269. Baking it Down - Sugar Cookies as a Side Hustle

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Baking it Down – Sugar Cookies as a Side Hustle"

Podcast: Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing
Hosts: Heather and Corey Miracle
Episode: 269
Date: July 14, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into starting a sugar cookie business as a side hustle, especially aimed at beginners and those juggling other responsibilities such as parenting or full-time employment. Heather and Corey revisit the foundational steps of launching a home-based bakery, highlight how to minimize costs, utilize existing resources, and keep the journey upbeat and accessible for anyone thinking of earning extra income through cookie decorating.

---

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Sugar Cookies Make a Great Side Hustle

• Low Barrier to Entry: Most essentials (oven, baking sheet, basic mixer) are common household items. Start-up costs can be kept minimal by borrowing or buying secondhand.
• Flexible Schedule: The process (mixing, baking, decorating) can be broken up into short time blocks to fit into busy lives, especially accommodating for stay-at-home parents.
• Income Potential: Even small batches or simple sets can generate extra "fun money" or help pay down debt.
• Empowering Hobby: There’s satisfaction in turning a hobby into an income, and most people start by baking for friends and family.

"A lot of people find us at the beginning of their journey… How can I bring some extra cash home?"
— Corey (00:45)

---

2. The Realistic Daily Workflow for Busy Lives

Example Schedule (For Stay-at-Home Parents or Anyone with Limited Time)

• Morning (7:00 AM): Plan out cookie set designs while kids are entertained.
• Afternoon Nap Time (2:00 PM): Mix dough and prep royal icing.
• Evening (After kids’ bedtime): Bake and decorate cookies.

"If you just had two hours a day... you could have a set out the door. Can you find two or three hours a day for two days in a row?"
— Heather (18:18)

• Utilizing the freezer for dough and icing increases flexibility and reduces stress about last-minute prep.

---

3. Start Cheap: Use What You Have

• Supplies: Most people already own or can easily borrow a mixer, baking sheet, and basic cookie cutters (often plaques or circles).
• MVP Approach: Focus on a Minimum Viable Product—just enough to fulfill an order, not a Pinterest-perfect setup.
• Hand Mixers Work: No need to buy a fancy stand mixer initially.
• Food Coloring: Buy primaries; blend for custom shades rather than splurging on every color. Use color-mixing apps if necessary.
• Recipes: Don’t pay for recipes. Use established free ones from online giants (Semi-Sweet, Sally's Baking Addiction, Haniela).

"Don't pay for a recipe. There are too many free ones online..."
— Corey (29:59)

---

4. Things You Don’t Need When Starting

• No Artistic Talent Required: Tracing and projectors can fill any gaps in drawing skills.
• No Website or Social Media Following Required: Orders often start via word of mouth with family, friends, or community posts.
• No Costly Equipment: Fancy gadgets and packaging can come later—initial orders may even go out in simple containers (e.g., tin cans).

"The baker or the side hustler about to turn baker who's going to do really well here is one that doesn't have that overwhelming comparison syndrome."
— Heather (34:39)

• No Legal Panic: Early sales to friends or relatives usually don't require immediate licensing (but always research local laws).
• No Pressure for Perfection: First cookies won't be flawless, but that's how every pro starts.

---

5. Finding Your First Customers

• Family/Friends: Most start by filling requests for those around them.
• Community Groups: Post in local buy/sell or parenting groups and ask for hand-me-down supplies or first orders.
• Networking: Sending extras to neighbors, teachers, or spouses' workplaces can lead to organic word-of-mouth growth.
• Content Creation: Even the process of learning to decorate makes for engaging social media content, doubling as a potential second income stream.

---

6. Controlling Your Growth & Avoiding Burnout

• Be the Boss: You control how many orders you take. Unlike delivery or gig apps, you can "turn off" your side hustle when you want.
• Low Overhead = Competitive Pricing: New bakers can price affordably while building skills and a client base.
• Resist Comparison: Focus on your journey, not local competition or Instagram-perfect cookies.
• Preparation for Scaling: As you build confidence, you can invest in better tools, more marketing, or a website.

---

7. Support & Community: The Value of Safe Spaces

• Sugar Cookie Marketing Group: A protected Facebook community where all questions are welcome and no one gets “bullied” for being a beginner.
• Baking with Sugar Cookie Marketing Group: Sister group for technique and baking-specific queries.
• Encouragement for All: Corey shares her experience being almost discouraged out of the business due to negativity and vows all new bakers will be protected in their group.

"The comment section made me feel so bad about myself ... I almost quit that day."
— Corey (49:22)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Startup Costs:
  "The biggest cost here is the mixer... But even then, I still see some people hand-mix because you still can."
  — Heather (37:47)

• On Confidence:
  "If someone's asking... I'm going to give you permission. They're worth it."
  — Corey (40:19)

• On Comparison Syndrome:
  "The baker... who's going to do really well here is one that doesn't have that overwhelming comparison syndrome."
  — Heather (34:39)

• On Flexible Entrepreneurship:
  "You control the influx of orders by being bad at marketing... flip the switch off if you want."
  — Heather (11:30)

• On Community Support:
  "Me as an admin is going to protect your beginner question. I don't want you to ever feel like you don't belong because you're just starting out."
  — Corey (48:44)

---

Key Timestamps

• 00:45 – Why people start the sugar cookie side hustle
• 04:10 – The appeal of home-based bakeries (using your own space)
• 13:13 – How to structure your side hustle around a busy family life
• 17:47 – Maximizing "nap time" and batch work with freezers
• 21:08 – Using your side income to pay down debt or for "fun money"
• 26:48 – How to keep startup costs low (community groups, borrowing, or secondhand)
• 29:59 – Free online recipes and resisting the urge to buy everything
• 34:39 – Overcoming comparison syndrome
• 40:19 – Pricing confidence and why someone wants your cookies
• 48:44 – The importance of safe online communities
• 49:22 – Corey's story of negative feedback and nearly quitting
• 54:48 – Modern marketing: why Google Business Profile matters
• 62:03 – Managing cancellations and the pros/cons of pre-selling classes

---

Recurring Themes & Tone

• Approachable and Encouraging: The hosts maintain a fun, lighthearted, and supportive style, full of puns and banter.
• Pragmatic: They’re honest about both the pros and cons—startup is always a little messy, but that's normal.
• Inclusive: Repeated encouragement that anyone, regardless of artistic or baking skill, can start and succeed.
• Community-Focused: Strong emphasis on safe, nurturing spaces for learning where new bakers are supported, not shamed.

---

Additional Notes & Resources

• Bootcamps & Classes: The hosts mention several upcoming and past bootcamps (e.g., Procreate design, Google Business Profile) and stress that these are optional for beginners—free resources abound.
• Membership & Group Sales: Listeners are encouraged to join the Facebook group and look for upcoming sales or deals aligned with the school year or holidays.
• Listener Questions: The hosts openly answer questions submitted via text, sharing both technical and philosophical business insights.

---

Final Takeaway

Starting a sugar cookie side hustle is accessible, affordable, and adaptable to busy lives. With minimal investment, a practical approach, and a focus on progress over perfection, anyone can turn their baking hobby into extra cash—and find a supportive community to help along the way.

"Just do it. We will fail forward. We'll get better together. You will not find a unique mistake."
— Heather (81:55)

---

For more beginner-friendly advice, resources, and community support, join the Sugar Cookie Marketing Facebook Groups and check out sugarcookiemarketing.com.

Transcript

[Corey]

Welcome to the Baking it down with Sugar Cookie Marketing podcast. We are your host, Corey and Heather said in the correct order there. And we're actually the admins of a Facebook group called the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group. If you have not joined, please answer the questions and join us. We let people in every week as long as you answer the questions. Just to keep the scammers and the bots down to a minimum. It doesn't always work on every single

[Heather]

one of them, but it does keep

[Corey]

them at bay for a bit. We have about a thousand people pending and of those, I think only 100 people had to answer the questions this week. So we'd love to get you in there, but today's podcast is. Do you have a title there? 20.

[Heather]

It is a Sugar Cookie side Hustle.

[Corey]

Sugar Cookie side Hustle. And I before. I'm not diving in. So Heather, you don't have to stop me, but a lot of people find us at the beginning of their journey. Unfortunately, the podcast has been going on for five years and we talk about people's middle journey that you've done been baking, you hate your clients now and how to fix those relationships. But here's the thing. When you're starting out, there's people coming and going from the industry at all times. People are graduating school, having their kids, and finding themselves in a place where. How can I bring some extra cash home when I am a stay at home mom or I work from home home and I have a few extra hours and that I thought we could go back to the base, the basics.

[Heather]

I like it. I'm in that journey. I, I think we could talk to people who are like, I want a hobby, but I don't want the hobby to be a money pit. I want it to also be able to pay for itself.

[Corey]

If you're asking if this is a money, it's a money pit.

[Heather]

I always tell people a hobby is always willing to take everything you're willing to give it. Right. If there's no end in what you. At least, you know, at least we don't have horses. Oh, I avi Mikey's two kids, my friend locally, he has two girls that are in their teen years and they're really into horses. And he says to rent a horse. We live in a high, highly populated area. So you kind of do this timeshare horse rental. Yeah. He said it's true.

[Corey]

What, you own a horse ear.

[Heather]

You own the ear of the horse or the horse?

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

You buy the horse's time and if you don't Use your time on the horse, you forfeit it and roll into the next month's fee. Wow. So one horse could have a bunch

[Corey]

of renters that me and other took horseback riding lessons. One thing I'll credit my parents was they were gonna let us test, test, taste every horizon to see which ones

[Heather]

we liked and which art classes. Horses, horseback.

[Corey]

Yeah. And what's crazy in our horseback riding was we not only paid for the lessons, but we also mucked the stalls, which I feel like that was such an initiative.

[Heather]

I'm so sorry. Mucked the stalls. Where did you learn that?

[Corey]

Mucked the stalls.

[Heather]

That sounds so I'm really into horses.

[Corey]

That's the only thing I took from the classes.

[Heather]

They said it taught discipline, but yeah. We're from Sugar Cookie Marketing Group. It's a Facebook group that's kind of turned into a podcast newsletter. Courses, collabs, and all this other fun stuff. And if you want to learn more about any of the resources we talk about on this podcast, go to sugarcookiemarketing.com at the top. I have a laundry list of links. You can find anything that we refer to here. My quote is from Warren Buffett. It still driving. I think he still lives in the house he grew up in and he drives.

[Corey]

At least that's the rumor. Watch him own 50 other houses and I think he does.

[Heather]

I just think he lives in quote, never depend on a single income, make an investment to create a second source.

[Corey]

So. That's very true. The, the great thing about a day is it's 24 full hours. The bad part of it is a lot of us spend it scrolling on social media instead of investing in our futures. Listen, I'm all about scrolling. You'll pry my phone out of my cold, dead hands. But what if you have the opportunity to turn some of that time into some cold hard cash? And that's where a lot of us bakers, a lot of the people who've been doing this for years and years, started off just with, I think I could, I think I could do that.

[Heather]

You saw it in a dream.

[Corey]

Yeah. You saw a video and you said, that looks kind of easy. That's how what I fell for, for sure. And maybe I could do that. And, and I love home based bakery businesses because it opens up the place that you're at, that you're already paying money to each and every month to live into something that can turn over a little profit. So most of us working with ovens already, most of us have a roof over our heads already. How can we turn something that we're already paying into. Into something that pays us? And that's.

[Heather]

I really do like that. I really like the point that you

[Corey]

said is a lot.

[Heather]

And we'll talk about it in today's podcast. A lot of the bare necessities get out the door, which is what I call the mvp, the minimum viable product. The minimum you need to make a sale. A lot of it we already have. So I've gotten into rug tufting, had none of that, had zero of it. So it was a high start. It was a high enough startup cost. I could put a barrier to entry. Whereas. Do you have an oven? Most of them come with houses. Do you have a baking sheet? You've likely baked sugar or pull apart cookies before. Do you have a mixer? Most of us do. I don't. Yeah, but most of us do.

[Corey]

But even that, Even just starting with a hand mixer, not even a KitchenAid tilt, you know, tilt head. We have the things because we use them for other things in our life. And that's why you see that a lot of people will actually start off as a super side, side, side gig with sugar cookies, because people like to have them at parties. You would like to have them at your own kids parties. I know the reason why I got into them was I wanted to gift them to a client, and I actually ordered from some lady, and I said, wow, that was a pretty pen. And I drove up to her house and I said, wow, I'm at a lady's home where she lives. And the cookies were cute and delicious. And I said, wow, I like that.

[Heather]

Yeah, that's truly how we do it. When we teach in person cookie classes, I like to ask people. We always start off. And I know people hate it. Icebreaker. Tell me what your name is. And that's so I can take roll calls secretly. Tell me where you rolled out of bed from, because I just like to know where people are from. And then tell me your experience with cookies and what you're here to learn. And I love it when I see someone's like, I'm not sure, but I want to see if I can make some money from this.

[Corey]

Yeah, because you're. You're in one. You're doing more homework than most of us did. I just, I just, you know, close my eyes, mixed some really, really, really, really loose royal icing, and created Bob the Blob. But if you're, like, going to an expert, and I know Heather, when I first started, I had not baked for anybody yet. She bought me A cookie class that we both went to and it was eye opening for me just to see how someone else does it. Their different recipe for, you know, their cookies, how they ran the class. And I was like, oh, yeah, I think I could do this in some aspect of my life.

[Heather]

So if you're, if you're sitting there, you've scrolled to the end of TikTok and now it's sending you the like, is it time for bed? Get off my feed, get out.

[Corey]

Oh, I like. She's like, are you scrolling?

[Heather]

I couldn't scroll faster past that. It makes me want to stay on another hour. I'm telling what to do for people

[Corey]

who don't know what me and Heather are talking about. If you scroll down late into the evening, there's this thing on TikTok and it's supported by TikTok and it's kind of an ad, but it's that it, it, it clocks how much time you've been on there. And it'll be like, hey, it looks like you've been scrolling for a while. Yeah, I have and I want to keep doing it.

[Heather]

My rule, my personal TikTok scrolling is I'll always scroll. I download it on Fridays and install it on Sundays, but there's no, no restrictions for those three days because I put in the five days. I'm curious, have you been super strict with yourself these past couple of weeks? Because I swear I will not have gotten a message for me last week, the week prior, it was a holiday week and I gave myself a little gifty.

[Corey]

Okay. I was just curious because I said

[Heather]

I wanted to see the tourists enjoying America. Okay, moving on to today. Oh, I'm sorry, what's coming? We have the pipe, a hobby cookie collab. This Friday, I'm sending you out the. I got the list together, the participants. This is our first one where we've limited it to 30. So total participants will be 32. Cause Corey doesn't sign up and then I don't sign up because I'm running the thing. But you'll get my comment, that's for sure. You get Corey's comment. I always see her there. The lemon cookie class kit Corey's working on. Have you gotten those cutters yet?

[Corey]

Big cutters. Cookies baked. Class will be done this week.

[Heather]

There goes 20 hours of my life coming down. I'll be working on the digital downloads, my thank you series, which I think will be great for pre sales come the holidays when your audience is looking to buy something to thank their home maintenance support team. Which is the trash truck guys. I would. I would marry my trash truck guys. I don't even know what they look like. They come before I wake up. But love those guys. Love the reset of trash day. So I'm doing one for trash day. It's already out. I'm doing the mail carriers next. And then I think I'll do package delivery and possibly cleaning company. That'll take us to when you would start marketing those.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Other things that are coming. We'll talk about it. The boot camp we just wrapped up is now leading into designing sets for Procreate, which if you. That would be more of an advanced topic. I know today's topic is getting started, but imagine down the road that you've really gotten this thing kind of paying its own bills. In fact, it's no longer a side hustle. It's a true business. And you want to know how you can increase that next margin, that top tier pricing structure. And it would be mock ups. Yeah. And I would only send out a mock up if I charged accordingly and let them have two rounds of changes

[Corey]

for an eternal loop of changes just for like knowledge. I don't even do the mock ups right now. And it's just because I would charge so much more because I am not artistic. But what this Procreate thing does is it takes some of the artistry out. You don't have to be an artist

[Heather]

to use it, but it's a great

[Corey]

way that if you wanted to like focus on high end clients like weddings to be able to send them a mock up of the designs will lock and load a lot more clients than them sending you an inspiration. You're like, okay, I think I can handle it. And then them showing up the day and like holding their breath, just making sure that you got their colors in their vibes. Right.

[Heather]

Right. Some people swear by mock ups and some people wouldn't touch with 10 foot pole. But it could be a tool in your arsenal. So we'll talk about that in a minute. But jumping right in here, if you're looking for a new side hustle, meaning like you haven't really explored sugar cookies yet, but you're considering like, do I do Amazon delivery? Do I deliver for Lyft or Uber or do whatever the DoorDash one is. Have you ever ordered from DoorDash?

[Corey]

I've never ordered from Doordash Someone was

[Heather]

like, why pay $35 for a meal when you can pay $42 for a meal that's slightly cold, 52 minutes late and doesn't taste. That's probably so if you're like, this is a great option. If you do not have a vehicle. A lot of those, A lot of those side hustles are vehicle dependent. So Uber Lyft, even doordash, you are going out, you're getting Amazon delivery, they're all car focused. And I see the big detractor there is. It's car focused. And the maintenance cost in the long term is what we're not factoring into the margins there. Yeah.

[Corey]

If you put electricity, like turning your oven on against a gas tank, your, your oven's going to win out each and every single time.

[Heather]

So if you don't have a car, if you don't have a ton of time getting started with sugar cookies as just a side hustle, you don't have to do a full on commitment. Could be a really great way to generate a side income that you control the flow of. I know with the things like Amazon delivery or Uber, like if you're not taking orders, if you're not taking the leads, you get like demoted.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

In terms of. Oh yeah, Instacart, again, another car focused one. A lot of these things you have to take the orders. But with cookies, you can control the influx of orders by being bad at marketing. If you want to be bad at marketing, you don't have to take the orders and then you can kind of flip the switch on. Especially if you're willing to take side hustle income. I know when we talk about the business has grown, you can't really do these big stops and starts.

[Corey]

But.

[Heather]

But if this is just side hustle territory, something you're thinking about, this would be a great option for you. So jumping right in, Cor and I discuss this. We said if you had two hours a day. I'm sorry, I spend 10 hours scrolling. So definitely if you just had two hours a day. And this includes, if you have kids, even young ones, you're a stay at home mom or your stay at home

[Corey]

parent and you have two hours that

[Heather]

you can for and they don't even have to be right together. If you have two hours a day, this could be the perfect side hustle for you. So I asked Corey to kind of label like pattern out a day for me.

[Corey]

So yeah, so you'll have your kids. A lot of I find that stay at home moms are the biggest ones to start into the cookie decorating realm. And it's because you guys are at home all the time. If you have little ones that it's before Kindergarten, they're no longer, they're not in first, second or third grade. Time is something, it's a commodity and you have to work a little bit smarter. But we do have time. We can build into our schedule. So while the kids are eating breakfast, you turn on their favorite, favorite show or you know, let them listen to music while they're eating. That's a great time to start planning whatever your set is going to look like. So if it's a baby shower set, you might say, I want to do three different shapes. And we say a baby rattle. A onesie is super popular. And then maybe something that says boy or girl. So three cookies right there.

[Heather]

You know, I'm not, I don't have kids, but I did. This past two weeks, I have started my day at 6am My logic being if I start my day earlier, I'm actually very much more productive in the mornings staying up really late. I'm extremely not productive after 10:30. Absolutely. So I was like, well, I could lose my 10:30, 11:30, 12:00pm midnight or 12:00am and I could squish that to the morning. And while the shift has been hell on Earth, 6am is highly productive. So in her mockup. Right. Corey has kids. So 6am Your, your kid or your kids wake up. Yeah, I know. That's the tri. We're not working in this hour. You have a full time job.

[Corey]

They're screaming. Yeah.

[Heather]

You manage the kids and at 6:30 you're doing, you're prepping the kids for the morning. So let's pretend it's summer or the kids don't go to school yet. You're getting them, you know, shower, we're getting them dressed. Yeah.

[Corey]

We're getting food in front of their faces.

[Heather]

Now we're able to sit them in front of a TV and iPad, something maybe a babysitter, maybe mom comes over somewhere that they can be distracted and, and then you can start at 7am Planning your set. So I'm not even, you're not even in the kitchen. You're sitting down and kind of coming up with what this person has asked for. Right. A lot of us get started and I want to say a lot exclusively, almost all, if not every single person got started because someone in their family asked them if they would be willing to try this out. Yeah. When you got started, you made Bob the Blob. But how'd you go from I'm having fun in my kitchen to somebody's asked for something? I know you made those bees and clouds right there at the Beginning.

[Corey]

No, I was making them for you guys to eat on Saturdays when I saw you. And what's so funny is Summer posted one of my creations to our Instagram and a co worker of hers back when she worked retail asked if I could make a unicorn set.

[Heather]

Okay, I like that. So for the person who's considering this as a side hustle side hobby, you're going to be just getting started for free. And that's a normal thing to do for you guys who are like, I know the magics, but I want to see if this could pay. Pay me money. You're probably getting an inquiry from a friend or a family friend or a family member, somebody where they're like, hey, if you're free, I, I would love to get some of these. And you have no knowledge of how to go from like your kitchen to handing them the cookies. So that's a great place to be at 7am you're going to kind of plan out that set. So let's pretend in our scenario that we're building out for the side hustle is you got a stay at home mom, she has two kids, she doesn't work, but she wants to generate side cash. I mean, she's working with the kids and everything, but she's like, what am I? Could I, can I do something that brings in some spending, some fun money, something that I can have, you know, feel like I earn this and I get to spend the money the way I want to or pay down debt? That's a great time to get in these side hustles. If you want to generate income to pay down that debt and get that 30 interest rate back in your pocket, then she has, let's say her bestie said, hey, I'd like some to buy some cookies if you can. So she's at this point and the bestie is having a baby, so she wants baby shower cookies. Corey came up with three ideas, really common things. A rattle onesie.

[Corey]

Onesie, and something that says boy or girl.

[Heather]

And that would probably be on a plaque, right?

[Corey]

I would say if you're just starting out, the plaque, which is just, it could be a square, is considered a plaque. A circle is plaque. It's not like a designator that has a designated shape. Those are great ones to start off with. And that's what I suggest everyone to start off with. Because it's so flexible with designs. You're not tied to just the baby rattle design. So investing in like three or four plaques, you can buy them from Ann Clark on Amazon. I mean Michaels has a pretty inexpensive hobby lobby. Even cheaper, 50% off.

[Heather]

Now, don't be afraid to go in your community groups and ask if anyone really wants to get rid of their clutter. And you'll come and get their clutter. Make it sound like you're helping them. Is anybody. I got any cookie cutters? I'm thinking about getting to this as a hobby. And if you're trying clean out the drawers, I'd be happy to grab them from you. You'll be surprised how many people are like, yeah, that's taking up space and I'm never going to touch them. I'd pay to get rid of them. Almost. Okay, the kids, you're planning out the design. The kids are watching TVs. Let's say now you go back to mom life. You go back to, you know, taking care of these humans. 2:00pm they go down for nap.

[Corey]

We're going to nap time. And this is a great time to mix your dough and to prep your royal icing. It depends. If you're just doing one order, you're probably not going to create batches and batches of dough. That's okay. We just need one batch. If you're just doing six to 12 cookies, you won't even use the whole thing. That's great because it freezes very, very well. That's when you're going to prep everything and get it ready to go. Because when the kids go to bed is when the oven comes on.

[Heather]

So, yeah, our heavy lifting is going to be when the kids are down for like an extended period. I know nap time can be variable. It'd be cool if it was an hour. So for an hour, you could kind of prep all the materials you needed. We get the royal icing mixed and colored. We get the dough ready to go. But after those kids head hit the pillow, we're busting out that baking pan. We're rolling the dough, we're cutting the shapes, we're baking them, and then we're decorating. Now, I'm going to give you a little bit of elbow room here. We have this all squished into a day. Let's give ourselves two days. Sure.

[Corey]

If you have enough planning you got, you can definitely get it done in two days.

[Heather]

And that would include drying time. So we'd have from start to finish, two days. And we're only looking at roughly, what, two to three hours per day.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

You could have a set out the door. Can you. If you're considering this as a side hustle, can you find two or Three hours a day for two days in a row. They don't even have to be in a row because the freezing of things is, makes it a lot more flexible than I think people give it credit for. I think people who are considering a side hustle hear cookies and think it's gotta be fresh. In fact, I gotta get the order and I've gotta be in the kitchen the day before the order because that's how this works. In fact, most of these bakers are pre prepping their dough. Corey is saying she can squeak out four or five months in advanced.

[Corey]

Yeah, the great thing, and I understand that we think freshness. Freshness is made to order. Made right before the order. If you ever gone to Subway and ordered Subway sandwich, they're making it in front of you and you're. My light's pretty fresh. The great thing about sugar cookies is you have a little forgiveness there. A lot of times the cookies lay on the back part so there's no airflow to the back to create, you know, a dry out. That's why I love sugar cookies, because it's a lot more flexible than something like cakes. Takes up a lot less room, a lot more forgiving. I got more time on my hands. It works well in those spurts of hours that you get when the kids are, you know, maybe at piano lessons or they're down for their naps, or you have that time that you can curate, you are working pretty efficiently. We're not sitting and scrolling TikTok during those, those times. We're, we're having it a plan. We're baking, we're making and we're using every second that we can so we can ourselves get back to bed.

[Heather]

Because of the flexibility of the distance between creating the order and having it delivered. When you include the freezer, really great side hustle option. Really great. Especially if you're a stay at home mom and have kind of unpredictable kid schedules. As long as you give yourself, as long as you're thinking two weeks out from the due date. You got a lot of elbow room here.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Versus Instacart. You get the order, you gotta go, you gotta, you gotta go, you're going to do something. Point two, you'd like to make some fun money. So typically I see side hustles or the concept of could I make money on the side are instigated by two things. You want some fun spending money that feels guilt free or you're trying to pay down debt. Now I've gotten into the TikTok algorithm where people are Paying down debt. And when you think of compounding interest, the eighth wonder of the world, just spending an extra $50 towards debt, when you consider the compounding interest of it actually could equal thousands of dollars in savings not spent on debt. I know sometimes we think of like spending money as this fun because you're acquiring something, either food and experience or a thing, a physical object. But spending money on debt can actually make that money go so much further because you got the interest rate. Essentially when you pay a dollar towards debt, you're taking away the bank's interest.

[Corey]

It's funny, on TikTok, I saw these people pay based on engagement. So they'll be like, I got five likes yesterday. That equals five cents. So they put five cents towards the total and you're like, five cents is nothing. It adds up.

[Heather]

It does. And I think in terms of side hustles, if you're wanting to be a content creator, creating cookies is great content. So now you can turn this little hobby into two sources of income. Know, selling the cookies and creating that. Even if it's $5 here and there, that's great. Spending money that you otherwise wouldn't have generated. Sure, sure.

[Corey]

Thousand percent.

[Heather]

So I would say if you're asking yourself, is sugar cookies getting started with, with the intention to make money from it, is it right for me? Do you want to generate side income to start? I think it's a phenomenal way to do it. Now, yes, you're going to be priced lower because your labor costs are lower than the higher price baker, but you will still have a demographic within your market that's going to eat you up.

[Corey]

You're gonna love it. Yeah. And eat those cookies up.

[Heather]

And then again, you can control the ebb and flow of orders. Unlike a lot of these apps, you're the boss. You're the side hustle boss. Babe, babe, boob. So if you'd like to make money. So again, the first point is you have two hours in a day. Point number two, you'd like to generate income. Because there's hobbies that generate no income. Bird watching.

[Corey]

They take income, if anything, right.

[Heather]

And they're, they're almost therapeutic. Going for nature walks, gardening. That's. That is hobbies that take money. And then we have. Have hobbies that make money. And if you're right there and you're like, okay, I love a hobby that I could just kind of have a leisure with, but I need to generate income. I need to pay down debt. I want some. A little spending money or I want to. A Lot of people want to pay for Disney vacation.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Pay for a vacation. You can do that. That's a great place to be for sugar cookies. I would say if you're like, I'm about to go into foreclosure. This, that's too aggressive for what the kind of the lifespan here, the, you know, the workflow of cookies. Right. I think you have, you know, if the house is on fire, I'm not sure that we want to kick on the oven. You know what I mean? Point number three, you likely already have most of the starter supplies we need. Yes. A hobby will have no end inside of taking your money. We know that. But for the side hustler, they likely already have a hand mixer or mix. A lot of us have mixers just for making food for ourselves.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Corey]

I mean there's KitchenAid is just well marketed. That's why everyone knows KitchenAid because they've, they're fantastic at their marketing. But there's some off name brands that you can find that do just as good of a job that can mix dough just like the rest of them that you could find. You know, the great part is a lot of people are willing to get rid of their mixers. So if you found a buy nothing,

[Heather]

sell nothing group, some people upgraded their mixer to a larger size and they have that other one. And if you go into these community groups and say, hey guys, anyone trying to get rid of the mixer or. And this one will get you a better deal. Does anyone have a mixer not working? A lot of YouTube videos. I know there's that guy that fixes mixers.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

So kind of walk you through it. And I love to watch him how he takes off the band and the oils are like old. You could almost get a mixer and start fixing it now. I know you did that, Corey.

[Corey]

I got someone to fix it.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

It was a gentleman that bought them and referred them. And then you got a fixed one. It was older, but it worked. And that's what I actually started with.

[Heather]

And then don't be afraid to borrow from a family member. I, I got into a sewing thing once and Corey's ex husband did too. We kept borrowing this sewing machine and then when I was done, I could just give it back. When I was like, well, this maybe not was. I was sewing a costume or something. Let me tell you, it didn't, it didn't look great. But don't be afraid to borrow. Somebody in your family likely has a mixer that they aren't using. Maybe they use it around Christmas Time say, hey, do you mind if I borrow that? Just to see if the side hustle is for you so you can really stave off kind of the larger cost. You would likely already have a baking sheet. I'm not even a baker and I have a baking sheet. So.

[Corey]

Yeah, I mean, like if you're trying to make baked chicken or you're trying to do anything like that, you probably already have a baking sheet. And the thing we're just going to put on top of it is parchment paper.

[Heather]

Love that. And you can get that at the grocery store. Like Corey said, a plaque cookie cutter. You can go to your local cake supply store. Where else could you get really simple cutters?

[Corey]

Hobby lobby has very simple ones. Michaels has very simple ones.

[Heather]

Here's the thing.

[Corey]

If I could go back and tell my early years something, I would say, do not buy all the cookie cutter shapes. Use plaques.

[Heather]

That's a bigger regret for people.

[Corey]

Yeah. Because the amount of money I've spent on cookie cutters, mind boggling, let me tell you. I have a zillion of them downstairs. But I find myself when someone has a unique theme, I'm using the plaque to put it there. So finding a plaque is just easy. And plaques can, you know, they can just be a square. That counts as a plaque. And then you just put the rattle on there.

[Heather]

Yeah, it's a wildly. It opens the door again. So you can see what we're trying to do is keep our startup cost really low in the other side hustles like Uber and Instacart requires a whole car. And then on top of that car, it requires an insurance plan that covers not just the car, but the car that's being used to generate income. With these side hustles. Yes. You, you are sole proprietary. You should report your taxes. There is insurance you can add as well. But just getting started to see if this is a thing for you. You already have a mixer, you already have a baking sheet, the pot cookie cutter, super easy. Again, just asking a community group if anyone's trying to clear out. We've all had the idea to buy a cutter, a cookie cutter, and now we're never using them again. Right. That's normal. People go into that community group and ask if somebody's willing to pare down. Most people want to get rid of stuff. Yes. Not for free. At a marketable discount.

[Corey]

I just went through my baby shower, my baby cookie cutters, and I realized I have four of the same rattle.

[Heather]

You now add this part. I'm gonna make you speak to It. The basics of coloring is in your startup supplies.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

What you.

[Corey]

You'll see there's no end to the amount of food coloring options that are out there. The one thing that I use most often than not is the Ann Clark's. They have these little tubes and it comes in the primary colors, plus a few. I think fuchsia and turquoise are in there. But if you didn't know every color is derived from primary colors, if you have access to Google on your phone, you can actually type in, how do I make turquoise? And it will tell you the primary colors that you can add to do that. There is also an app, I think it's called the Color Wheel, something like that. And you can actually put a color in there and it will tell you you need 60% of this, 20% of that, 10% of this, and it will get you relatively close to the color you need. You don't need all the colors under the rainbow. Like Americolor has this super cool option, Heavenly 70 and the Nifty 50. That's 70 bottles of gel food coloring and then 50 bottles of gel food color. It's an investment, let me tell you. You don't need it. All you need is just a box of primary colors. And from there you can derive a lot of colors from it. From someone, me, who has baked four orders for the last six years, I get so many people saying, I'm looking for pink and purple. So it's not that someone's like, I need fog on the horizon of a sunset. Golden. You know, it's not that. It's literally, I'm looking for pink purples.

[Heather]

I'm looking for amber waves of grain. Yeah, a lot of that. When you're just getting started and you have the friend or the family friend or the relative that's like, yeah, get it close. Pink, purple. Yeah, It's a kid's unicorn. Right. So you can kind of like get away with not the heavy investment. What we don't want is a side hustle. Eat up all your profits before you're even out the gate.

[Corey]

Yeah. Because then you.

[Heather]

You're.

[Corey]

There's no guaranteed sales. But if you're just putting money at it because you know that eventually maybe one day you might need it, that's a great waste of money. And I've wasted so much money on buying things that I think I'll need versus buying things that I would actually need.

[Heather]

If you're a hunt and pecker like me, which is going into Ross and just hoping you find that one Treasure. You never know you wanted because you didn't need it in the first place. And now you can't leave the store without it because what if it's not there when you get back? If you're not that, you could go into the cutter, buy, sell, trade groups and get stuff from a baker who's getting out of the business. Yeah, don't get so crazy and buy everything they have. You do not need it. As your startup cost, we can. Oh, there's always a baker exiting. You'll always have access to it. It'll always come. And I see bakers in there. I'm just looking for projector. 50 people. I have one. I have one that I had and I have a new one. So that's always available. Don't fall prey to the Ross mindset like me. Okay, we've done that one. So one, you have two hours in a day. You think you make it work. Two, you have a goal. I want to make more money. I want to pay down debt. Either one of those is phenomenal. Number three, you have 50% of the supplies needed. You probably don't need too many more. Maybe a few stories. But number four, and this is the one that you kind of can't get around. So there's no. There is a price saving. Thing is you got to have the Royal icing recipe. Now there is three ones Corey's mentioned that are free. Like, we can't get it in low.

[Corey]

Well, I want to tell you, don't pay. Don't pay for a recipe. There's too many free online that people have loved that people still use to this day that are free for the taking. So you don't need to invest in them. If down the road, if you're like, I just want a different texture or taste, fine. But starting out, no, don't save your cash. These ones are great recipes that people still use.

[Heather]

Semi sweet Mike Sally's Baking Edition and Heniella's Aniellas. I might be mispronouncing that. Those are all heavy hitters where people, most people get started. Most people are like, I need a recipe. They search those, those solid recipes. Some people won't even move on from them. Now when we are generating income us, you can start exploring recipes. You can start tweaking your own recipe, make your own. I see a lot of bakers do that because these recipe developers, like, they live in certain areas and you might live high on a mountain or down in a trough and your humidity might affect that. But to get started, to get us out the door to see if this side hustle is viable. We have a ton of free resources, and these bakers are keep giving, giving, giving.

[Corey]

Yeah. So there. I mean, don't ever feel like you have to spend money. I. I used to think that I was going to be the baker that offered one bazillion different flavors to match. Like the time of the year, I only offer vanilla. And no one has said hide in her hair about it. Huh.

[Heather]

That's six years in. So for the side Hustler, the person who's considering this is. Is. Could this be, for me, the minimum viable for product? The minimum cost is always how you want to get started. Because what you don't want is to say, is this for me? Spend all your money and say no, because then now you're reselling your things at a super loss. Yeah, Side Hustler is going to get started. It's going to be a little rough out the gate. That's just the way it is. You're learning a new skill. You may not like that first set, and you give it to your friends and family for free and ask them not to mention anything, but leave me a review for this Facebook page I just started, right? A lot of us get started and people are just tagging your personal profile. And then you come to sugar cookie marketing group and say, yeah, how can I make this more official? We don't need official to just get started. And if a baker is going to bully you for that, ask them how they get started and guarantee you it's the same exact.

[Corey]

I want to tell you, 99.9% of everyone started exactly this way. So let someone come off their high horse.

[Heather]

We all started this way, right? And when your family member is buying a cookie from you, we don't have the legality requirement, especially when they initially started off as gifting. And then someone's like, well, let me cover the cost. And then you start getting into profitability. But the side hustle starting point is exactly here. Now here's the things you don't need. My point five is like, here's what you don't need. You do not need to be artistic. That's probably the biggest barrier to mental startup is people are like, well, I'm not artistic. It's so funny when people come to our cookie classes. This lady came on Saturday and she said, I, you know, I said, hey, you're gonna start selling this? Because it was her second class, she's coming to our next two classes. And she's like, well, I Don't feel like I can tell them to until I'm perfect. And she's like. And I see everyone with their handwriting. And I was like, but, you know, the handwriting. It's not their handwriting. They are tracing. They're using a projector to project the font onto the cookie, and they're just tracing it. And she. Her mind was blown because here she thought she had to learn a new artistic method of writing and realizing when in reality there's a way to do it. Not artistically.

[Corey]

We're going back to first grade. We're tracing, coloring in line between lights.

[Heather]

That's all you gotta do. So you don't need to be artistic. You don't need to be exceptionally talented. You don't need to be. A lot of people will see Corey, and we're twins, and they're like, do you make the cookies? No, Corey makes the cookies. Oh, what else does she make? The cookies? Like, yes. Cory's gotten into some breads and stuff, but, like, you're not an impassioned, you know, Martha Stewart coming in here and just custom meals every night.

[Corey]

Before I made sugar cookies, I did not own a mixer. I got a mixer for the sugar cookies. Like, I was like, oh, babe requires a mixer. I'm out.

[Heather]

Granted. Go. I don't. Wouldn't even call you enthusiastic in the kitchen. I say, you really like the sugar cookies. You do the sourdough thing for fun and. But then you go back to your spaghetti with meatballs dish. That's your. That's your heavy hitter, too. Yeah.

[Corey]

No, I'm not. I'm not this person that was born to be a baker. I also am not really good at art. Heather can tell you. I cried myself out of art class. That's how bad I was. I have the signature face that I draw all the time. He's got big eyes and a wonky nose. Heather knows exactly what it looks like.

[Heather]

I'm picturing the orange in my head.

[Corey]

So, no, I don't have any natural gifted talent. And that's the great part about this. You don't need any naturally gifted talent. If it were so, I would not be here on this podcast right now.

[Heather]

The baker or the side hustler about to turn baker who's going to do really well. Here is one that doesn't have that overwhelming comparison syndrome.

[Corey]

No. I was able to celebrate any new thing I learned.

[Heather]

I made these clowns, and I was like, these are rocking my socks. Then she made these bees.

[Corey]

And I said, my mind is. This is getting better. I Can tell you where I thought I had arrived. I made these hearts. My parents were going to Hawaii for a vacation for like, their, I don't know, millionth wedding anniversary or something like that. And this. I did a heart and I did the ocean waves coming up onto us. I said to myself, this is peak performance. It's only downhill.

[Heather]

Here's the thing. You're comparing yourself in a world that you are looking into. A lot of us on the outside are like, oh, my goodness, this is rocking my.

[Corey]

My world.

[Heather]

Because I'm not looking at other bakers. When Corey brought those bees into our house, I'm, yeah, this. This could have been. I've been used to Oreo sleeves and now we got a custom sugar cookie. This is amazing. So if you're good at not comparing yourself and you're able to, like, say, oh, my goodness, I created this and I'm really proud of myself. This is going to be free. So you do not need to be artistic. You don't need a website. You don't need all the technical stuff. If you've listened to this podcast and you haven't started yet, you would feel like, oh, my goodness, I can't start

[Corey]

because I don't have this, this, this, this, and this. No, you do not need all of

[Heather]

these bakers that end up here. I went through today and I told Cora I was going to read it aloud to her. We have people joining the Facebook group all the time, and one of the questions is, what do you want to learn about marketing? And so many people are like, I'm just getting started. Like, I have no clue. Like, yeah, a lot of what we talk about is two years in, five years in, ten years in concepts. But to get started, you just need the minimum, the mvp, the minimum viable product to get out the gate.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

You can add the fancy accoutrement later.

[Corey]

Later down the road. Way down the road.

[Heather]

Yeah. So the website, it'll come. You'll find that you will start getting more of these orders and you're like, I'd love to have order management. I'd love to streamline this. I would love to keep this more organized, but right now you don't need it.

[Corey]

You're a little sister and you're like, you're so dumb. What's the order that you want? Like, you don't need something to take your order.

[Heather]

In fact, because websites do have hosting costs, we're trying to keep really low cost. Yes, you will start making more money. You will start getting better. You'll be able to charge more and that stuff will naturally come. But yeah, the family Snapchat, it works for those first few orders out the gate. You also do not need a lot of startup cost. If you play this right, if you listen to this podcast, you're like, huh, this could be interesting. You do not need a lot of the startup cost because what we want to do in, in in my approach to business is have the business pay for itself. Yes. When we start these businesses, we save up our pennies. Then we both put money in for our startup cost. But I we how little you need, especially if you're willing to go to this community groups, maybe go to a yard sale or two, it's gonna buy nothing group really hunt down those sales. Go to the cutter, buy, sell, trade and only look for the minimums you need. You don't need a ton of startup costs because the biggest cost here is the mixer.

[Corey]

That, that's, that would be the biggest burden of entry that you would have in. In still to that I still see some people hand mixed because you still can do that.

[Heather]

You can still do that. What, what I see is some bakers who are like trigger shy and they do not want to get started is they'll look for ways to slow themselves down and it'll be like, well, I need to buy this bigger mixer because the roadblock you, you're scared about something and I appreciate the, the fear but the just dive in, just dive in. The water's fine. We've been here for six, seven years at this point. You don't need a website, you don't need a lot of startup money, you don't need every supply like Corey said and most bakers. I wish I did not spend so much money on stuff at the beginning. Half of it I do not use. A lot of times you come to content creators like this and we're like, here's what you need to get in marketing and then you go to content creators. You're like, here's all the tools I use. They have to create the content. We got to review something, right? We can't dead air. So we're going to say, hey, let's talk about websites and here's all the website and let's talk about project management, here's Asana, let's talk about graphic design, here's Canva and Photoshop and that's because we have to fill up the air. You do not need most of this to get out the gift gate.

[Corey]

You do not. What's so funny? I. I made a video about this. It's called a Dustin store corn starch pouch. It went.

[Heather]

The Dustin Store Corn Star pouch. Yeah.

[Corey]

It went viral for whatever reason. Look, this is from Wils.

[Heather]

Do you need this to be a successful baker?

[Corey]

You don't. You actually need it to get started. Don't. You can just put the cornstarch on the cookies. This pouch makes it a little bit more efficient, but you don't need it. And that's what I see.

[Heather]

So many bakers were like, well, I

[Corey]

don't have everything that I need. You don't, my friend. You don't need it.

[Heather]

You don't need it. If this is your side hustle, the kids are asleep. You just. You just don't need it. And if you feel like you need it and ask yourself, what. What are you scared of? We just told you you didn't need it. So you feel like you need it. What are you scared of? Failure.

[Corey]

They.

[Heather]

They came to you. That family member asked you to make. They saw what you did and they said they wanted more of it. So don't put the roadblock in where none existed. Corey's little clouds blew my socks off. I said, wow, she's arrived. This is it.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Wow. And I was like, my. My cloud. But Heather was like, wow. And I had one that was blowing like air. So he had two big cheeks.

[Heather]

Oh, my goodness.

[Corey]

Where is it coming from? It feels like a real weather report.

[Heather]

So you can get in your own head and be like, well, look at that baker. So good. And this baker has a lot of clients. We don't care. We don't care. They're great. Awesome. Great. Have them do the marketing for you. They're putting the thought in people's heads that people want cookies. Yeah.

[Corey]

If. If you're holding back because you're like, well, what if people don't think my cookies are worth it? If someone's asking, I'm going to give you the permission. They're worth it. Someone is asking. You have the ones.

[Heather]

You just provide the need. You know, I was getting into rug tufting and I made Corey a rug. I just got to finish up the frame, fill it up all. It gets, like, time consuming over time. But I do have Corey's rug, and it looks fantastic. I just gotta glue the backside and shave it. She has no one else to go to to get a rug. She has no one else.

[Corey]

It's gonna be the best because it's the rug I've ever. So I.

[Heather]

You're confident?

[Corey]

Yes.

[Heather]

There's tons of people are so much better than me. But she doesn't have access to them. She doesn't want to pay them that price either.

[Corey]

So absolutely my sister, the reason why my sister's co worker liked the cookies because I brought a bunch of extra and she took them to the office little place where they eat lunch to just like divide them because they went and cookied out because I was just making cookies for fun. And that lady could have found any other baker and they would have probably been better than me. But that girl chose me so I was the best baker for her. So regardless of the millions of talented people out there that are better than Corey, that one lady wanted just Corey

[Heather]

cookies because we're keeping our startup costs so low. You'll be priced more competitively and your labor costs are lower because you're not. You don't have enough time in to charge the higher labor costs. Do you have a whole demographic of people who are like hey, let's not And I, I listen, I love to go to Ross and find a pair of shoes for cheaper than they should be. Yeah, that is me. To pay full price for a pair of shoes does not bring me joy.

[Corey]

And you might say well the person on this, the street starts $78 but they have a website that they're having to pay the hosting.

[Heather]

You don't.

[Corey]

You have flexibility of getting the way

[Heather]

you want to right off the bat.

[Corey]

And it doesn't mean worse. It just means you are in a better position price wise place you have

[Heather]

more options, you have more flexibility. You can turn off the lights and not have to pay. You didn't prepay your hosting bill for a year. Yeah. You do not need a massive following. You could say I don't want to get how I get. How do I create the following to sell if I don't have the thing to sell to create the following. Don't worry about it. Corey sent them to work with her little sister and made a sale the

[Corey]

extras and they made no sense. Some were cathedral heads the size of a quarter. I was impressed by those. We had the clouds, some random bees and they were in a tin can swampled up together. Not one thing heat sealed. Not one piece of shred. Not.

[Heather]

You were bigger than the tin cans at the beginning because this was big

[Corey]

into the tin cans. I was like yeah, I'll bring those tin cans.

[Heather]

She got them from Walmart. It's a great place to be. Into the tin cans again. Don't get lost in the packaging cost. Corey was sending these out in tin cans. Your husband Your wife, whatever their job is. Your next door neighbor, give them some for free. Free. I would love to get free stuff from an extra neighbor. I would love to get. And then I'm gonna be like, oh, it puts a thought into my head. Maybe I'll buy something.

[Corey]

I still to this day, if I have extra cookies, send them to the police department. My huns is a police officer. He brings them into the break room and he'll be like, wow, they cleared out real fast today. I guess they were hungry.

[Heather]

Have you made sales from police officers places?

[Corey]

I have, I have.

[Heather]

So it's easy to see, well, that baker is able to make so much money. That's a roadblock that you just manufactured in a head. We all got started with no, no following.

[Corey]

Can I tell you a funny story that happened yesterday? My husband was at court, as the police officers do, and there's a co worker of him, and he also has the last name of Joan, so they actually call him baby J. And my husband must be daddy J. I'm not sure. But the d. A came over and said something to Nate and baby J said, oh, he. His wife is the sugar mama. The DA Rolls her eyes and he's like, no, she is a sugar cookie baker and it's really hard to get on her list. But if you can get on her

[Heather]

list, she some aids and cookies.

[Corey]

I said, I gotta hire baby J as my marketing head.

[Heather]

I wonder if baby J knows that we all call him baby J and I have no idea what he looks like. If I get pulled over by Mr. Jones, who is innate, I'll be like, are you baby J? Are you baby J? Be like, ma', am, get out of the car.

[Corey]

Ma', am, shut up.

[Heather]

Oh, not baby J. Okay, so that takes us through that. If you're considering a side hustle, let us throw our hat in the ring. Try sugar cookies. As. As we've been in this industry for quite some time now, I find that the lifespan of most bakers is between two and three years.

[Corey]

Yeah. As many people are in it are the same amount of people exiting it. So if you're like, well, there's so many bakers around me, let me tell you, they're in different.

[Heather]

It was 2020. It was 2025. Yeah.

[Corey]

And you'll see that bakers will come and go. They'll start up around Christmas time. They'll be like, okay, that was fun. I'm out again. Don't let the fact that there's people around you dissuade you from starting the Fact that people are around you that are continuing to be bakers tells you it's a great place to start making side income. And it's a great way to get your feet wet to see if you can work from home. And those jobs are really hard to come by right now.

[Heather]

I know we're always looking for work from home. I'm looking for a remote work from home job that allows massive flexibility and doesn't require me to pay like this is it, but this is it.

[Corey]

Yeah, I have something delicious to eat. I remember when Archer, before he went to school, it was tough because I was like, oh, I have to have a babysitter and all that stuff. But when he started going to full time first grade, so full in there, full day, even though I was working, I had a lot more time on my side because he was more of a self licking ice cream cone. So after school he'd do his homework, I would make some of those cookies and it worked well for the time I was able to give it. As he's gotten older and I'm less cool to hang out with and he has Google now to ask his questions to, I have more time on my hand, so my business is able to eb and flow with me where I'm

[Heather]

at in my life. And then you can rev it up because what's going to happen is you're going to get in there and you're going to say, hey, this kind of is working. This, this twins were on or something like, you know, and then you're like, hey, I'm gonna move. And you can, and no, you don't have to put your two weeks in, you know, or you can say, hey, listen, I'm gonna, I'm gonna dial it down because it's just my side hustle. But I'm gonna turn it back on come Christmas time. You can do that and that's available to you. And as you get more into this, yes, you're going to find yourself. Well, I wish I, you know, I'd really like this tool to solve this problem. Great, get the tool. Then I really want to get into. Somebody's asking for a lot of hand lettering. Get the projector. I really want a website sign up for the cookie college.

[Corey]

Like I really like this business name. You don't even need a business name to start.

[Heather]

It can just be Corey's Cookies. Well, that's what you, I mean really, if all bakers really pull down their pants and say, I'm going to be so honest with you, they just got Started by happenstance stands pull down their pants.

[Corey]

To be honest with you, I don't

[Heather]

think that you're not being. You have no. You're not lying, you're not puffing.

[Corey]

You're gonna be honest. When your pants are down, go to

[Heather]

the mirror, put your pants around your ankles and try to lie.

[Corey]

You can't.

[Heather]

You're too weak, you're too vulnerable, you're too exposed. There's no ego in your pants. So yeah, a lot of bakers, a lot of these, A lot of these bakers that are viral. One, they had a one hit wonder video. Two. But two, they, they just got started one day. And their stories are so similar to yours. Yeah, I just needed to make some money. Yeah, just somebody asked. It's something I thought about. I made a Bob the Blob and kept with it. Yeah, you can do it. So if you're like, oh, I would really like some side income, please consider baking decorated sugar cookies. It is easier than you think. Yes, there is skill required that will come time in the saddle, but you can do it. This could generate, this could pay for Christmas gifts. This could pay for your date nights on Friday. This could put the kid into that preschool or buy the school supplies. It could even send you to Disney if you keep up with it. I think it's a great place to get started. Then you have really awesome resources like the sugar cookie marketing group. Yes, we have a few paid things but a ton of this stuff is free.

[Corey]

And let me be the first to invite. If you are starting out, this is one thing I'm gonna say I'm gonna tout myself for this. The sugar cookie marketing group and the baking with sugar cookie marketing group. They're two different groups, sister groups. One, the baking one is to ask all the question, did my cookie spread in the oven? And why is my royal icing running off the side of the cookies? You can ask that a million times over. Please do. Sugar cookie marketing is like, okay, I got someone wants to order and I don't know how to collect their payment. But I'll tell you, if you come to those two groups and I really suggest that you join them. Answer the question. Join them. Me as an admin is going to protect your beginner question. I don't want you to ever feel like you don't belong because you're just starting out. I was once you and I'm gonna

[Heather]

get a diet Coke. But tell them why you almost quit before you started.

[Corey]

When I first started off there, SCM wasn't around it wasn't even a figment of my imagination. But I joined a big old online group for sugar cookies and I showcased my second order and I said, guys, look, here's my second order. I can't believe someone paid me for these. I'm so happy. And this is just the light of my life life. Unfortunately, I put the just because I had seen other bakers do it. I did not know the cookies were on top of the shred. I did not know that shred wasn't food safe. I'd seen literally every baker online put their cookies on there. Little did I know those were samples

[Heather]

and they weren't selling them.

[Corey]

The comment section made me feel so bad about myself. Like I was out to poison my clients. I shouldn't even be baking. I should hang up my hat and my apron that I ended up deleting my post and leaving the group. And I almost that day quit.

[Heather]

Corey, I think you called me like people are really mean to me.

[Corey]

I said, the Internet is meanie bo beanies. So that is why I will protect you and your beginner friendly questions. And I will answer in a beginner friendly way because we don't know what we don't know.

[Heather]

I'm gonna tell you because usually you try to keep drama to stuff. I'm gonna tell you. Someone had posted an AI flyer and was asking for feedback. Okay. Yeah. AI flyers currently are not benefiting your business. So I wouldn't be lying to be like, hey, if we take this back to Canva kind of use the same concept. You can make yourself had some in the comments and it was. She was just nasty. She was just spoken another to another human being in a disgusting way. A human who's like, hey, I need a little help here. She was like, blah, blah, blah. AI is trash. I think she used curse words banner from the group. She finds us on Instagram. Blah, blah blah. You guys band her from there. Don't worry about it. We'll handle.

[Corey]

We'll take the trash out.

[Heather]

The trash loves to come back up. Still keep dating. The trash man calls its trash wins. Yeah.

[Corey]

But I want you to have a safe space.

[Heather]

Yeah. And that is what we can provide for you is a safe space. Cory and I said like there's a cookie treat makers. It's some. It's all in lowercase. It's just a truly toxic group because Facebook wants these public groups with anonymous and nicknames participants which you don't even have to be a member of the groups. You can't even get banned from it. You're not even Facebook wants the drama. And Corne said, wow, we truly are paying the price for this protected group. But it's what people need when they get started. They need a safe place to make a mistake and not be just drunk. So if you're thinking about getting into the sugar cookie side hustle, join the sugar cookie marketing group.

[Corey]

Answer the questions.

[Heather]

All you got to do is answer questions for free. The reason why we answer the questions because we just don't want spam in there. So answer the questions. That allows us to be like, oh, this is a real person.

[Corey]

Get your butt in.

[Heather]

Let's make some side hustle, cash. You guys got this. It's right there. Look at all these bakers that are doing. Doing it.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Corey]

We're not just doing it for funsies, I promise.

[Heather]

Then we're doing it for money. And that's why this is a baking marketing thing, because it's really tired to try to focus on generating. And people always like you too. In the past couple years, people are like, you remove the artistry out of it. Yeah, I do. It's a business. We're. What's the maximum profit for the lowest amount of cost? That is if someone gave me to

[Corey]

do a 12 dozen order of just white circles. Circles best believe ain't gonna be one art artistry in there, but you will get 12 dozen white circles from me.

[Heather]

I remember when Eddie came out and people were like, this is removing the artistry. I said, yeah, it's putting the profit back. Moving on. We have our boot camps. So a lot of what we talked about, the side hustle, if you're getting started, you don't necessarily need to sign up for these boot camps. There's a ton of free resources in that group. But if you're like, okay, I've gotten started. How do I, how do I take it to the next level? These boot camps are the cheapest thing we could create. So they're $13 and if it's enough for you, it' dollar discount to sign up for the cookie college. To get your investment back. You have seven days to think it over. We just wrapped up marketing and community group. So it's a two day bootcamp. I think total in was around three and a half hours of content. And then within that you get a 31 day challenge to market and community groups, which actually only requires selling one time. So you build relationships. You build relationships, you build relationship and then you finally pitch. So if you are getting started, let's say you got started and you got those relative orders, the. The family orders. And you're like, how can I get. Not family orders, how can I. This is good. I like what I'm seeing here. How can I get f orders that are not for my family? Take this boot camp. It's. Even though it's passed, you can still sign up for it and watch them in the past. And we've done a boot camp every month this year. Next up is a procreate one. So that's using an iPad. You would need an iPad. Procreate is only for Apple devices, specifically iPad. So even if you have an iPhone, it's not going to be for you. You can get iPads for cheap. My iPad, I was doing the math. Is 10 years old.

[Corey]

It's 10 years old.

[Heather]

17.

[Corey]

I do not own an iPad.

[Heather]

You son has gone through many. Yeah.

[Corey]

But none work right now.

[Heather]

Because your son has had. But yeah, using Procreate. I got some. We're just going to do the basic intro to getting started with. There are a couple different hacks. I want to talk about layers, I want to talk about color palette palettes and then mocking up and then specifically. And I always tell people when they come to our in person cookie decorating classes how to, how to get around the mistakes. Mistake problem fixing. Yeah. And I feel like that's kind of the secret sauce of how does that person do that? And I don't know how to. It's these shortcut hack things. Yeah. So next up in September. So that will be in August 6th. In September we have Google Business Profile. Corey and I on the tip of the tongue at every lunch has been talking about the shifting of the Internet. What went from clickbait, how we get people to our website. Website serve them the most ads. All these pop ups, you can't even see the context anymore to AI is not even allowing us to get to the ad network because it's serving us

[Corey]

the answer in the query.

[Heather]

But the big thing Google did their state of the union kind of announcement. They were like Google business profile optimized, active. The AI can see what you're doing now. Before it was always like trying to signal to the algorithm like hey, this is what this is about. The AI is now taking a comprehensive look and saying here's what this business is about. Whether it decides to recommend you.

[Corey]

Yeah. So what if someone ask. Just someone asks the best sugar cookie baker near me. That's something that they would ask AI. AI is actually going to go over the Internet and what it's going to do is pull from your Google Business profile review section. This is a highly rated baker. If you don't even have a Google business profile it's not going to pull from you. You're not there for it to find. If you want to be in the AI search query where now a percentage of people are only using AI to ask the questions. They're not even typing it into Google anymore. That's somewhere that you are going to want to be. And the best part about having a Google profile is that it's free. So that's amazing.

[Heather]

It is free. My car they keep it's called I have Android so it's Android Auto is what it is. The car integrates to Android auto which most cars do now or you have some like like adapter for it. I got 3D buildings now. Could care less but cool I guess now the buildings are real tall but I use Google voice search to get to an address or something. But now it's it's the AI pulling from Google business profiles to find the best burger nearby clean gas station editor

[Corey]

please don't take that bootcamp.

[Heather]

Please forget don't actually delete your Google business profile like your course. Great tip number one is don't have one. October Cory and I are fighting over it. I I wanted to do photo organization because I feel like that could be an aspect organized photos are easily accessible to do the sales page But Cor and I are are still arguing.

[Corey]

I just don't know there's much a

[Heather]

ton of we're tell us somebody had said they wanted a boot camp on securing corporate orders. Yeah.

[Corey]

And that's a Google Business Profile 1.

[Heather]

I know, I know. So they kind of all stack their past boot camps. You can still purchase in person cookie classes. That one comes with a cookie class kit which purchased by itself would have been $63. Cor actually taught it on Saturday.

[Corey]

I loved it. I loved that class. It was cute as a button.

[Heather]

We had a girl, she comes to many classes. She said if she has liked the vibe she don't want to learn how to bake. She was like I would love an intermediate class but as soon as the fruits class ended she's like I did so well and I know it's because this class was easier. Yeah. And she's like I feel good about myself.

[Corey]

So funny.

[Heather]

March you can go back in time and purchase food. Photography that sells. April pre sale start to Finish. May was 3D printing cookie cutters. June was cookie video basics. July was marketing and community groups. And August will be procreate and then coming in September, you can actually purchase these ahead of time as well. So you could purchase those now, never have to think about them. Come the day they drop, you get an email saying you can now access it. Corey and I were talking a lot about AI recently and it's not that AI is just this almighty being, obviously it's learning from creators like your humans. Right. Right. It won't be that AI is going to steal your job and bake you cookies. Not. Not I don't believe necessarily in our lifetime. But what's going to happen is the baker then knows how to integrate AI in a way that their audience is not cannot sense. It will be the baker that takes your leads. It's like plastic surgery. The best plastic surgery is the one you can't tell somebody had. Yeah. So you know, people are like hey, plastic surgery. And you're like, well I've had it. And you just can't see it because it was well done. I think it's like, I hate AI. You don't you? They hate the AI flyer because that's really visible and they hate the AI copy because that's the word salad. But the baker that's using AI to develop a better order form back here so that the clients have a better order experience and have more information. That's the baker that's going to take the leads from the baker who's shouting in every comment section. I hate AI. Yeah. Yeah. That will be my state of the union on that. My gossip.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Heather]

This is my guys, my personal gossip up. We had a cookie class on Saturday. The class I taught in Easter. It was jumping in Easter. It's one of the cookie class kits. So we have seven day refund policy. I use Eventbrite. I do absorb the fees. So we charge $85 ticket. I think we walk away with like $81 and change per ticket. But I allow them to self serve refunds.

[Corey]

Why?

[Heather]

Because that takes a lot of time for me if they. An Eventbrite has this new feature where somebody can come and refund themselves themselves. It does make, you know, planning a little difficult. But I have the cut off seven days out from class. So in seven days Corey likely hasn't started baking yet and could probably still resell their tickets. Yeah. So we filled up this class at 10 months ago. But I had two people five days out. She was like, me and my mom, we have two tickets and we can't make it. I think she used the one I can't touch. We're sick. So I Can't make it come to a classic. That sucks for everybody else. She was five days out, so we actually. I did. She said, I just want to roll into the next class. She didn't even ask for a refund. She said, I. We're past the refund period by can rolling into the next class. Okay. And then we took a hit on the profit because I did a bogo sale, but it was two people who had already taken our class because we have a private Facebook group. So they were really happy. I think it was somebody who had come from a class and brought a friend.

[Corey]

But still, we're starting off at a loss.

[Heather]

Starting off at not as high of a profit. It wasn't a loss.

[Corey]

Don't like no law.

[Heather]

Now come this class that I've rolled her into the July frosting and fruits of class. We the night before, like, everything's fake. My car is fully loaded. Corey and I are meeting at the office building in the morning to set this thing up. She's like, hey, me and my mom can't make it. Can we get a refund?

[Corey]

But this time, she didn't say she was sick.

[Heather]

She said, we're on vacation rent. So, I mean, like, that is just putting me in a. There's absolutely not even a bogo. There's no way I'm moving these tickets. So what I did, I said, hey, we're. We're past the refund and credit date date, but you are free to resell your tickets. Just let me know who would show up in your stead. Do you think she came or told me if she wasn't coming? No, she did not tell me she wasn't coming. Did not show. And we had already set out the suits. It's not like I could just throw them in a box and be like, anybody want to buy these?

[Corey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Heather]

But the one girl who had come to many of your classes, she's like, I'd actually like to buy it. But we said, you know, here it is. Yours for free.

[Corey]

That the girl who wanted to buy them, that was her fifth or sixth class, so we've made quite a bundle. I off her in general. And she said, I'll. You'll be seeing me at Halloween. So it was, to me, an investment into the future of her coming. But crate wild work, literally wild work. To not show and not tell, cancel and ask. And then she was like, yeah, can we either get a refund or be rolled into the next class? The only reason July class existed was for this lady. I didn't Want to teach it because I.

[Heather]

She had. You have to have a class in existence for them to be rolled over. So, yeah, wildly. She did come. That's within a right. You can spend your money and never show up to anything. You can do that. But it made the class a lot smaller with two missing people. And then one person had actually snuck in a refund before the seven days. And Cory and I decided not to resell the ticket. But that's the.

[Corey]

There's a benefit to rolling out your classes sooner. So me and Heather in the past have rolled them out for the entire year that your classes will fill up a lot sooner just from people buying them in January for December. The problem was when December comes around, people don't know in January what they're going to do in December, December. So you have people canceling and that puts you at a little bit of a disadvantage because you're going to have to try to sell those tickets. It's easier in December, though. So I don't. So now what we've done is we rolled out the first half of the year classes and now we've just rolled

[Heather]

out the second half of the year

[Corey]

classes to kind of do away with that. You know, you're just greedy. Wanting a ticket in January for December.

[Heather]

So I like it when we go to class or we. This is July class before the day before class. I posted up their Halloween and December class, our Halloween and Christmas class, because I like to go to the class and be like, hey guys, these sell out. I want to give you first tips. As soon as they posted the Christmas class, somebody bought a ticket and then

[Corey]

two people from this class said they will be coming to the Halloween and the December class.

[Heather]

And then one said she'd be bringing a friend in both. So I'm already looking at potentially four tickets sold for Christmas. They'll sell out regardless. That's why I do like posting them ahead of time. But yes, you run the risk of somebody's like constantly canceling because they're like, I'm busy. And that comes down to the. The policy. So it probably shouldn't have meant the rules the first time, but it did. Yeah. Now created it, but now. Okay, well, we got the money. She lost out on. On two tickets at 85 a pop. She could have even swung by to get something. You know, she didn't even ask for

[Corey]

any recourse or anything like that.

[Heather]

I don't think she likes my answer. I bet we never see her again. But at that point, it's kind of like you're not my client type thing.

[Corey]

You're not my ideal client. I need someone in it to win it. That's not taking up my time and attention.

[Heather]

Upcoming events. We have the cookie that hobby collab. I'll be sending out the copy today. I did the spreadsheet yesterday. So we have 30 attendees who all promised they would attend.

[Corey]

10.

[Heather]

I need to get up the next collaborating about that.

[Corey]

I'm so tired, grandpa.

[Heather]

Midsummer membership sale. We have determined it's August 2nd. It's seven days. It's three weeks. It's in three weeks from now. It's the best way to get a deal outside of a boot camp. The Vendee Blendy will be the only other remaining sale for the year. And that's in a whole 19 weeks as we're in the doldrums of July and August. Back to school. I see. Back to school. And I should take a poll on this. It'll probably be my poll today. When did you're back to school? I see some people saying the 15th, which I find is of kind close. Yeah, in a month. And then it is a month and then Corey's back to school. Is the 24th

[Corey]

mine? Is it the 24th?

[Heather]

I don't know.

[Corey]

Oh, I have to. I have to look it up.

[Heather]

We have Labor Day is in eight weeks. I was thinking as I was making the countdown calendars, Labor Day is kind of the kickoff to like it's go time for bakers.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

If you're listening to this side Hustle thing to get started right now is a great time to get started in the side hustle to get your ceiling legs. And then come Christmas time, it kind of kicks off more than that. NFL. I don't know. Some people like to make platters for it. DIY kits. That's an eight weeks Canadian. Thanksgiving is in 13 weeks and Halloween is in only 16 weeks. October. What are you reading on your phone?

[Corey]

Someone in the local group is asking for a Scrabble board, but she posted it twice. She wanted to get that both out.

[Heather]

Do you have a Scrabble word?

[Corey]

I do not have a scrap.

[Heather]

I don't think I have a plate.

[Corey]

Scrabble a day in my life life.

[Heather]

Cookie design labs always rolling out new features. I've asked her to be on the podcast. We'll see if we can squeeze that in. I just really like to hear people's like origin stories. You know how you got started. Yeah, I know to see like she

[Corey]

said she was answering the the question. A lot of bakers had and that

[Heather]

and she's a baker herself. They've added new content if you go check them out on YouTube, kind of to walk you through the tutorials of how the app works because they're adding new features all the time. Use Code twins to get 15% off. I have two texts this week.

[Corey]

Week two.

[Heather]

Number two, I think it's our girl. It's Deb. For Alan. Dev should play gamble because she's probably going to win. She's just consistent enough. Hi twins. I think you should experiment by doing a virtual zoom cooking class. I'm thinking of doing a cupcake business but I'd much prefer you to experiment first. Laughing, crying emoji. Maybe it can be a boot camp. I'm thinking you could offer to send class kits in advance or have the option of people to create them from home. Ladies are working out the kinks and figuring out the tech would be extremely helpful. Just a friendly suggestion or a plea. Thanks for all you do. Deb from Albany. Deb, great news. We already done did this years ago. Yeah, we did it in two different aspects. We actually did it for a private company. Wanted the team building. They were remote and it was still post Covid but within a year. And then we did it for our own local in person cookie classes and instead of selling the 10 tickets we typically sold, we listed 25 tickets thinking what a bumper crop. I think we made them cheaper though though. I think we. Yeah, because we didn't have to go on site.

[Corey]

There was no cleaning up and, and cleaning out everything. The thing that the local ones had to do was pick up their kit beforehand. So we yeah pre made the kits. They had to do a porch pickup style so come and get their kits. Which was chaotic a little bit because you had people who aren't showing up but they wanted to be the class. They got the tickets. One great. I had a, a lady in there who was actually my neighbor.

[Heather]

She was.

[Corey]

She. She partook in it and it was great to hear her feedback because she's my neighbor and we were friends and she loved to go to the classes and she had been to in person ones with us and then she took this one. Her feedback was while she did like it, she liked in person more but

[Heather]

it was able to charge more for in person and we had less stress. The reason why a lot of people come to our sugar cookie classes is because they're trying to understand the royal experiment pricing when we tell them like you have to bake this at home. I think it's a lot when Somebody doesn't have all the materials. Right. So saying, hey, you have to bake this up at home. You are, you have to have the mixer kind of the startup cost. We are forcing somebody who wants to spend a Saturday learning something into a startup side hustle immediately. So Corey and I said, well, we should bake it for them, put it in a box, have them pick it up. But it add the additional. Because we taught it on Saturday, they had it be in rush hour to get it it. They didn't like it when we went to teach the Zoom. So if you're wondering the technology I used, I actually used Corey's phone and plugged it into my computer as a webcam and then I switched between our computer's webcam to point at her faces while we were talking and switch back to her phone. So it did require kind of a DJ type thing. Otherwise it's just going to be stuck on your hands.

[Corey]

But I want to say Heather was running that interference there. So I'm sitting behind this table in the corner of a room. Heather's having to click this button to go from the PowerPoint back to my hands, back to the PowerPoint point. With her not there. That would have been difficult for me

[Heather]

to do on my own. Corey would have just had it pointed at her hands. Could you do that? Yes. But I like to walk them through the slide. So in to increase the value, it increases the complexity of tech. Your minimum MVP here is using your phone as a webcam and pointing it at your hands. Plug that in and then use Zoom. Eventbrite still has that. I think we used Eventbrite that plugs into Zoom to sell the tickets and then Bright handled sending them the private link. However, you could just create an event, a Zoom listing with a. A passcode.

[Corey]

And we, we did say back in the day. This was years ago. So we've, we've done broken it down a million times. You could be in a Facebook group, add them to the Facebook group, do a Facebook Live. That would be another way to do it since a lot of people do have social media. But you have to remember some people don't.

[Heather]

Yeah, I will say, Deb, I would, I'd give it a try. It was not something we ever did again.

[Corey]

Yeah, just from the feedback that it wasn't as valuable to them. So they said they'd be willing to pay more to do it in person.

[Heather]

Yeah, it was cool that we didn't have to clean up the room.

[Corey]

Oh yeah. Once I was like, bye.

[Heather]

We just turned off the Computer went to lunch, but you ate the cookies and left.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

So something to consider there. We did do it. I think there might be even a podcast or two on it. Definitely check that out. My other texting question. Oh, Deb, if you. If you want Cookie Design Lab, you did win it again. So email me. My other texting question is, how do you all come up with new topics to discuss every week? Is it just something you've experienced as an issue that week or maybe something mentioned in one of the SEM groups? Yeah, it's exactly that.

[Corey]

Exactly that. So I love to put me and Heather in harm's way. I love to sign up for something I know I'll hate. I love to force us to do something against our will or says we

[Heather]

can only teach from that which we've experienced.

[Corey]

I. I can't speak to a wedding vendor if I haven't been to.

[Heather]

Corey has this private community group, which is where the boot camp comes from in marketing community groups. And I see the other day, here I am, she asked, asked me to keep the drama low.

[Corey]

Cory's like, what do you guys think

[Heather]

of AI flyers for small businesses? And I know it's going to be a topic in a podcast coming up, but I said, good, Good night. Yeah, it's grassroots. Did you see my comment to try to control?

[Corey]

I thought it was a very good comment. I gave it a like and I kept it pushing.

[Heather]

Got quite a few likes. So, yeah, typically it's either from the SEM group or these other baking groups that is a whole. Or questions we see asked in the cookie college. So that's where most of the topics come from. Sometimes we see like a weak point in our own topics and say, hey, I wish we kind of covered that a little better. Like this topic today. Specifically, it was good.

[Corey]

We haven't touched on the beginning baker in years. And it's because we're like, well, no one will ever. People who've been listening will listen. No new people are listening all the time.

[Heather]

And they're.

[Corey]

We're long lost and forgotten. For my new baker friends.

[Heather]

So Corey and I said, you know, it would be because we went through. I'm sorry, it was generated from the join request questions. I'm just getting started. I don't know what to do. Yeah, yeah. So that's where that one came from. Rare is it just generated from our brains.

[Corey]

It's more thought about during the week and then brought up on Tuesday morning.

[Heather]

If Corey and I can get a lunch in there, it's definitely the. Where we go back and forth about but it usually said, oh, I saw this post or I saw this question go up the other day. Saw somebody asked this, saw this in another group.

[Corey]

I enjoyed that question. Thank you for asking it.

[Heather]

That was a very good question. Thank you. 281 sponsors without this, without the sponsors there's no podcast. And with no podcast there's no how do I get started with this new side hustle? What would we do without our sponsors?

[Corey]

What we would not be here.

[Heather]

Cookie Design Lab is the shop where you can custom create cookie cutters for a really affordable price. They have a five day pass or like seven day pass, something real cheap and you use code twins get 15% off. Talk about a startup hustle. Yeah.

[Corey]

Seven day pass for $5. But youth code twins get 15% off

[Heather]

of your $5 or text into podcast at 571-556-5644 and possibly win a month of Cookie Design Lab for free. Your only competition is dep.

[Corey]

Yeah. Yeah. Your odds are high.

[Heather]

Daisy makes code twins 10 get you 10% off. Not for the beginning cookie hustler, but Daisy Makes makes cake pop molds for cookies. Meaning the system is very familiar to the way we use cook cutters apply to cake pops. It is a much better system than the round balls that make you cry.

[Corey]

A natural progression. If you were like, I'm a cooker and I want to get to cake pops, you need to go through the Daisy makes mold system because that is going to be familiar to you and

[Heather]

it's a lot easier. Love that Primera Eddie, the edible ink printer. That was a disruptor quite a few years ago when we partnered with them and they have stuck around and it just does some really cool stuff now. They've since gone from Eddie to Freddie to Connie. I'm gonna try to get Jennifer on the podcast to talk about those three machines with this. Eddie was the best boyfriend you ever have. So I'm not sure what Fred is.

[Corey]

Then your other lover got a little

[Heather]

polyamory going on there. But with these tools it kind of really broadens horizon. Not for the beginning baker, but definitely the goal to get to.

[Corey]

Yes. Yeah, a thousand percent. You don't need them, but you want them.

[Heather]

Bosch Nutrimil again, if you're saying, hey, I want to do that, that four quad batch that Corey talks about. Bosch Nutra Mill sells that mixer is called the Universal plus and use code sugar cookies to get $20 off. But check back during major holidays. They run sales as well. Great way to get like $125 off and the code would stack on that. Yeah, it's nice.

[Corey]

I love that mixer.

[Heather]

It's ugly, but I love it. Hideous. You know, the uglier the machine is,

[Corey]

the better it is.

[Heather]

You know the ugliest vacuum, the one that you'd like.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

My grandmother has an Electrolux that she got from her wedding registry. She was married 60 years. This thing has tape it has tied together. That thing will find a speck of dust and suck it up.

[Corey]

It's because it's as heavy as the Empire State Building.

[Heather]

I even said to her, I don't get how you're picking this up. Because I'm sweating. I'm a full workout routine into this Electrolux.

[Corey]

But boy, does something about a heavy vacuum cleaner. Makes me feel like it's doing my work. Because you're getting the carpet fiber.

[Heather]

I have a Dyson stick vacuum and it's the V15. I think I know that some of the Dyson. The V8 is probably the ones. The ones that are on sale on Amazon Prime Day are not the necessarily one you want this thing because it's so easy to use and it's because it's all plastic. He's as lightweight as can be. He's as lightweight as can be where it's easier to use him than the Electrolux.

[Corey]

You know what is crazy for me is I have a Dyson. I don't know if you just dogged on it and called it the cheapo one you want. He's been good to me. I don't know the number on him.

[Heather]

Well, let me ask you. Oh, go ahead. I will only use him for slight

[Corey]

cleanups because he was so expensive that I'll use my cheaper other one.

[Heather]

Everyone has a workhorse vacuum that's actually doing the dirty work. And then you have your. Like this is for just a little.

[Corey]

This one is just for the dust.

[Heather]

But this is my brandable dust and that's potato dust.

[Corey]

So why do I have a background

[Heather]

vacuum for my vacuum?

[Corey]

That's the crazy part.

[Heather]

I did. I went to Walmart and I went to the car detail aisle. I wanted a Shop Vac. I had a Google. I was not shocked back. But it shop back. So it does reverse. It can suck up and it can also suck up water or whatever. Yeah. Never use the water feature. I wanted like a little workhorse dude to get a bug. I'm not sucking up spiders. With the Dyson one. I could see the spider living. I don't want to see it living. Yes. This little dude 25 bucks. I had to climb into a crack cart. I was a liability rolling around. I. Because they had it so high and they'll. Please don't touch us. Ask for an assistant.

[Corey]

I think because no one ever goes for a shop vac. I feel like that's just a rite of passage. That one just appears in your basement one day when you turn a certain age.

[Heather]

That. That $25 workhorse. Just a mule that's putting in work and gets.

[Corey]

It's just a hose, though.

[Heather]

No, a little hose. I think it has great tech. Again, the magic of the technology of vacuums is two part. It's suction and agitation. Agitation.

[Corey]

But a shop vac ain't agitating.

[Heather]

I'm agitating with shop vac.

[Corey]

And together with our powers combined in

[Heather]

my elbow grease, we're shacking up some issues.

[Corey]

And I don't feel bad about it.

[Heather]

It was 25 bucks.

[Corey]

I walked past a neighbor's house and he had his shop vac pushing out air. But he was pushing it out air into the walkway. So I said, the bugs are on my ankles at this point. Like, aim it somewhere else. My God.

[Heather]

There has to be a filter in there. If he took the filter off. Yeah, he's got a problem.

[Corey]

There's it empty. Get him. The walkway.

[Heather]

Yeah. The filter is like. This thing is super chinsy. It's like got a little bag. It's so dusty inside. But I say, this guy's getting that stuff. I don't want to touch my. Nice. Yeah, yeah. See, now you have a vacuum for your vacuum.

[Corey]

That's the problem. Because the Dyson has all those extra fits on it. It's supposed to be your vacuum cleaner.

[Heather]

You don't. What if I need to vacuum him?

[Corey]

I don't know.

[Heather]

Oh, I'll get my little workhorse from Wally world. And at $25, I'm throwing this dude around. He's messed up.

[Corey]

Yeah. My guy.

[Heather]

My.

[Corey]

My workhorse one. I. I'm like, wow, you turned on today. Great, man. Of course you're gonna turn on.

[Heather]

You're the workhorse.

[Corey]

You're the realizing when I. The Dyson because it's top heavy. It fell down. My goodness.

[Heather]

Are you okay? Because you don't know one little wrong. Look at him. He's gonna stop working.

[Corey]

It will explode the plastic parts everywhere.

[Heather]

Yeah. My grandmother had Dyson and she would suck up wet leaves. You cannot get a Dyson wet. But she would suck up wet leaves because she was like, that's what they're for.

[Corey]

My electrolytes vacuum Them up like a vacuum cleaner.

[Heather]

And it would get water in there. It would get water in there. Do you have a twin trust?

[Corey]

Did you say bake it a big royal batch.

[Heather]

I'm so sorry. Oh yeah, she's right here at the top. Bake ity bake by royal batches of meringue powder. Well, okay, let me tell you if you want to not fight your royal icing. If you're just getting started. Started. Bakedy bake is a royal icing for you at the code 10 off for twins. 10 twins for 10 off.

[Corey]

This past class, no one realized it. I used four different meringue powders to see which one I liked in class.

[Heather]

Which, which ones did you use?

[Corey]

The ones that were not. Biggie Bake separated really fast. So I said, everyone massage your bags.

[Heather]

Oh, I was wondering why we never make them do that. But you were like, grab your red please, give it a little Mercedes.

[Corey]

So do you have a twin?

[Heather]

My twin trust is I had. I was listening to Alex Ramosi being interviewed on the podcast with the guy with curly hair. I don't know, he's cute. He's the first guy to ever be on Love Island. That was his big claim to flame back when I was in England.

[Corey]

I don't think I've watched the show.

[Heather]

I never watched Love island. But this is just trying to identify the guy.

[Corey]

Okay.

[Heather]

Anyways, they were kind of like Alex Mosey. All this guy does is read him back his quotes and then they expound on which I find is an interesting podcasting style now. But one of the things was they said like, what's the secret to success? And he's like, work so hard that it would be weird for you not to be successful. And then they had Arthur Brooks. Arthur C. Brooks on it is more of like a philosopher every day. And he was like a really funny guy. Like a. He's a bald grandpa looking type. But he was like, yeah, if people don't want to be happy, do these things. Wake up late and immediately grab your phone alone and do scroll for hours. Definitely do not work out. Do not move your body at all. Eat everything you want and none of it is healthy. Do not consume fiber and protein. And I was like, what if you. I mean really, we all know the secrets to being.

[Corey]

Yeah, better.

[Heather]

So I really. My. My twin trust is I've been getting up at 6:30, feeding the cats and going to the gym. Grueling that first week.

[Corey]

Welcome to us parents with kids who go to school at normal hours.

[Heather]

Yeah, I don't have kids. I really don't know what you guys.

[Corey]

I know I've been seeing the bright side of 5:30 free.

[Heather]

Then. Yeah, so then I, when I was at the gym I was like, might as well listen to a book since I'm not supposed to do scroll.

[Corey]

You see how you're.

[Heather]

Yeah, I listened to this book since some of you guys like to know what I'm listening to in terms of books. And it was on habit creating habits and they said have a keystone habit. A habit that anchors all your. That's a yawn there, bud.

[Corey]

Sorry. Yeah, get with the point.

[Heather]

What's the book called? It is called neurohabits rewire your brain to stop self defeating behavior. And there's only two hours. That's why I want to listen to it. Okay. And so the keystone habit is waking up and going to the gym. Well, if you go to the gym then you're naturally about. Might as well work hard here because I've already driven out here, got to drink enough water because that's how the gym works. Well, I got to eat protein because the just pointless to go to the gym without protein. And you just kind of see how. And then while I'm at the gym, might as well listen to the audiobook on having a better life. And then it just kind of snowballs. So it's these keystone habits. Didn't you say you had one?

[Corey]

What's my, my keystone habit. Oh, I said here's the thing. I've been at the gym consistently. I'm almost at my one year anniversary from the cancer surgery.

[Heather]

Oh, congratulations.

[Corey]

As soon as the doctor cleared me to go back to, to, to go to the gym, I said for one year I'm going to give it a hundred percent. If I'm at the gym, I'm not going to waste my time there. I'm going to put forth the effort. So it was so funny. My body has changed immensely in this past year, slowly over time. It was definitely not. But I can say because day one I said I'm going to give it a hundred percent now. Day almost360. I can see the results from it, but it started 360 days ago and

[Heather]

we all got to get started sometime, somewhere. And that was the theory of this podcast is if you're considering where to get started one day you'll look back and be like I wish I got started sooner.

[Corey]

I know. Yeah. And if you're a person who's thinking about doing the sugar cookie thing, starting is probably your biggest. Yeah, your biggest hurdle to jump.

[Heather]

Your answering is like, how do I. Where do I do it? Just do it. Just do it. We will fail forward. We'll get better together. Haven't made the mistake that all of us haven't made before. We will not find a unique mistake.

[Corey]

My twin dress. And I know I've mentioned this. I've rewatching Frasier as I do multiple times per year. Frasier. In Frasier there is Frasier's dad and his name is Marty Crane. And he is a retired police officer. Is his thing the real guy. The real what? The actor was Frasier. The whole cast of Frasier made millions off of the syndicate of 10 years. I think Frasier was on air maybe eight to 10 years. But Marty Crane and I can't remember the gentleman's real name, always lived in a small apartment even till the day he died, I think in 2010.

[Heather]

Oh, wow.

[Corey]

He never of the millions. He never had.

[Heather]

Lifestyle creep.

[Corey]

He always said all I needed this small apartment. So he never took the money and did anything crazy with it. He just lived a simple life till

[Heather]

his end of day. That was almost his character in the show is that the boys.

[Corey]

And he's like, I'm just.

[Heather]

I like this chair. I like my. My dog.

[Corey]

What was it?

[Heather]

Oh, Eddie the dog. Yeah, Eddie. Oh, nothing is as humor as Frasier and Niles.

[Corey]

Hilarious. And there was two Eddies. The real Eddie, original Eddie one passed away in the filming. So they had Eddie number two, which I think was an offspring of Eddie number one.

[Heather]

I thought I read that that was its childhood.

[Corey]

Yeah. And guess how much Eddie made off her episode I the end when he made an appearance.

[Heather]

I don't know.

[Corey]

10,000.

[Heather]

Wow. Her dog pet content. You looking at me, cat? Cuz you're needing to pay your bills. Okay, guys, we'll cut you loose. And welcome. If you're new to cookies and this has put you over the edge and you say, well, maybe this is for me. We'd love to be on the ground floor.

[Corey]

Yeah, welcome, welcome. Bye. It.