. He clapped back and was like, no, I wouldn't, because I. I'd buy. And I said. He said, I'd buy the cheapest rug. And I said, you wouldn't, though. In fact, you wouldn't try buy the cheapest rug so much that you actually learned how to make. Make it so you didn't have to buy it. And he was like, well, I guess. And I was like, just try raising it a little bit so you're not seeing it. He had really high quality rugs. Tufted rugs, yeah. Because a consumer. And I was like, you're priced so low that it makes it seem like there's an issue somewhere. If there's not an issue in quality, there's an issue in production. Am I not even going to get the rug I sent? Quite so funny. I saw this. I'm in these car groups specifically for the Acura Integra. And this guy got an Acura Integra pillow. It was kind of. Of cute. And someone was like, hey, can I get the link to buy this? And he was like, here's the link. It was AI generated. It looked like a car turned into a pillow.

[Corey]

Like, it was.

[Heather]

Yeah. So perfect. It was 25. And I sent Cory a picture, and I was like, how could he believe that $25 would buy a pillow that looked like a representation perfectly of his car?

[Corey]

It honestly looked like someone had made a wheel out of, like, fluff and had us to put on that wheel. It was perfectly shaped wheel. Like, like, fluff doesn't even do that. Like, whatever's in a.

[Heather]

It was. And his comment was like, this is. This is what I ordered. I didn't get what I thought I was going to do, but it was like, good enough. But I sent it to coin because, like, oh, I saw that ad as well.

[Corey]

The thing is, he was willing to risk the $25. He'll never buy from them again. You have businesses like that, like, they just turn and burn. They take the clients, take the money, and then they'll be like, we'll never see them again.

[Heather]

I said at $25 he should have known he wasn't going to get that. So I wonder if the rug guy could translate. Being the cheapest rug is not actually an effective pricing strategy in terms of online trust.

[Corey]

Yeah, it's like those people who order from Sheen or TEU and it would be like. It would be like they thought they were going to get a wreath for their door, but instead it's this curtain with a door and a wreath on

[Heather]

it printed on it. I saw that exact it was so funny. That was a great text. 713 thank you so much for reminding us. It's not always price objections. It is is definitely just busy. I find myself constantly saying oh shoot, I forgot to get back to them. Yeah yeah yeah. Two six zero area code in the final one hey twins, I love the podcast. I have a cookie business in Indiana and I recently posted and a recent post of mine received hundreds and hundreds of likes and comments. Way more than normal because a customer took the cookies to Texas and it was for a local university there. While I love all the attention likes and comments, I'm now getting a ton of followers from Texas and I can't ship there in search of of these clients. Do you have any suggestions in the Main street collab? I know for how to increase my local following more now that I've had this huge influx of non local followers.

[Corey]

So you could always go through your follower count and remove the people from Texas who have followed you. But if they're willing to throw you likes and engage with your content, that's great. The problem with them being so distant from you, they have no like no no relationship with you. So you're just another account that they're following. And when you're not posting about Texas, they're going to fall off your engagement ratios right there. So what you might want to do is remove them as followers or say hey, welcome if you're here. Glad to have you. It means a lot if you see my post to like it. Even if you're from Texas. My new Texas people probably post more

[Heather]

reminders that you're an Indiana baker and you can't ship. What's going to happen is they're going to naturally fall off as well. Well, so people who come from trends, they kind of drop off pretty quickly or their bot accounts and they get thrown off pretty quickly. It is slightly frustrating, especially when you're limited to an area and you're getting non followers. But like K said and engagement is great, they'll naturally drop off and then you can always manually remove. But I would spend this time right now definitely posting reminders that you're an Indiana baker.

[Corey]

Yeah, you can't chip and but thank them for being there. And I, I, I you if the answer is no. Unless you ask. Hey, I feel like I got some Texas people here. I know I can't ship to you, but if you like and comment on my stuff, you're helping this Indiana mom, you know, send her kids to camp. You know, just putting it out there.

[Heather]

I like it. I do like that one. Kind of just drawing attention to like, hey, I know I can't help you guys, but you guys can help me and I really appreciate having you here. Yeah, I'd like to be there. The printer is running some massive upgrades. Updates. I hope nobody can hear that. I hope zoom is blending. Can I hear it on my end? I could unrecommend a printer. It would be brothers Printers. You.

[Corey]

I think there's a podcast where you recommend it.

[Heather]

I do. And I'm so sorry. If you listen to that. And you bought them time and now it's not a bad printer. They have a what? So it was printing terribly. I've had to print a lot of stuff recently and now it's caught up. The printer's doing better. The cartridges are cheaper. They have an interesting subscription program where I don't. Don't try to walk it back. You just lambasted. It just. It doesn't. It doesn't print consistently good.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

No.

[Corey]

When we went to cake, what's popping con.

[Heather]

That's what righted the ship is those massive amounts of print.

[Corey]

A line on every page had like gone. It was like straight through the center twice.

[Heather]

You have to get the print head clean, but you can't get to the print head yourself. The printer has to clean it itself. Which takes away from my one page print.

[Corey]

I get.

[Heather]

Oh, that's Pinterest. I see what they did there.

[Corey]

We'll get her coming and going.

[Heather]

Our sponsors. Thank you so much for our sponsors. We actually have a new sponsor coming, but I have to reach out to them. I'm so sorry. I'm getting true Cookie Design Lab. Code twins is 15% off. Bakey Bake, the meringue powder that you'll fall madly in love with if you try it is 10% off with code Twins. Daisy makes. They apparently Daisy makes. I'm in the Daisy makes group. They released a collab with somebody named Katie.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

For this interesting shape that sold out immediately. Do you know why people wanted it so badly?

[Corey]

No. I don't know.

[Heather]

Know. They said it was like a tapered egg shape and people just wanted it and people were trying to buy it off of other people.

[Corey]

It looked like a cakesicle to me. Am I correct?

[Heather]

Yeah. But I think it was a better size.

[Corey]

Oh maybe that cakesicles are heavy so if you can get them slightly less

[Heather]

heavy, they'll stay on the sticks.

[Corey]

I don't know. I tried cakesicle once and I wanted to to die.

[Heather]

So Code twins get you a discount at. Daisy makes Primera Eddie, the edible printer we keep talking about here in the podcast. That is a direct to food printer. They don't run a sale. If you go to a group called Unofficial Eddie group on Facebook you can find them pretty used. I saw somebody is the lowest price I've ever seen. It sold at 1600 used. Wow. You don't get, if you buy from Eddie directly, you get the warranty, you get the training stuff. So there is a, there is that rest assured guarantee there. But you can always buy them used as well in those beneficial groups.

[Corey]

Eddie has been great for corporate for adding backgrounds, not having to invest in so many stencils. Which stencils are like, like you got to airbrush, you got to clean your airbrush. It gets clogged like guaranteed to be clogged at least twice in your life. You cry guarantee five times with that.

[Heather]

So that the Eddie has definitely fixed the biggest thing I see. Eddie is not cheap. It's $3,000. Right. That's, that's just a huge chunk of change. They do have financing options, but there's an interest rate right there. But a lot of times I see that Eddie pays for himself with three corporate orders.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Which you couldn't take without the Eddie. So is that chicken or the egg thing chicken or the Eddie thing? Chicken. Nutra Mill is a code sugar cookie. Saves you $20. Definitely check out that see through bowl.

[Corey]

Yeah, I, I, yeah, I would be curious. I can't confirm nor deny if I like it or not.

[Heather]

I be curious if people like it.

[Corey]

Yeah. Maybe someone will do a, a reveal or something or a video review.

[Heather]

We would like you guys to spend your money and tell us if you like, please. Thank you. To interest Cory, you have here the Dick supporting good app.

[Corey]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This year I've been aiming to get 10,000 steps a day. It's gone fairly well. There's a few days maybe I've missed, but I made it up on other days. They're not normal.

[Heather]

Cory's running through them all. She invited me to get some steps in. They're not steps or gallops. I said you've got to slow down. I'm breaking a sweet wet. Yeah, I know, but.

[Corey]

So since January, I've. I've been able to hit it almost every single day, maybe save five that I've hit. 10,000 steps. The dick's Sporting Goods app.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Corey]

You're selling your information to them. But aren't we all on every app that we are? If you download Dick sporting goods app it, pair it with either your Fitbit, your Apple Watch, or something that keeps track of your step count, you can actually earn points up to $30 a year.

[Heather]

Year.

[Corey]

Every 100 points you get, you get three points a day. And you can either earn it by being 30 minutes active, 10,000 steps. And the last one, I can't remember, but there was three ways to earn three points a day. But if you like to get athleisure clothing or you know, your kids are growing through their shoes fairly fast, you can add to your Dick's rewards points by just doing what you normally do.

[Heather]

Walk to the Dick's Sporting Goods store. Yes. And then get stuff for free. New shoes that you walked to the store. I've had a couple of things of interest. I was thinking the twin Select I always thought was interesting. Those documentaries I had, something I referenced earlier. I said I'll get down to it in the. The.

[Corey]

Oh yeah, you did the Juniper Galaxy, something like that.

[Heather]

Oh, yeah. So my first one is the cats. My older sister said this guy's named Jackson Galaxies on YouTube. YouTube. He's a cat guy. Like he's. That's his whole entire life, his cats. Cat behavioralist is what he called himself. He says if you follow this method, the Jackson Galaxy method of introducing two new cats, your cats will always get along. And it was interesting.

[Corey]

Is he a bald man with a black beard?

[Heather]

I don't think so. I think he was like had blondish hair, but I don't remember. Okay. He could have been. He could have been. I don't remember. I was just letting him play in the background as I was frantically separating the cats. The method is you keep one cat in one room, one cat in the other, and you scent swap. They said scents equals buddies. So you let a cat sleep on a. Like a blanket and then you put that in the other cat's room. You'd never let these cats see each other. Then you start feeding both cats between an opaque door. So the one cat's eating on the bottom of this door. The other cat's on the other side of the door eating that way. Just so that. Because I.

[Corey]

They're like.

[Heather]

Food is like everything to a cat. So them being safe enough to eat around each other without the threat that the cats are going to cross contaminate. Then you create a physical barrier that they can see through. So it could be like netting or it could be a fence or something like a baby gate that they can kind of. And then you introduce them.

[Corey]

So I've walked through like, your cats aren't getting along.

[Heather]

I feel like the Munch is constantly tackling Bean, but Bean is immediately falling on his back. Cause he wants to wrestle, but Munch is like so aggressive. Aggressive. He's not biting him, but he's making weird noises. He's fixed. So not what you think, but like, ang.

[Corey]

Like growling.

[Heather]

I'm gonna try to do it just. But all on top of this little cat. But always around like. And I said, are you biting him? So I stuck my hand in between it. No, he's just resting his face on the hair of the little guy. Weird. Yeah. I don't.

[Corey]

I think you can't walk that bad. I think you already did the damage.

[Heather]

I know the Jackson Galaxy guy said, you can walk it. It back. We're walking it back. He said you should walk it back. Give me hope. Another one I saw on Tik Tok. I thought this was interesting for both of us. That hit pan challenge. But it's a monthly challenge where you take products from each category. So skin, hair, face, nails or whatever. Get one product that you've kind of like decently like, but not enough to hit pan on. And you have to use it in a month.

[Corey]

I do that already with my face stuff.

[Heather]

But not stuff you like. Stuff you don't like.

[Corey]

Oh, I've been. Because I'm trying not to buy stuff. I've been going through that. My hate stuff.

[Heather]

Like. Yes. So the challenge is. And some people are trying to use it up in a month, but if it's not, they said at the end of the month, switch it out for something else within its category that you're also not using. So you can stay interested.

[Corey]

I think that's a great idea. I used to be the person that if I like something, I got two of it. Nar that does that need to happen? You only need one of it because the other one will one expire while

[Heather]

it's waiting to be used up or it takes up storage.

[Corey]

So then you're like, look like a hoarder.

[Heather]

I find myself trying to Say at Walmart, like Walmart is a storage place. Walmart is my storage place. Walmart. Like I. If I like this a lot, I could literally, it's two minutes away. I can go back and get it.

[Corey]

The problem when they do Bogos and they try to.

[Heather]

Gotcha, gotcha bo and a discount sale, especially Sephora's two Sephora runs a 20% off sale two times a year. If you have somebody with a rose root. Rouge. Rouge Rogue. The rouge. So our little sister has rouge. Do you do it? I don't.

[Corey]

No, I haven't. I fell out of graces. I have not bought from Sephora that much.

[Heather]

So our little sister spends way too much money. But I'll go through her. Which you're allowed to, I think to get the 20 discount. But I do stock up the year but I try not to stock up too much because I know the next sale comes in end of November.

[Corey]

There's two sales. They run that 20 off.

[Heather]

That gives me the limited two times a year sales. If they ran sales all the time, I wouldn't be stockpiling.

[Corey]

They do run sales all the time, just not on everything.

[Heather]

Right. I wanted the 20% off. They never run it on the things I like. So Cory's like, you bought a lot. But I want to say all of the things I bought with things I've used and reuse often. So it's nothing. I tried nothing out with that sale.

[Corey]

Heather, I know you don't need new perfume. I know that for a factoid.

[Heather]

I didn't buy.

[Corey]

No, you had us all bring our perfume so you could shop our perfumes

[Heather]

to buy a new perfume. Do you know which one I bought? Why did we do the whole action? Ashley went out and bought some immediately.

[Corey]

Really?

[Heather]

I just wanted to see what everyone like to smell like. Because what is life you. There's only so much you can talk about. Yeah.

[Corey]

Girl with no couch for granny to sit on.

[Heather]

Oh yeah. My grandma's coming to the house of ninja. So find a standing room only.

[Corey]

Guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. Your listens help this keep on going. You supporting the sponsors help them keep on going. And we love when you text in. You have a gossip column. Something like that. It just keeps us going. It keeps keeps us chatting.

[Heather]

Parasocial relationships. We love you guys like we love our cousins. We do. And we love them a lot.

[Corey]

But not for a day discount when they are.