270. Baking it Down - The Right Foot when Getting Started

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

Episode 270: Baking it Down – The Right Step When Getting Started
Hosts: Heather & Corrie Miracle
Date: July 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Heather and Corrie return to the fundamentals of building a successful sugar cookie business, highlighting how starting “on the right foot” with current best practices has shifted over time. With relatable stories, practical tips, and a lot of good humor, they guide new bakers and seasoned pros alike through creating a strong business foundation, navigating social media changes, and embracing the latest trends in content and marketing—especially the pivot to video.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Foundations Have Changed

• The "basics" aren't what they used to be. Social media platforms evolve, so do the right steps for new (and experienced) baking businesses.
• “When the algorithms shift, we all go back to square one, which is great for new bakers because you can get a lot of traction real quick, and it's great for old bakers because it forces your hand a bit.” (Heather, 02:08)

2. Personal Profiles vs. Business Pages (Facebook)

• How most bakers start: Posting orders on personal profiles as a hobby grows into a business.
• The hosts urge transitioning to a business page for professionalism, better metrics, advertising features, and clear boundary between life and business.
• “To maintain a business from [personal profiles] is pretty rough. Facebook doesn’t prefer it... They don’t necessarily want to see your sales pitch.” (Heather, 10:27)
• “You lose out on the relationship with your family at the cost of growing your business.” (Corrie, 15:50)
• Pro-tip: Share business page posts back to your personal profile for better reach but conduct business only from the business page.

[Timestamps]

• 09:27 – Transitioning from personal to business page
• 12:56 – Creator profiles and why they don’t suit bakers
• 14:12 – Recap: where to post for best results

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3. Business Banking Matters

• Get a business EIN (tax ID) and open a business bank account, even if you’re just starting and the process seems daunting.
• “If you mix business and pleasure in your personal bank account, come tax season, it's already a nightmare.” (Heather, 22:09)
• Limitations breed creativity: operate within the business’s budget for sustainable growth.
• Apps like “You Need A Budget” (YNAB) help manage your finances and avoid mixing expenses.

[Timestamps]

• 19:40 – Why business DMs beat personal DMs
• 21:54 – Setting up business accounts and bookkeeping

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4. Content Creation in Today's Landscape

• Photos alone aren't enough. Video is now the "flavor of the month" and is rewarded by algorithms.
• Beginnings are tough but powerful: “You can take market share being brand spanking new from someone who’s been doing it for years… That is so cool for you.” (Corrie, 26:20)
• Videos build relationships, trust, and authenticity—AI can't replace your unique face and voice.
• Consistency is everything: Persist through low/no likes and keep testing content types.
• “The number of followers you have means nothing anymore... What we want is views, saves, shares.” (Heather, 43:43)

[Timestamps]

• 25:03 – Content types and why video matters
• 32:45 – The importance of consistency over perfection
• 43:34 – Followers vs. engagement in current algorithms

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5. Strategic Video & Series Creation

• Craft themed series (“Come make my second paid order with me,” “Behind the scenes”) to make your journey relatable and discoverable.
• Avoid directly copying local competitors; adapt ideas from other industries or non-local creators to maintain uniqueness (Corrie, 36:24).
• Video content is also being surfaced in Google search and business profiles—cross-platform indexing is now huge.

[Timestamps]

• 35:01 – Building strategy into content series
• 56:39 – Google Business Profiles now pulling in social video

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6. AI: Tool, Not Replacement

• AI is great for ideation, prompts, and organization, but original voice/content wins out with both users and search engines.
• Beware of “AI-washing” your content or photos—relationship marketing is still king.
• Duplicate (AI-generated) content can hurt website visibility (Corrie & Heather, 59:03).

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7. Community, Collaboration & Credits

• Giving credit for inspiration is appreciated, especially the first time. Multiple derivatives become “yours” over time.
• The meme/A.I. copycat dilemma: ethical use and attribution are complex in both cookies and social media memes.
• “Even if you tag someone more popular than you, it often helps you with the algorithm.” (Heather, 70:28)

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8. The Hard Truth About Collabs

• Recent collabs haven’t maintained enough participation to justify the organizers’ and participants’ effort, so the hosts are pausing them for now in favor of higher-value projects. (See 71:20–73:51)

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9. Seasonal Planning Tips

• The bakery/cookie “season” starts earlier every year—holidays sell early!
• “For Halloween, we sold 7 out of 10 tickets. Corey, it is July.” (Heather, 76:58)
• Use tools, calendars, and national “weird days” (like National Cow Day) as excuses to post frequently.

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10. Managing Burnout & Body Care

• Ergonomics, stretching, hand massagers, and even hydration are key to keeping your baking career sustainable.
• “Aches and pains happen and we're all decorating like fried shrimp.” (Corrie, 79:34)
• Looser piping bags, proper posture, and frequent breaks help avoid injury.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Consistency & Progress:
  “No one's just born good at marketing. It's a lot of fails. And learning from those fails that turn something into a viral win.” (Heather, 06:08)

• On Newcomers vs. Vets:
  “You new bakers, you get to capitalize on the crotchety old bakers. The crotchety old bakers are too busy being angry about the last 15 clients they hated.” (Heather, 30:26)

• On Market Trends:
  “The number of followers you have means nothing anymore... What we want is views, saves, shares.” (Heather, 43:43)

• AI’s Marketing Silver Lining:
  “AI has appreciated your face in front of a camera. Oh. Tis the season to skip AI and get your face in front of there.” (Corrie, 47:02)

• Realistic encouragement:
  “If you didn’t make the content, your views will be zero. If you did not post it, be happy with the egg, because that's what you got.” (Corrie, 39:23)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:55 – Introduction, group/community context
• 01:46 – Setting the theme: Going back to “basics” in 2026
• 09:27 – Transition from personal to business pages/profiles
• 21:54 – Business banking & financial setup
• 25:03 – Content creation shifts; photos vs video
• 32:45 – Consistency in marketing content
• 43:34 – Followers vs engagement in modern algorithms
• 56:39 – Google Business Profiles now showing social videos
• 70:24 – Proper credit for inspiration and AI-augmented creations
• 79:34 – Baker aches and pains: self-care tips

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Practical Action Steps ("Right Foot Marketing")

• Switch to a business Facebook Page: Collect reviews, utilize analytics, and keep business and personal life separate.
• Open a business bank account: Even if you start small, it’s easier and less stressful come tax season (get an EIN for legitimacy and tools).
• Make video content your priority: Use your phone, be imperfect, and focus on authentic moments over highly edited ones.
• Stay consistent in posting: Views and engagement matter more than follower count. Keep showing up, even if a post “flops”.
• Embrace tools (but not shortcuts): Use AI for prompts and planning, but keep your voice and face front and center. Use apps like YNAB for budgeting.
• Credit your inspo: When in doubt, tag your inspiration—especially if it helps you in the algorithm and builds goodwill.
• Take care of you: Invest in ergonomics, regular breaks, stretching, and self-care—burnout helps no one!

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Hosts' Tone and Final Thoughts

Warm, self-deprecating, and candid; Heather and Corrie “bake it down” with actionable honesty, relatable mistakes, and practical optimism. Their encouragement is sincere, treating listeners as fellow travelers in an ever-shifting sweet business world. They close with a reminder: today’s “right step” is different than three years ago—and that’s a good thing. Stay adaptable, lead with consistency, and don’t be discouraged by slow starts.

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Next week: An interview with Taylor, a baker innovating with AI as a tool (not a replacement), plus strategies for using Procreate and optimizing Google Business Profiles.

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For more:

• Join their Facebook group: Sugar Cookie Marketing
• Resources and future bootcamps: thecookiecollege.com
• Get the content calendar and prompts in the group’s featured tab each month

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Transcript

[A]

Corey, your hair is looking very voluptuous. Thanks.

[B]

Thanks. It's hot here, but they said there's going to be a bit of a weather break. I don't know if 80s can be called a break, but in the 90s, 80s.

[A]

But the humidity for one of these days is 50%, which is indoor quality.

[B]

Yesterday, barely any humidity. Went on a walk. Enjoyed it.

[A]

Enjoyed it. You know, I wonder why we choose to live in these arid climates. Until we get those three days of fall and it brings back. That's.

[B]

That's enough to hook me, you know what? Three days. Welcome to the Baking it down with Sugar Cookie Marketing podcast is. If this is your first time hearing from us, we are your host, Heather, the older, wrinklier twin, and Corey, the younger.

[A]

Botox appointments in a week.

[B]

So if you are just tuning in, we're actually a spin off from a group that's on Facebook. If you are not a part of that group, we invite you to join. We let people in all the time. Just make sure you answer the questions just so we can cut down on the bot and spams. Once you're in there, you will be ready and raring to learn how to grow your sugar cookie business. But if you're not ready to dive in with us on a Facebook group, you can dive in with us here. Every Tuesday, there is a new episode. It's been going on for an ungodly

[A]

five years at this point.

[B]

Ungodly. But Taylor.

[A]

Taylor actually will be our guest speaker next week and she has a very interesting story and I like her. She's got a little caveat. She's like, I do use AI not to replace me, but as a tool. So if you want more of that, tune in next week. She's a baker who's been in this for quite a few years. I feel like hearing the story of people who have gone before us could definitely guide the light.

[B]

Yeah, gone before us, but using the newest things to come to us in a way that's smart for business and not cripple to the business.

[A]

I like that. And in today's episode, which we'll get into in just a minute, you'll find that we're going back to the basics. But the basics, even I said to Corey, the basics have shifted so much,

[B]

it's no longer what it once was.

[A]

Honestly, it takes us all back to the basics. When the algorithms shift, we all go back to square one, which is great for new bakers because you can get a lot of traction real quick, and it's great for old bakers because it forces your hand a bit.

[B]

Oh, I want to say if you're a new baker and you're like, oh, man, no, not all man. Honestly, I wish I was a new baker again so I could have that, that juice, that, that junk juice, that

[A]

drive, you want it not been burned by 50 clients and 50 cookie trays. But we're the sugar cookie marketing group. All the things we talk about on today's podcast can be [e-mail] or thecookiecollege.com what's coming. I should have it done by morning.

[B]

Tomorrow.

[A]

The lemon cookie class kit.

[B]

Now we're back to beginner classes.

[A]

But Corey has added a caveat of beginner media if she wants to add in a color here or there.

[B]

Outside of our typical. We have two or three years of six cookies, four icing colors. Believe me, as a cookie class instructor, I only like making four icing colors. But you are very limited. And let me tell you, I've created a lot of classes and to make them make sense, you know, where the witch isn't blue, you know she's got the green face. It's very hard to fit six cookies into those four different icing colors. I like to. And if can, I'll stick to there. But I have the caveat that if I need to add an extra color, I will.

[A]

You know, Lisa commented this yesterday when I posted the lemon cookie class kit that's coming. She said, I was on the fence about joining the cookie college for the cookie classes. I tried two other companies of cookie class and I'll tell you, your classes are the most teachable. I told her I needed that. Pick me up. Thank you so much.

[B]

Yeah, I appreciate. And the reason why they are teachable is because I teach them myself. I don't just make these classes and send them to you and be like, best of luck. Hope it works out. We actually teach the classes that we make. So I know I have me in mind. You know, my long nights. My, my, no sleep is always in the back of my mind when I'm creating this especially I can look at a cookie cutter design and I'll be

[A]

like, watching her brain work one, I'll be like, what about this one? She's like, you idiot. That's seven colors that aren't even included in this class.

[B]

That, that little half that looks like that added five more steps.

[A]

You don't know because Corey's thinking theme, she's thinking colors, she's thinking steps, and then she's thinking just the output of the design and the cuteness reminds me to tell you and I forgot to tell you, Sarah, that girl who loves she's asked for a private class, so remind me to ping you after that. She liked that beginner class so much. They want to do it in Alexandria. Upcoming boot camp is procreate and I'll talk about that in a second. And then I'm working on my thank you digital download. My thank you digital download for mailer mail people.

[B]

I think that's a great one. My trash collectors today did something new that they've never done before. They lined up every trash can and it looks so nice outside. I said, that looks so nice.

[A]

I knew I got a citation from my trashman. The trash company is called Patriot Trash. So red and blue. Love it, right? But the bin, they've mismatched the bin and the lid. So the red bin is a blue lid and the blue bin has a red lid.

[B]

It is.

[A]

My brain unfortunately cannot comprehend which one is for recycling.

[B]

Right on it.

[A]

I did. I wrote it wrong. I wrote I got a sticker and I wrote it wrong. I come out to my trash this morning when I open the blinds with the cats. I'm like, how did I get to trash today? And there's a sticker on it. And I said, I think I've gotten in trouble. So I put on my robe because my brain can't fathom what this note

[B]

in bright red on the top of

[A]

the trash can is. They have taped a note that says, you are using the wrong trash bin. But on the trash bin they have put new stickers. Everywhere's on. It's on stickers everywhere. They've done it three different.

[B]

They've. They've talked about. You guys have picked this up for three years. My brain is set.

[A]

And then the quote of today, because we know you guys love the quotes the most of the podcast is Tim Duncan saying, good, better, best. Never let it rest till your good is better and your better is best.

[B]

Man, if I could say those are words that I live by. I am naturally good at nothing. And to know that has power in and of itself. I know that if I can kerplunkle on the piano downstairs, eventually a song might emerge. But it takes the kerplunking to get to there. And the same things with cookies in the same thing with marketing. No one's just born good at marketing. It's a lot of fails. And learning from those fails that turn something into a viral win.

[A]

Almost feel like there's. Yeah There's a naturally gifted. Okay, you're not even listening to this podcast. You're naturally gifted. But then there's the rest of us, right? The the re the large majority and we're not necessarily gifted. And I made peace with myself a long time. Like I said, I'm not naturally gifted, but I'm naturally consistent enough that I'll get good enough.

[B]

You're more gifted than I am.

[A]

You know, until you got in the cookies, man, your orange faces you blasted out the water.

[B]

Wasn't because it was naturally you're when if me and Heather to enter the same vertical Heather for some odd reasons brain and it's probably because she suckled the most nutrients from when we were

[A]

in my mother's womb. Maybe I'm little bit more brain expanded, but Corey's a locomotive.

[B]

So that's the only thing I got.

[A]

Here's what I say is even if like I got better grades than Corey, she's more consistent than me and continues to win for the fact it's repetitive over a long period of time, which is what the topic is today is that you win by consistent repetitive.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You got to sharpen the blade edge to keep it going. But you do that by learning what didn't work and what does work. If you're easily put on your bun cheeks because something didn't work out, you business is hard.

[B]

It just got a lot harder when

[A]

I started learning snowboarding. I have never seen my skin so purple. I thought, well, this is probably a medical emergency. Things that were supposed to be just painfully white were painfully purple. And so instead of quitting, which was tempting because it felt better, I got butt pads. Pads for the butt. And they sold them, which meant I wasn't the first person. And then you use the butt pads to soften it. But you have to be consistent. So today's podcast Tom topic is Corey made me delete the last part. It was the right marketing foot. And then I added pics and she said we'll get banned. So tell me.

[B]

Yeah, no, just getting up on the right marketing foot. So we're back to our basics.

[A]

Can you just give them the lore behind the marketing feet picks why that happened? Do you remember? No. A couple years ago, Corey got somebody attempted to join sugar cookie marketing, which is a private group, so I have to answer the questions. And he said he was a sugar daddy looking for a sugar baby in terms of sugar cookie marketing. So he was a bott that was panning for sugar. And Corey said something about no, I

[B]

screenshotted because he was like, I will pay top dollar for feed pics. And I was just screenshotted. I've already been reprimanded by Facebook for spelling the word how wrong. So I was like, yeah, I'm definitely not going to type that. I'll just screenshot it. I don't know. Meta had AI before AI was here and it saw that and I got in trouble for this man's quest for foot photos.

[A]

So even though I know every girl out there would sell their feet pics, if they to don't post about it. Don't, don't.

[B]

You'll get in trouble.

[A]

So moving into the topic today, kind of taking it back to the beginning. What's right and wrong, Right. Getting started on the right foot is different than what we said three years ago. It's changed quite a bit. So talking about, like, Facebook, Facebook profiles, most of us, large majority of us got started in cookies out of happenstance. And we said this on the last week's podcast. You say, I want a new hobby. You start baking the cookies. You get your clouds and your bees. And then someone's like, hey, I'd like to place an order. Great. But you still operating from your Facebook profile. So Heather Miracle is making these posts, which is a natural progression because you weren't planning to start a business. The business started you.

[B]

When we talk about starting new business, there's so much excitement. Like, my hands made this. And of course, we're snapping a photo and we're posting on there. It might not have the best lighting. It might just be on your kitchen counter. But we're so proud of our work that we post it on our personal Facebook accounts. Because we're like, look, I made this, so. And then people start liking those.

[A]

Great. How do you make the transition between my personal page and my business page? Why wouldn't I just stay on my personal page? What does a business page provide that the personal page doesn't? Well, there's some give and take here, but in the net, positive or negative, you're going to want to end up on a business page. The profile is relationship marketing. The personal profile, Right. I get to see your kids grow up and then I get to order cookies. However, to maintain a business from that is pretty rough because Facebook doesn't prefer it. They want your friends list to be friends of yours. They want to see your kids grow up. They want to see what you're doing for the fourth of July. They don't necessarily want to see you your sales pitch.

[B]

So go ahead, you're going to have your nana and your G paw wanting to see pictures of your kids. I mean they, they're proud of your cookies or whatever, but they're in it to win it for the pictures of their grandkids because they're not around. But you don't want Joe Schmo, who you would want to buy your cookies to also partake in. And you come to an impasse of wow, you've grown a lot of people on your personal account, but now you're wanting to post your kids, your family, your fun events, birthdays and things like that. But you've collected a lot of people you actually don't know under your personal profile. Now what do like you're at this impasse you've want to grow one the

[A]

lead we want the people, but we also want to post that thing that not necessarily want everyone in the world to know. And then you have the byproduct of that is people placing orders through your personal DMs. Now I only use Facebook for work and like two hobbies. I don't necessarily love DMing all the time. Right. That's meant for business. In fact, I don't answer work DM's in my personal DM's and Corey's local community group, it says never DM an admin. You'll never get an answer. So what we want to do is migrate over to the business profile, the business page, because it has so many more. And Facebook knows they want you to. That's why they're incentivizing it by giving you so many more metrics to see how your content is performing. It gives you business manager and ads manager. And it also gives you the ability for auto responses. These new features that keep coming out. You can switch to be your business page now. So the page has its own feed and it's depreciating that aspect of a personal profile now. Caveat. Since we filmed this the first time years ago, creator profiles have come out. I still disagree with that. In terms of business, if you are a creator and your brand is yourself, that's where that fits. It does not fit for your cookie business.

[B]

Yeah. What I do see, not as common as it once was. And I think that a lot of groups have been like, we don't want your people will turn a personal profile into a business account. So it'll be like Corey's cookies sent

[A]

to a friend request.

[B]

That's weird. It used to be common that you know a plumber business, you know, they, they set up an account they didn't know that there was a Facebook page, so they did Mr. Fix it you a friend request. And then Mr. Fix it posted in this group. That's no longer deemed appropriate when you try to join these Facebook groups because it's inadvertent advertising and a lot of groups don't allow that. And people don't want their cookie account sending them a friend request. I see.

[A]

Relic.

[B]

It's a relic, but it's still out there. I'm like, oh, this is a personal.

[A]

Even draw the line hard in the sand. If you join as that in the sugar cookie marketing group and we find it, we actually remove you.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Because I don't know who Corey's cookies is. Corey who? And you know, I don't know if you need to be in there commenting and selling your cookies. We want real people because. And this is the thing that follows through a relationship. Marketing is what gets you sales. So we want you to be the person who runs the Facebook page for your business, not you. A cookie account who we don't know the person behind it.

[A]

So to recap. Wrong. Personal Facebook page is where you get started, but you're restricted from growing here. You can have the creative profile now, but you won't have the business metrics and options the page will give you, like running ads and stuff like that. Write your Facebook pages where you collect people. It doesn't mean your content shows up to all of those people, but it's a nice collection that separates business and personal. So our pro tip we came up with is you're not going to get as much engagement on your Facebook page. So you're going to feel like posting to your personal profile. Stay the course because you still have that following on your personal account. You're going to share from your business page back to your personal profile. We're not posting organically to the personal profile or you'll end up with those DMs in your personal messenger for ordering. But we're going to slowly migrate that audience over. We'll talk about your. Your natural thought, if you're a marketer, should be like, if I get more engagement on my personal profile, why would it ever switch to a page? We'll talk about that in a minute. You're getting me because you're being real.

[B]

Yeah, that's a. That's a big one. And that's where I see a lot of beginner cookies will turn away from the Facebook page or they'll create it and they'll just ghost it and it won't have been posted to because they find that them posting to their personal account gets more reach. And it does because Facebook platform is what we call pay to play. They want you to invest in their ads and then they'll show your content more. And you're like, well, okay, you've just built a case. Why I never want to build a Facebook page. The problem is, is Nina G. Dad Gammy W Street.

[A]

You call these people Nino Nene, Me me, Dee Dee, Gaboopy.

[B]

You're losing out on the relationship with your family at the cost of growing your business.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's a calculated risk. You know, Facebook accounts get banned all the time. So you do run a risk.

[A]

There's.

[B]

I'm not saying stop sharing on your personal account, but I'm saying collect those people in one place so Joe Schmo, who you do not know, doesn't start following you and like, oh, your kids are cute. That's. That would creep me out.

[A]

What's going to happen? You can operate off of that. What's wrong with the profile thing at the beginning. But like, Corey now has grown. She's been doing this for like six years, Paige and stuff. She wouldn't want those people to necessarily know what she's posting on her personal profile. Not that you're a big Facebook user, but for people who are. Right.

[B]

Coach, the brand Coach hired me to make cookies for them. They're not going to my personal profile to find out about me to see if I'm capable. But they did search me out on Facebook and Instagram on my business accounts. So I. I mean, could they have found me on there? But they're gonna see a picture of my dog, you know, a picture of me.

[A]

You're talking about me and Corey who are like very anti sharing. Yeah. Even people are like, who are you? Like, even. I don't know. I haven't met her yet. Guys who maybe want to take more of a personal stance on things, or maybe you had a bad experience at a burger place and you want to lambast them. You would behoove yourself so much more to separate these two. And then within your personal profile, really dig into the settings of privacy and maybe not make everything public.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

I protect my. My facade. I don't know, whatever the brand is on Facebook so much that if somebody has their personal profile post set to public, I won't comment on it.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Because it will show up for somebody else.

[A]

Yeah. I had commented on something. I had, well, Corey RSVP to sound like Apple picking Farm.

[B]

Oh my goodness. And all you guys were liking it. I said okay, I'll never respond.

[A]

Going to go. Me wanna go. So it is Facebook. You gotta see in terms of what Facebook wants. Keep users on the profile. The way it keeps users on the platform. Sorry is by showing them more stuff that's interesting. Well what's interesting me is what Corey's doing on Saturday if it's not to be cross contaminated. And I would love to tell people, do not mix business and politics. I know you might get wrought up about that. Just don't do it you. Unless you can fight the battle of being that political almost spokesperson. I don't think most of us are cut out for it. So don't, don't try to do it because if you do that one little stand and you can't stand by the blowback which most of us can. I know I cannot. It's just not worth it for you.

[B]

Yeah. So the case is do build a Facebook page because one, it makes you look more professional to potential people who might not know you so who are out of your circle of influence. They're not your friends, they're not your family, they're not your church congregation. They've never heard about you, but they want someone to bake for them. I would much, much rather trust a page where I can see actual reviews from prior people who've bought from them than go to someone's personal account. And hopefully for the best.

[A]

Also, also you will want to stop taking orders through DMS in general. It just becomes a place for problems to happen. Just forgetfulness or that one went to spam.

[B]

But at least, at least instead of like you know Tammy from high school who's telling you like did you hear about Bobby Jo? She got married. You can have your on your Facebook page if someone orders the adm, which is normal for someone just starting out. All those, all those messages are dealing with business and you can find them in one singular place. It's not like Mimi G, Dad Dragon, our grandparents go go Gaga

[A]

by Diane and people. But yeah, kind of separating those if you're getting started. Listen to the elders that made the mistakes coming before you and separate those as soon as possible. Then make your business post and share them back to your regular page. When somebody on your personal profile is like well how do I, I like to place an order from a B. Boop. He's turning 95. You say be Boop. I can take his order over here. Listen to us, we're telling you because you will miss an order when you do that personal profile stuff and you'll hate yourself. Moving on, banking. I hate accountants. I'm so sorry. I hate that. I hate you guys. You're probably doing great stuff. I don't get why taxes are so confusing. I think it's a trap, but wrong. Mixing business with pleasures and accountants, worst nightmare. Ask me how I know accountants hate when people do that, but it's a natural progression. I just started this. Someone paid me through my PayPal, my personal PayPal, and it went to my personal account. It's a very natural progression. You're not wrong for starting out that way. Most bakers have, even if they don't admit it. But it is cost next to nothing to get the EIN number in Virginia. I'd even asked my accountant to file it and she was like. At the time, she was like, it's cheaper for you to do. It's 50 bucks. I typed it in, I signed something, had Corey sign something, and we just submitted it. Like, I scanned it in and they were like, here's your ein. I was like, it feels illegally easy. And then I took that ein. And in our state, Navy Federal is a credit union that we have. And I said, can I open a business bank account? They're like, beep, boop, beep. Here you go. Immediately. Now, with that ein number, so much finance stuff opens up to your business. You can set up a PayPal business account. You can set up a Venmo business account. You can set up a square business account. I don't think you can set up a square personal account anyways. But I'm not positive. Don't quote me on that. But if you're taking business money, you need to set up these business accounts. Yes, I hate the feeds too, but you can have it pipe right into that business bank account. So get the EIN, which in Virginia, it's 50 bucks. You can use like Rocket, RocketLawyer.com. i don't remember what that was. Or you can get your account to do it or just post in a community group. Someone there knows how to do it and open up the account. My pro tip is use an app like Ynab to help you budget. Now, YNAB stands for you need a budget. I use it personally for myself. But it's so great because it allows you to see what you're spending, but also see what you're saving for.

[B]

Cookie supplies like cutters can eat your

[A]

profits up and leave you working for nothing. Make it so that the business funds itself. When Corey and I started these companies we both said, okay, let's put a thousand in.

[B]

Yeah, a thousand. I said, make it work. You know, like the Project Runway guy.

[A]

Make it work. Make it work. Yeah. So what we did is we put the $2,000 in, and then we immediately opened up the business bank account. It helps so much when there's two people involved. Muddled. When you're like, it's just me. What's a big deal? What we don't want to happen. What we don't want to happen is that you mix business and pleasure all into your personal bank account. Come tax season, it's already a nightmare. You have to have a lot more records when you do that and prove where things are going. You should keep records anyways, but ask my accountant. But what we don't want is that you don't inadvertently don't realize you're working at a loss because your personal money is funding the business.

[B]

Yeah, that's what I see.

[A]

The business is paying for itself. You can be like, what, can't afford that this month?

[B]

Oh, yeah. When you see that there's $2,000 in there and you can only pull from 2,000, you're gonna. You're gonna second guess the Bosch purchase.

[A]

I was reading personal. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

[B]

No, go ahead.

[A]

I was listening to a podcast on Dr. Seuss and the Green Eggs and Handbook.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the reason why it's written so funny is because they challenged him. One of his friends was like, try to Write this using 200 words. But none of the words can, like, like, be the same. Like, it was like, had to be a lot of adjectives or something. They said, it's not creativity that breeds creativity. It's that limitation breeds creativity in a way, because your brain has to think of all these other different ways to now solve this problem. So when we are like, wow, the business bank account only has two grand. Now we're thinking of, can I. Can I make that plaque work for this order? Do you have to spend the $10? Should I buy that bamboo?

[B]

A1 mini.

[A]

That saves me this, that, and the other, and shipping costs. When you're like, well, this is where all our family money goes. It's a natural way to start. And I'm not lambasting you. And I know people who are atop their high horse will be like, that's incorrect. Ask them how they started. They won't admit to it, let me tell you. But they started by putting it in their personal bank accounts. Get that ein form the bank account. Super simple. These banks want your money. We don't even. Corey and I don't have business credit. We always operate off of business debit. So it keeps us honest because there's no. Don't worry, we applied for the credit.

[B]

We never heard that.

[A]

The cost of the business business debit, it goes right to my Botox because I it has me scrunching my forehead constantly.

[B]

This is an interesting point because we were talking marketing foot and you've bought

[A]

it into a business foot because, well, kind of think of this. If you had two. Let's say, let's say you make it more aggressive. You only have a thousand dollars in the business bank account. How are you going to market to change that number?

[B]

But if you that number, how would

[A]

you know to market it?

[B]

I know, but I guess I was so like this is beginner. Like they're still.

[A]

But it's right there. I kind of feel like it's like, well, I'm just trying to see if this works. But that business bank account. 50 to start immediately open the business bank account. I bet every cookier wished they did this at the beginning. And be remiss not to add it.

[B]

Okay, all right.

[A]

It's so cheap, it's easy to close them down. If this isn't what you ended up wanting, you just tell the government, yeah, sorry, it wasn't me, it was you. And then you shut it all down. I prefer the credit unions because I think kind of specifically for us in credit unions back in the PPP loans, I don't think we took out a PPP loan, but what was that other one that I remember they covered some payroll cost. The credit union is the only one that showed up for us. And the credit unions want you because they're credit unions and they have lower fees. Like I used to have a personal checking account with event and it charged me $10 a month. Like get away from me.

[B]

Let's keep.

[A]

Keep our money that we earned. Right? So I would say this because ideally if you're starting this, you're probably going to stick with it and your accountant's going to love you for doing it this way. Okay. Low cost adding. Corey added content generation. So I'm going to just read what she wrote here. Posting just photos does not work anymore, at least not as a standalone content generation approach. The posting of AI photos definitely won't cut it. Right. You get started. You're. You get to start in 2026 where videos are newly the flavor of the month and the algo is still rewarding that you can cut through years of someone Posting just photos by posting consistent videos.

[B]

Yeah, they, they call it beginner's luck, but I think it's, the beginners are so more, so much more excited than someone who's been doing this for six years. If you would have said a few years ago, I'm going to start a cookie business, I'm like, well, it's going to be an uphill battle for you to take shares away, some views and likes and reach away from someone who's in your community, who' it a lot longer. Not anymore. It is all relationship based marketing. If somebody likes you, someone likes your personality, someone likes how you talk, you can take a market share being brand spanking new from someone who's been doing it for years upon years upon years. And that is so cool for you.

[A]

Almost. Almost. The new person hasn't gotten into their own head yet. They don't know the big players, they don't know who's the big bad bully, innocent. And they're just putting out content.

[B]

When I see a new baker and they're like, they're like posting like, look, I learned this new technique, I feel like me doing this six years, there's no learn new technique. No one's like, she learned another technique because I, I, my stuff all looks the same now because I've gotten into a rhythm. I know what works. So no one's like, wow, Corey, you really improved here.

[A]

Whereas a new baker, you do. Who doesn't Queen, I suffer from this. Listen, listen. Who doesn't want to work with somebody who's so excited to work with them? I, I know when you get burned by a lot of clients, you walk into the everyday and be like, what you trying to do? What you trying to get over on me? We try to take a lot. Nobody leave it on. The new baker is super excited. They haven't been burned a lot. They're super fun.

[B]

They're willing to take any old. Here's the crotchety old bakers. And I'm talking about myself too, where we are like, I don't like that theme. If you don't give me 100% creative freedom, I won't do it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you know, here's the thing. Crashing old bakers are leaving a lot of money on the table because the thirsty new people are willing to take all that market share. And with that, with that excitement, with that ambition, you can actually create a Facebook page and take more market share from someone who's been doing it long. Because we become old, crotchety, we're more like, will, are you know, are they a nightmare client? And versus coming to be like, wow, I have a potential to earn more money with this new client.

[A]

Every dollar. Thank you so much for being my customer. The old crotchety bakers. And since Corey called herself when we're allowed to talk about them, the old crotchety bakers are too busy making a graphic saying, and don't order from me and spend 24 hours turn around. While the new uncrochety bakers are able to get in front of a camera. So part and I have been. This has been all we've talked about. Getting in front of a camera cuts through the threat of AI taking our business. Because in AI, it can't really recreate you. Yes, I understand the AI generators, but you can still see through them. But AI removed you getting it in front of the camera. That's the most up. Close relationship. And it's the flavor of the month. So Corey has been testing. I'm sure you've seen it. We've both been testing, but Corey is just putting out more than I can keep up with new content. And her face is in the camera. She didn't care what she looks like. But people are like, hey, I know her. That's my friend.

[B]

And I'm having. And you're like, but I have nothing new to say that hasn't been already said by the crotchet old bakers. No, they do not care that you're repeating something. Like, if I just posted meringue powders that I like, a list of meringue powders. And if I like them or don't like them, guess what? That's personal to me. You might have the same meringue powders. And you might like the ones I don't like. Hate the ones I do like. It's coming from you. That's what makes. Makes the. Your content unique. That's what makes it fresh. I struggle with the fact that I am not a creative person. I do not come up with new trends. I cannot discover a meme that's not me. I see something and I can recreate it. But there is value in that because it's.

[A]

Is it a recreation?

[B]

Yes, but it's a recreation from me. People like me, and that's why they'll like my content. It doesn't have to be that I have to be the first to do something.

[A]

Thank goodness. If it was time in the market. If it was time in the market equaled success, Sears would still be successful. Yeah, thank goodness it's not. It was, you know, a dying business model and instead these fresher approaches. And that's how Amazon gets its footing. When Sears was. If you do a history of Sears, I was watching a documentary on J.C. penney. If you do the history of these companies had time in been the reward that they'd always be successful, then there had been no room for new businesses. You new bakers, you get to capitalize on the crotchet old bakers. The crotchety gold bakers are too busy being angry about the last 15 clients they hated. You get to capitalize on that by loving your clients. And you're going to love them. And cut through the years of the old baker by posting videos, which is the flavor of the month.

[B]

Yeah, get, get what the old crotchety bakers like us aren't doing. We're slow in dragging our feet to create video because we're so second guessing we're not perfect enough. I didn't say the right words. I said too many times, leave us behind. Leave us behind in creating your own audience. Yeah, I'll be punching the air over you creating the video content, growing a relationship, because I'm sitting over here posting curated photos on a white background that look pretty, but they do not create a relationship with the end user.

[A]

Right. We often say, well, I'm not good enough. You're good enough. You just said it like, you're good enough. You may not be great, you may not be the best. And I frankly, after seeing what comes through CookieCon, none of us will the cookie con like the competition. Like none of us will. So don't worry about it. We're not there. We won't need to be there. Those people are expert at their craft. We're expert at business. Corey and I will be like, look at this creator. Like 80,000 followers started two years ago.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

I like videos, posted videos. So my pro tip here is you don't have to reinvent the wheel, find what's working for someone else, tweak it to make your own, you have to make it your own and then record and post. You don't have to be the original, you just have to be uniquely you and consistent. So yet again, it comes back down to consistency. I was just watching a creator in the makeup space and she was a UGC and she was like, my biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest tip is just consistency. Even if it's not the best, fastest, strongest, if it's just consistent.

[B]

The number one thing I see a new baker do is if they don't get a lot of likes, they get zero likes. Let's say they make a post, they get zero likes. Listen, it's discouraging for everybody, but I see a lot of bakers quit because of that. If me and Heather quit when something doesn't pop off, we'd be quitting every single day.

[A]

We would oftentimes point like that didn't work. Okay, okay. We're scrapping cookie collabs. We're scrapping cookie collabs because we're like, we tried to peel this banana every which way and it's still not producing, it's not reading, it's reaching its benchmark. It's like minimum that we need for it to continue. We'd be like, okay, the cookie world is dead. Let's shut it all down. No, we're like, there's something the market is telling us from the the bandstand. Stop it. This isn't it. And we are not paying attention to what they want. But we're still like, no, you're gonna like cookie collabs. And they're like, yeah, no, we're not. So we could stop it there. We could be like, pack it up, it's all over. Yeah. Or we could sit there and be like, what would behoove everyone better? What is the market telling us? We have to interpret it. Yes. And that's frustrating part. But what does a market here, what is it indicating to us? That is a better use of time and energy.

[B]

Yeah. So you're going to create content on your brand new Facebook page. You're going to get crickets. Happens to the best of us. It even happens to people who've been

[A]

doing it six plus years. Ask me how I know.

[B]

But that's not the time to give up. What we want to do is create some strategy in there. What do you have that Corey the baker's been doing this six years, doesn't have one. You're new and that is something I covet because I'm not new.

[A]

Fresh eyes not burn. Fresh eyes still love people. Fresh eyes don't have a laundry list

[B]

of a video series. Come and grow. Come and make my second paid order with me. Genius.

[A]

You gotta sad.

[B]

How are so you have a lot that you can add to the table. So don't just think that because you haven't been around a long time that, you know, throw the towel in. This is the best opportunity to join because it's a free for all right now. And it could be a free for all for you if you don't try it, test it, learn from it and retry it. You're leaving a lot of potential on the table.

[A]

I found that in my research of this video based marketing which I wholeheartedly believe is the future of marketing. I do not believe that we can save stagnant with photo posts when AI is here, the differentiator being you yourself, your face, your voice, how you speak, the was it 10 pan meter or whatever something however that is what's uniquely you. But within that there's strategies So I was talking with Corey about it this morning is the the concept of the overall umbrella of the brand and the series within that how do the series benefit the end user? How do they benefit the audience? How do they benefit the algorithm? What gets gets saves what gets shares what gets comments. Now that's where a lot of strategy enters into this. Where you can make it, you know, well they were here before me, don't worry about them. You can make, you can carve out your own unique aspect to this that, that person of which if you want to go to the underbelly of any, any industry there's so many people who have been there before you, tons of and they love for you to feel like you cannot create content because it would save them a lot of effort. Because what happens is when you enter the space they have to sharpen their own would behoove them to tell you to get out of the space because it's more work for everybody when you increase what the output is and that's how the market benefits when new people enter, the old people have to sharpen the blade. Everyone benefits from it.

[B]

My one aster to this point you're, you're like okay, if you know, see content that I like, remake it because it's me and that's the differentiator. I love that. What we don't want to do is go to your local competition, see every post they did and remake that because you're going to create some anti use and they could be hell on wheels. So what we want to do is we want to get on Instagram see what bigger creators doing we want to see what creators doing across the country. We want to see what local people are doing but we want to make a content strategy that one we have passion about because people can tell when you're not passionate about something. 2 We want to make it unique to us so instead of just doing a copy paste from the lady down the street where you're kind of we don't want to do that because we've made such similar content people don't know who they like and who they don't like. You guys are the same.

[A]

So I.

[B]

That's my one caveat there is, you know, be creative.

[A]

Well, that's what we said is the benefit is you're uniquely you. Well, we don't want to be as uniquely you a copycat of somebody else.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I believe that you'll create more fires than you'll extinguish. So you can take concepts from it. So you can see someone's like, oh, that's an interesting series. They're getting ready for a vendor event. Well, I can get ready for my own vendor event. That's unique enough that you guys won't have the same experience. But if someone's like, here's five things a baker needs to know. And you're like doing here's five things a baker needs to know. Find Too close to the sun. Icarus.

[B]

One time we had an account that took every meme that we made. So we made the meme and they instantly took it. And I was like, my gosh, this is my brain. Can you give me a like 5 day head start?

[A]

The pro tip on consistency. So video most important, consistency in posting. I was watching some TikTok this weekend before I uninstalled it and it was a girl and she was like, I made a promise to myself to post 60 times instead. 60 days. So once a day she's like, the first 15 days, nothing. It made me want to quit. She did the first 30 days, barely anything. It made me want to quit. She said, I didn't see anything to the 45th day. And now the 60th day. I can say it works, but it took that many days of doubt.

[B]

Yeah. Crazy.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That's a lot of that's it. I don't want to discredit, like get

[A]

on there, make it.

[B]

It is work to create videos. It's work to use your brain to think of a topic. And it's, it's discouraging, it's, you know, disheartening when you make this time and effort. I. I have been there. I have been there where I'm like, well, I don't want to do it anymore.

[A]

I like it. Isn't that very fun? Yeah. But Cory and I always say consistency wins. And consider that if you're new to this a blessing. All you have to do is how

[B]

consistent somebody my mindset right now and for the past couple months is if I didn't make the post, no one

[A]

would have seen it.

[B]

It. If I send a post.

[A]

Amen. I posted A video. And Corey's did so much better than mine. Whatever. And I was like, but mine. Mine got 500 people. Like, five. 500 whole people heard about Sugar Cocky marketing more than if I didn't post this. That's a massive amount of people.

[B]

That's a massive amount. And that's the thing. If you didn't make the content, your. Your views will be zero. If you did not post it, be happy with the. With the egg, because that's what you got. But if you do make the content and maybe one person's like, oh, I kind of like her, and maybe they watch the video twice, you have now taken one step closer to build a relationship with that one person. And if I post a video, a

[A]

thousand people watch it and one person buys. Is it worth it?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

When I see that, I make a video and maybe it gets 10,000 views and two follows.

[A]

Two people follow. I'm like, that's two people.

[B]

I didn't have.

[A]

That's two people, 10,000 views. So again, yes, it comes down to the metrics and tweaking. But you can't tweak nothing. You can't optimize zero. So you gotta get out there, you

[B]

gotta post a flop.

[A]

You gotta post a. You gotta post the weird one. Nobody watched to realize, okay, let's direct this. And Cory and I are saying, like, okay, that was good. What if we. What. What if it. What if this approach my pro tip using apps like Facebook planner and AI. *, *, *. In a way that doesn't replace you, but helps you manage posting and planning out your content or tools to help you stay ahead of the business. Burnout of consistency. Biggest enemy is consistency. Yeah.

[B]

Each month I post against my will a cookie content calendar with prompt ideas throughout the year. Did you know it was National Cow Day? It was a great day to post your Chick Fil A sets and your cow sets. If you did not know that day has come and gone, you need to be in the sugar cookie marketing group looking at that featured tab every month.

[A]

Where that is is.

[B]

That's like a. On a bingo card. That's the free space, man. The free space.

[A]

Those weird eyes. Those weird ones always do numbers because you're allowed. It's like a little mini collab wrapped up in a weird day. So on our sugar cookie classes page, it was national get started. It was something where I could post. This was the first class we ever taught.

[B]

Ice cream day was one.

[A]

Oh. Chocolate day, Grandparents day, Parents Day.

[B]

Oh. Every day Is a day. And on those days are like five different things that happen on those days. I use it as an excuse to post all the time.

[A]

Today's a great excuse to post. Blah, blah, blah. And now imagine if Corey married that to video. Unstoppable annoying at best. Because if I was her competition, I'd be punching the air.

[B]

I am so frustrated with myself that six years ago I didn't do video one thing. But I'm like, wow. All that content, all those orders I've made that no one shall see a

[A]

video of is crazy work. Best time to plant tree is 30 years ago. Second best time is today. But you knew people jealous. Jealous. You listening to us old people in the world of cottage custom sugar cookies, six years is ancient.

[B]

Yeah. Yes.

[A]

Old gray beards and gray hair. And we work in a hobbit and we sell a gold ring. But if you're getting new here, Chef's kiss. You have entered the market at a fascinating time. The COVID bakers, which I love because we were that ourselves, they're phasing themselves out. Video has been this implemented thing. AI is just fresh off the presses. You have the ability to cut the line in a way I don't know that people have been able to for a really long time. So excited for you. I'm excited because I've got my little Bambi new deer baby legs going on too. Corey and I are tripping forward in this video stuff. We will tell you what to do because we'll have done it the wrong way.

[B]

Oh, and if I didn't do it the wrong way, though, I wouldn't know how to do it the right way. So every video I post is never like.

[A]

Like when Cory post a video and when I post video, but Cory's posting at an unprecedented rate. We'll be like, what about this? Like, what was a hit? What was a miss? What can we do more? What can we pull back on?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And creating strategy from that. But when you're first starting out, the. The world's your oyster because you can do no wrong. You're doing everything for the first time, which is great. But it's the consistency that when a post doesn't perform well because you posted the cookies on your personal account and you got five comments and then you posted it on your. Your brand new Facebook page and you got zero. Do you see where you're at the impasse? And I'm like, don't make the wrong choice.

[A]

Here's what I want to announce to the world. After my Research what I've been casually researching. I let the cats skedaddle on the porch for about an hour every day. So that's where I do my research kind of into this new advent of marketing. The number of followers you have means nothing anymore.

[B]

It's no. It's trash, trash, trash.

[A]

In fact, it can be a detriment when compared to your engagement rate. Engagement rate is also backseat. What we want is views, saves, shares. I'm going to add repost there, but

[B]

that one's aggressive comments is a big one because it's so hard to fake a comment.

[A]

So what we're saying is the content can be discoverable without the following. This is new. Fresh off the presses is new.

[B]

It used to be just a couple years ago that anyone who had followed your Facebook page was the one who saw your stuff. So limited views. Maybe if you got 12 to 13, you're like, wow, what, what a. What a rockstar day. Now you can go viral on a piece of content and only have five followers.

[A]

So the algorithm is like, we like this. How can we incorporate this into a series that also benefits? It's such strategy and it's really pushing me and Corey in a great way. Okay. To kind of see this differently than post a photo, get the followers. I was reading an article and a guy was like, I spent the last year getting the followers and when I hit a hundred thousand followers, nothing happened. Anything. I think it hurt me because what I had to do to get the followers was not enough to retain their engagement. Which is all that the metrics matter now.

[B]

And all engagement is, is it comes down to relationship. You having an opinion on something, a stance, an idea, a thought, a tip.

[A]

And then it falls with. Under the umbrella of what the. The goal of the account is. Yes. So and if we're talking about growing your local cookie business, being local is important. Being cookie business. But your political hot take. No, no, no, not there. It might go viral, but it doesn't benefit the account as a whole. Makes sense.

[B]

Do you think that if I posted five baking tips for someone who is a new baker, that's going to get a lot of views? Because if you think about the world, there's tons of new bakers. If I said four of the favorite places at the Dale City Farmers Market,

[A]

which you did this weekend. I saw.

[B]

I did. I did. It's crickets on there. That's okay. Because what is my goal with my local cookie account is to get local cookie orders. You know, it's so funny.

[A]

Me, I have. Okay, the Algorithm. Whether or not you tell it where you live, it knows it does specifically tick. That's pretty good about it because also, I can say the things I'm saving, engaging with or expanding the comment section of Hyperlocal. So it's these people, mostly real estate agents, exploring the local West Virginia area. And I'm like, follow. Because, yes, I like this, you know, And I'm inclined to send people the listings because why don't you want to be my neighbor that they post next? It's such a cohesive strategy and it's really forcing the hand of these complacent accounts either.

[B]

Yeah, Go home. Yeah. Because you used to. You can buy views, you can buy followers, but what a relic. Buy the relationship where someone says, oh, Corey said, buy this. I'm gonna buy it because I trust her. She's been there, done that, and she never leads me astray. That's where the marketing is at currently,

[A]

AI and that's the genius part of it is everyone's like, AI is the death of us. No AI has appreciated your face in front of a camera. Oh.

[B]

Tis the season to skip AI and get your face in front of there. Am I an eloquent speaker?

[A]

No.

[B]

I don't know where common commas go in a sentence. Me and Heather don't talk with periods. We just talk super, super fast. Some people find it annoying. That's good. They're not my target audience. Some people find it kitschy. Great. Come and join me and.

[A]

And frankly, I know Corey, AI can't recreate me, but AI can help me storyboard how I'm going to post this video of myself. Fascinating. I think we're in a new frontier of marketing. And that's what it's always been. It's not something that's never happened before. Queen always say, like, what we did 10 years ago, we couldn't do five years ago. What we did five years ago, we couldn't do today.

[B]

I know, I know.

[A]

So I makers, your new makers, have this tool. And you can see right here is my DJI Pocket 4. Thank you for the bouquet. I'm filming a video on creating a cookie class kit. I would have never done that before. I saw. I even woke up this morning and some guy was like, don't post what you made. Post how you made it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So now I can show you what goes into the class kit so that when you buy the lemonade stand class kit, you know, wow, look at this. So much better. And wow, I didn't have that option before. I Did I got guess but I wasn't using it.

[B]

Yeah but you showcasing guys I'm doing my first popup Join me as I figure out what I need to make or I'm doing my first collab with a local coffee shop or I'm going to this market for the first time

[A]

join me what Corey said just those three things tell me as an end user a local coffee shop I didn't know about a local market I didn't know was coming in a local. What was the other thing?

[B]

Collab of some sort with a coffee shop.

[A]

Yeah, I love all those three things. Introduce me as the end user. Imagine I'm in West Virginia, right. All these things introduced me into things. Three things I didn't know were happening.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And not only do I now know they're happening, you told me about them.

[B]

Yeah yeah listen, you won't find someone who hates being in front of camera more than me. And you might be saying Corey I always see in front of the camera.

[A]

That's because I love Cory's like either stop getting ready, just post a photo. I don't think the world's ready but you know, just really, it's really pushed me and you I think to think differently as one should with marketing because it's ever changing to think differently. I have a Dodge Viper, it's an antique car, right. And they're announcing their every two years they do a big meetup and the whole country gets together and they go the next one's in Daytona, Florida and these couple people, they have never joined the membership but I've been in the membership for a couple of years and they're asking me like is this worth the money? And I said it's fascinating, it's so worth the money but because it's so poorly marketed, you don't realize it until you get there.

[B]

Yeah, I said I was surprised.

[A]

My bang for the buck. I should have been told my bang for the buck but I was surprised how much I got out of it. I thought it was a waste of money.

[B]

And you people are. I don't want to leave my house. Tell me why I should give me, show me the reasons I should and then maybe I will. But if to be like hey, join me at X coffee shop, I'll be doing a pop up there there. Why, why, why should I do it? Oh your, your designs, your cookie designs are so cute. Oh you're doing a bogo sale.

[A]

Oh maybe they're always do this and they're like I went to the coffee shop and I got this, like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What? Let me write it down, put it in the caption. I'll save it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So I really like. I hate that. I like how much marketing is moving towards video. I hate it because I gotta do it. I love it because I love imbibing it and give it to me. Yeah.

[B]

And everyone is eating the content through their phone screens. So just having your phone filming, you know, it doesn't even have to be polished content. You don't need a fancy camera. Me and Heather, they're collecting dust. All of our fancy cameras. Because people want. It's. They want to see you organic.

[A]

They want boots on the ground. Like, here's your leg. Didn't love this. Love this part. I was in West Virginia, so different than Virginia. But I was in this local community group and they didn't like this barbecue place because the. And I was just like. They were like, go to these three barbecue places and here's why. And then I'm clicking there and I'm like, I'm gonna go to this bar. I don't even like barbecue. I'm gonna go.

[B]

Yeah. But I wanna say because now we're so marketing is on our phones and we're imbibing information and we're watching videos.

[A]

It.

[B]

I just. I'm so excited for the new baker coming because you have so much opportunity.

[A]

I think anyone can derive from this podcast that you and I are excited and horrified at the same time. Time. Oh.

[B]

Because all the things I've learned out.

[A]

Throw it out the door. Wow. But we're excited because it is such an interesting concept. If Tik Tok only allowed you to go viral. If you danced back in 2020. What a shame of the platform.

[B]

Oh. I have not one rhythm in my body. I would. I would be. I would be on the other side.

[A]

I'd be on do a thing for YouTube.

[B]

This is. Yeah. But because Tick Tock is allowing now. It's. People want to learn what's the new fashion. If you were a fashion content creator. Someone wants to know how you juggle being a mom and a cookie decorator at night. You have actually.

[A]

I don't know if you did. She's starting a pet content UGC and I can't wait to watch. Did she make it? I have not seen this. Yeah, her and Jer getting in together on it. Interesting. Bought a PDF of someone who does this full time and they sent it to me already too. So, yeah. I'm really excited about that. Zes are right and wrong. So your right Foot marketing is similar to what it used to be, but it's different in a good way. And your wrong foot marketing is, you know, just, why step there when you don't have to? I don't think anything we said here was. Was hard to avoid. So listen to us. The old crotch days. The old crotch days with the meemaw and the peos. Tell you what. This.

[B]

This is your pee pee and dooo telling you.

[A]

Instead of doing my podcast bowl like I usually do, I'm going to say, what do you call your grandparents?

[B]

Yeah, Me, mom.

[A]

We call them gams. Gams. And then a grandma, Grandpa. What is ours? Call them G, dad and Mimi. Okay. What is it called? Peggy.

[B]

No, Grandma, No D. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Same with us.

[B]

No, that's grandma with a grandma. A grandma, grandma, no D. Is that a theme?

[A]

Moving on. I'm artist storyboarded. My procreates designing sets in Procreate. The app is really strong. You'll need an iPad and a pencil of some sort. I use the. I think it's a pencil too. My iPad is 11 years old, corn. I love that iPad. I watch. I watch videos on it, but I also sketch on Procreate. You do not have to be gifted in art. I am not. But I'm going to show you actually how to create a brush that's forgiving. Somebody had actually, bless her soul, asked about. They're like, my brush is revealing too much of my shaky hand. Like, my designs are shaky. Like, oh, that's all within the brush settings. I too have an extremely shaky hand. So this is pro designing sets in Procreate and it's actually fixing problems in Procreate for designing sets. So I'll show you. I had mocked up my digital downloads. Thank you to the mail people. Yeah. In Procreate. Just storyboard how I want to do this.

[B]

Heather knows that if I see someone with a shaky hand, I instantly want to give them a hug because I'm like, why are you scared?

[A]

The more I want to focus this thing. Yeah.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Shaky hand, people. I feel like you need a hug.

[A]

Gophers that live out back and I just saw the two of them, so I zoom in on them as one of his hand. My hands are so shaky. Do you need a hug? Yeah, I do. So that's August 6th and 7th. It's gonna be a two day event. You're just gonna give me because Corey doesn't use Procreate or Design. She could stand to learn from it. She doesn't like that. So it's procreate for cookie years. You can sign up at TheCookieCollege.com Bootcamp and you can purchase it at TheCookieCollege.com bootcamp7forward/buying. But again that's all listed there. That'll be in two weeks. Next up is Corey's boot camp. I'm not involved in Google business profile.

[B]

Well how have to be involved in to set it up because you actually set mine up.

[A]

I will do the how to set up a Google business profile. I'll do that. Okay.

[B]

Yeah. Because that's the meat and taste.

[A]

And Corey is going to tell you her strategy again. I was thinking of this myself. Myself. I'm a systems based person starting a system from zero hi that starting a system from somebody else's jump point. Love it. And that's what these boot camps are for. Cor is going to tell you how she's optimized her Google business profile to get that Neiman Marcus order and that coach order. And I think there's another order you just got that was weird from your. Yes. I can't remember. Can't remember. But either way it's a Google business profile that's setting her apart from the competition. Yeah. And now Google business. Oh yeah. Yeah. The D.C. people from the beach trip which I'd love to go back on the Google business profile. Don't they haven't they appreciated video now something's changed now.

[B]

So crazy. You can now hook your social media. Another reason to create a Facebook page. You can hook your social media up to it and what it's doing is pulling in it. I actually did a Google search the other day and it said short form video and I clicked on it. It was only social media videos on there. But now you can hook your social account.

[A]

Two things being indexed that I feel like are new and when I say index I mean Google's showing recognizing. Yeah is Tik Tok videos and Facebook group posts from public groups. I hate the group post from public groups. However, as a searcher myself I was looking at something so obscure and it was like here's a Facebook group post that was made about the same thing. It was something about the fridge was having this light on and it was to the left and it was like

[B]

that's that Forums app has the beta part and it's literally you can search that my has a weird social media

[A]

content is being appreciated in search in general. Which means to be AI is able to derive from it an answer.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And I was Talking to AI and Corey at the same time. And I was like, how is this fair to the web owner that I spend so much time building this website and AI is just pulling snippets from is what they're calling right? And it was like, no, no, no, no, you, you're looking at this wrong. The AI said it was like you're looking at this wrong. You might have been in the fifth or sixth position, which means nobody had ever clicked on you. And now you have the potential to be in position zero.

[B]

Here's my random question though. Let's say a lot of people, not saying you listen in here, but a lot of people just copy and paste what AI gives them. But AI is pulling that information from someone else's website, right? Wouldn't we look like dupe content, duplicate content?

[A]

In fact, I even asked AI, how are you guys indexing and pulling these answers? And I was like, oh, it was Claude. And I was using Fable within Claude. And it was like, hey, we don't like pulling our own content. We like pulling your content. So people who are using AI to generate their content on their website are going to be depreciated for it and people who are writing themselves. So what I did, because I'm always pro AI as a tool, not as a replacement. I said tell me the blog post post content pillar, give me 10 content pillars that support the school I'm trying to do and within that give me my H2S but do not write my, my, my sub articles but do not write the content for me.

[B]

So for people who just said that Heather just sounded like she was talking alien. What it is is duplicate content on Google is actually something that used to be depreciated because Google didn't know who came up with the content first. So it wanted original content because original content would rather rank duplicate content would go down in the search results because Google didn't know who made it first. That's why I'm saying is AI pulling from someone who's, who's made the original content. Someone's copying and pasting it will both get even though one person didn't do anything wrong wrong and the other person did copy and paste.

[A]

Remember there's always schema to every post to every piece of content out there. There's schema below the surface set and we can't read. So schema is like what's operating below, below there's even a thing is schema therapy, right what you think you're doing, but what's happening below the surface within schema is the timestamp of who the original creator was.

[B]

And now that AI can read just about anything. It can read when that original post went up and then hopefully I guess decide to not. It'll be interesting as it rolls out just seeing how people use AI copy and pasting it without like proofreading it themselves.

[A]

But also people can feel that people can.

[B]

But some people don't care. And that's the but.

[A]

But you're not. I, I read an article, I read, I read a snippet to the Sisters this Saturday and I was like oh, my camera went down. It's so hot. No, I'm about to go.

[B]

Okay, yeah, you're going.

[A]

I'm going to switch to this other one and I want to explain what's behind me. And I tell you, the cats, if I recreate their cardboard kingdom them they tend to be interested for a little bit. So that's what this is here. I made a pile of all the Amazon shopping crap. It's never the same. It's never the same. I actually recreate it every morning and I'm fascinated from it. So I'm sorry. Upcoming boot camps is the procreate course in two weeks and then Corey's going doing Google business profile. Definitely worth a listen. Can you post video school business profile

[B]

to now you can that if that

[A]

doesn't tell you what is being appreciated. I don't know. And then I decided on and I didn't tell you this October's gonna be newsletters.

[B]

That's a great one.

[A]

Thank you so much. And AI is incorporated in there too. I know but we want to get stuff in inboxes number the number one highest converting form of marketing. Still. Still.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

We're just.

[B]

It's a treasure trove. We're leading on the table because it's one extra thing to do and we're never able to be like I don't know, did they like it? Did they not? At least on social media you get a like again.

[A]

It's cohesive though. It's like the all encompassing market. We had to be everywhere.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To be anywhere. Right. We can't just be on one place. And I think and if you're new here, if you're new to baking, if you do videos and newsletters, you just beat 90 of people.

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[A]

If you do newsletters, Google business and video. Oh my goodness, you've cut the line fine.

[B]

Yeah. It used to be like if you took a picture good. If you took a. Well a well curated picture now you beat those people. Now if you do a video, you beat the well curated. If you do email marketing, you beat it and it goes.

[A]

Hate it. How much I love it. I hate them and love them equally as much you and I are benefiting and suffering.

[B]

Suffering more than you're doing.

[A]

Great. My gossip calm. My gossip calm. I'm going to be a little dirty. Ready?

[B]

Okay, I'm ready. I'm sad.

[A]

Specifically, it involves so Corey and Corey, okay. AI is a tool. So Corey, I can tell she wanted to generate this concept of a meme. And it was the emoji we have and it was like the cookie emoji with the emojis we deserve. And they were actually sugar cookies.

[B]

So I want to tell you an aspect to marketing is trending things. So trending things are great because that means you can jump on the big names like Subway and Arby's and Diet Coke and Starbucks all did this theme before I happened upon it. So I said, oh shoot, they all did it. Let me make it for sugar cookie bakers. Because it had not been done yet, but it's a trend. So I said, I don't even have to lay the groundwork here. It's been laid for me. Let me recreate it.

[A]

So Court made this funny meme and then another creator took the meme and ran it through AI to recreate the exact same meme. The problem is, Cory, like the AI hated making the emojis and she had to coach it all the way through. So it's a. Almost like it was like ridiculous trying to remake the emojis. This is my. My boss in the world of cookies where you. A lot of cookie sets are generated in the brains of bakers from the inspo. From other sets.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How far the derivative do you stop? Can you stop giving credit? You know, if someone like did a baby shower thing and you extrapolated an idea from it. When do you. When do you. Not having to be like, thank you so much. Query for this instrument. The crazy part was that was offensive

[B]

was I had watermarked it as bakers do, because I said this took me like 45 minutes.

[A]

Somebody took it, ran it through AI and posted the exact same meme, but it was brushed with AI except for the fact that the incredibly hard to recreate emojis exactly the same.

[B]

It took my logo output her logo on like what? What?

[A]

That too.

[B]

It was the same pink color too.

[A]

That is the danger. See here with the. You know, the argument is if you made a set that is inspired from Another set, but it's far enough away. Do you still have to give credit?

[B]

See, that's where. I don't know. Cutter shops want you to buy their cookie cutters. And a lot of cutter shops are cookiers themselves, so they make the cookies. If you buy their specific cookie cutter, I don't necessarily technically think you have to tag them because they wanted you to buy it. That was the whole thing. If you saw just a cookie baker and you're like, wow, that my customer said, they want it tit for tat. They want nothing change, then, yeah, I think you got to give some credit. Where credit first time.

[A]

But the fifth time, the fifth time, it's a completely different color palette. Years ago. Oops.

[B]

Years ago, a cookie or that had a pretty big following, reached out and she said, girls, what would you do? I actually found this from another lady, but I didn't know she had took the idea from another lady. But I had tagged the one that I found it.

[A]

You see the lineage message of idea barring. So I've seen the argument if somebody takes your set and recreates it. And everyone's like, I love that they're copy. I love that I'm their inspo.

[B]

I love a tag.

[A]

But event. You can't keep tagging them. Like, you're not the first person to recreate a rattle. And this person now has had their own, like, spice to it. Now add the caveat, the AI to it.

[B]

Yeah, I know. That's where it gets like, who's one? I've only been copied, like, pipe for pipe. One time. It was so funny because she was asking me how I did. How I did rosettes or something. And I was like, oh, here's how I did them. And then she post doesn't tag.

[A]

And I was like, oh, that's. That's a little rude.

[B]

You know, it. What it was the same colors, the same exact cookies, the exact same designs. And I was like, yeah, that's a.

[A]

You took exactly what.

[B]

When it runs through AI I don't know. I don't know. Because you can change it enough where you're like, is that that. Is that the same one? I. I don't know. I. Especially with the meme.

[A]

Okay. The meme was a direct. Like, take this. Recreate it through AI. So you were able to say, hey, this was mine. But because I knew, I said AI generated. So who does it truly belong to?

[B]

That's why I think we're in this

[A]

weird sticky situation, Cory. And I said, the time will come in the Sugar cookie marketing group where someone will have used AI in an almost imperceptible way to recreate somebody else's set. And there'll be no way to truly prove they're connected. And this original creator will be upset and this duplicator, which we cannot prove, will not relent and there'll be nothing we can do.

[B]

I will say, though, people who rely, and that's my big word, rely on AI. It's going to shake itself out because if you're doing everything through AI, you're no longer building a relationship. All run through AI. You have the AI information at the top meta's tagging it as AI. Yeah, the ID and all your cookies are run through AI. What looks like should be a flat cookie is like popping off and you have like an umbrella sticking out.

[A]

You'll get. You'll get some. It's so funny. My theory, my personal theory is that your poor eyesight does have an effect on whether. Yeah, my eyesight's kind of not great anymore. My farsight side, whatever. When you can't see far. So yeah, near sided. I'm nearside. I can't remember. So when I get mom will be like, no, that looks real to me. I'm like, how? In what world?

[B]

Stealing someone's cookie photo and running it through AI I think bad juju. But how can you prove it? That is a meme intellectual property.

[A]

It's not. So the nyan cat was proof that memes aren't intellectual property. But it does still affect offend.

[B]

Oh, it does offend it.

[A]

It does. I assume you were a little bent out of shape.

[B]

No, I said next time tag sugar cookie marketing in this.

[A]

Okay, so then what's the apprehension of tagging? Because it doesn't produce that I created this. I'm a duplicate of somebody else's creativity.

[B]

Well, I want to say tag depreciates

[A]

the creativity of it, but then it

[B]

must because you wouldn't have. They didn't do it originally.

[A]

Right. I think in the. I want to create this and I want it to be my own, but it's necessarily not. I would like to tell people, I as the end user, don't see you as any less of a creator if you tag the originator. I don't perceive it that way.

[B]

So I wonder what is it in the person's posting mind that says it is less because you would have done it if it didn't make sense.

[A]

I know it's something. It's like almost like psychology questions. Question. It is a Psychological question. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

[B]

to an extent. The sugar cookie marketing page has120,000 followers. I think to some point people don't think that it's two knuckleheads behind it, me and Heather, with feelings and effort that, you know, if you steal something from it, they're just like, it's a big account. Whatever. It just happened to be.

[A]

I would think that. Sorry. Back to the origination of the concept of video. I know we've been leaning into it recently in the last few podcasts. Podcast. If they're not the last 10, it's because it's. It's. I'd be remiss to tell you how to market and not include it, but I go to. Friday, I go to Gam's house where my aunt's there, and she was like, am I just following more accounts or am I seeing you guys more often? Because I'm seeing all these videos. Yeah, so no, she wasn't following any more accounts, but she was seeing more because of the videos. Sorry, that was my last thing I wanted to.

[B]

Yeah, so you checked that out to the guy.

[A]

I need to know. We are boots on the ground here and my family's reporting back. Kayak. Yeah. My submission one is if you. If you use another coogear set as inspo, you credit them the first time, but what about the fifth time? And then if you use another cookier status inspo running through AI and recreate something that's totally different, do you owe them credit at all?

[B]

I would say always be on the careful side and credit where credit's due.

[A]

So tell you here and you tell me if I'm wrong. My theory, if you tag a bigger creator than yourself inspo by bigger creator, and that bigger creator says, thank you so much, does it help you in the algorithm? I'd have to say yes, based off of what I've seen.

[B]

Power likes used to be something that was big. I don't think it's as big as it once was, but it's not.

[A]

Nothing.

[B]

No, a comment's a comment. Whether I. If you can get one, get one. One.

[A]

I mean, tag everybody though. Get them in there. I don't know, I just feel like you'd benefit yourself more for giving credit even when you're con. Considering where credit's due.

[B]

Oh, I think it would go a long way.

[A]

And then building good juju.

[B]

Yeah, it would go. It would do more better than. More harm.

[A]

Mo better Mohams,

[B]

more problems. Mo better.

[A]

More. Okay. Okay. Hate to regret to inform you Guys, we're tabling collabs.

[B]

We're tabling it and I just want to say tinge bit discouraged and disappointed but and I say that as a, as a loving mom.

[A]

The market has indicated that it ain't it.

[B]

So a lot of people showed up to Friday's club and I do appreciate you. We had limited sign ups.

[A]

Majority signed up, 60% showed up. That's majority 40. Barely 64.5. Barely. So what we did is in this collab we created parameters where it should have been and our goal was 90 participation rate and we still fell at 64.5 which did not meet the metric to keep this going. Which is fine. Nobody is wrong. It's just the market indicating that it

[B]

ain't yet you're wrong for signing up and not doing it.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. Check a little bit spanking. A little, A little bit spanking. And yeah. I went through each one of your profiles on Friday as getting ready for the Morgan Wallen concert that I had to go to and I didn't get home till 3am but I went through each of your profiles and see if you posted when we asked you to at the time we asked you to and participated. And it's not enough for me to put my name on the line to ask other people, the 64% who did participate to tell them that they can expect 90 results and they only got less than 60%. So because like not everyone should have been searched. So Corey and I have taken it back and we're like hey there this to produce these collabs. It's two hours on her part, two hours on my part just on the day of. It's about five hours on my part in the back end and the reminders and stuff. And then with you guys, you're creating the cookies and you're posting cookies. It's hours on your part. So with all these hours combined, I don't see the results currently. So we're going to take it back to the kitchen on rebake it up. So pausing class for the, for the moment but I will say we did

[B]

six full months of collabs.

[A]

So that was six months. Six months. Big, big boy.

[B]

No, in this, in since we resurrected them from January to now. It was six full months.

[A]

Yeah. And I couldn't beat 60. I couldn't beat the 64%.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it just.

[B]

It's fine. It's more like the reason why I was disappointed. Me and Heather, I could care less if you comment on our stuff. It's your colleagues which are your other cookie baker stickers. That's where I was sad because they're ex. They're putting in the time and effort for you to show up for the time and effort, and they didn't get it, and I couldn't change it. I sound like I could comment 50 more times to make up for, you know, the comments that they didn't get. That's what I was disgrace.

[A]

And, you know, you bless the people who differ. I know you're, like, frothing in the bit to be like, but I did benefit and you did, and that's great.

[B]

I know.

[A]

But it's just not enough for me to warrant this much time on everyone's part to put into that percentage participation rate because we got to have the metric that says, yes, you. No. You're sure? No is honest. It's a no. It's a n Core product. The midsummer membership sale is in two weeks. Cory and I have talked about giving some digital products away as a hype. I'll be working on that tomorrow. Okay.

[B]

Did you freeze?

[A]

I just want to see what you're gonna say. And then the Vendy blendy is in 18 weeks. So you can actually pen for the Vendy Blendy group right now.

[B]

Now.

[A]

And I'll be opening the first round of vendors, which are vendors who have been past vendors are welcome to sign up first. I'll be opening that in September. Back to schools in five weeks. But, you know, it's wild. Some ladies, like, I think it's so funny. Some lady, a lady in the sugar cooking marketing group, she's like, I think it's so funny. Our school went back today.

[B]

No, some people are going back, like, tomorrow, and it's July. I need to see when my son goes back.

[A]

I. It was August 24th. I almost feel like I built it on. That's why I have back to school as the 24th. Good to know. Good to know. Now, don't quote me on that. You might be late. Labor Day is in seven weeks. Not a big cookie holiday, but a little start of our cookie kickoff. Speaking of NFL season, seven weeks. Some people like DIY kits for that Canadian Thanksgiving. I like to throw it into my Canadian. My America's hat neighbors. 12 weeks. And then Halloween leading up to Halloween because we. We find that the cookie world operates six weeks in advance. So Halloween is in 15 weeks. It's far away. But you're going to actually look for mid September for that to start. The production, the cook, new content, the ordering of cutters, the pre Sales that's going to start mid September. So it's with the tail end of July, which is wild to me.

[B]

I know the 21st, right, so.

[A]

And then typically the cookie content season, the cookie football season starts off in mid August with back to school. But now we're seeing all these schools going back a little bit Sooner. I've seen August 15th. The someone said July 20th, so I'm saying like August 1st. We dial in for the six weeks prior. Almost like two weeks prior to back to school. So we're looking at July right now being back to school start.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I've seen people post it already now.

[A]

So you get back, you get through all of August is back to school and then September, small hiatus right there. But then we're right back into getting ready for Halloween stuff. And then it's bam, bam, bam. Our biggest seasons ever. And if you are new and you're listening to this for the first time time, our biggest seasons ever, ever, ever, ever. It is truly something. You do not know what it is. Like, let me actually see qu why you talk about this. We've sold quite a few tickets. I post our cookie classes for Halloween and Christmas ahead of time. I just want to see what I've sold because I've seen some of those. So sorry. For Halloween, we sold seven out of ten tickets.

[B]

Oh, nice.

[A]

Corey, it is July.

[B]

It's July, but we are fall people and we are wishing.

[A]

How many of our Christmas tickets do you think we filled? Christmas.

[B]

It's December 5, 3 or 4. Oh great.

[A]

At $85 a ticket. Listen to us. Do you not think that's unfathomable? It's six weeks, six months from now. Six weeks.

[B]

Yeah. And it's just honestly, consistency. We've been teaching classes for years now to the point where we don't have to go out and search for people to sign up. They're finding us and signing up, which is just a breath of fresh air.

[A]

We have got the. Corey and I inadvertently locked our class keys in the class. I got them se on me about it. I got three texts. Which one do you want to do three.

[B]

Number three.

[A]

Hilariously. Hilariously, it's actually a spam text. Venmo, your alert. You've received $22 reply yes to accept or stop to accept.

[B]

Cancel 20. Just 22 bucks.

[A]

Scam in. And yeah, it wants me to give them my business information so I can get it because I didn't meet the threshold for 500. So they'll figure out a way to work around maybe if they would have

[B]

said 500 originally I would and like

[A]

$500 so I'm sorry scammer your winner. If you want to email me at heather trigger cookie marketing.com I know I owe two of you response for

[B]

the

[A]

STL me about it segment. So you get Cookie Design lab for free for a month. It's a really cool software. Corey was in it yesterday. I could tell I did. Was yes. Where'd you print?

[B]

Meeting with real estate agent on Friday for my own house and I said why not mark it while I'm there.

[A]

Let me make such a brag. 717 not a winner but forever in our hearts hello twins. Thanks so much for the podcast. You're making Mowing My Lawn so much more enjoyable. Hi thanks for the podcast to help with new bakers. I've been doing it about a year but I'm not sure when to kind of step up my game. Problem is I have a dog and in Pennsylvania you can't be an official cottage baker with a dog unless you redo your whole your whole house. So I shall wait until my dog passes and then I guess that will be my sign to move into cookies. One thing maybe nobody's talking about is how do you do full time cookies and not have aches and pains? Pains. Not sure my wrist or my neck and back could take it full time. Maybe I'm the only one hunched over cookies and I get it. Or cookies and I get it. Aches and pains are mixing so much icing. Any tips on that? I'm no spring chicken but respect to those who do it all the time while you answer this maze restroom. Sure.

[B]

You know, you're right. Aches and pains happen and we're all decorating like fried shrimp. So it is totally normal that you're going to face those. The thing is you don't want to to get so far gone where it has to take surgery because you have to think if it takes surgery, all your profits that you've made from cookies over the years goes to pay for that surgery. Whatever the deductible is or the time off from cookie decorating. Stretching is good. Having a chair that forces you to sit up is also good. Maybe a standing table is what you need. I have a hand massager that I use especially after big orders that really helps get the blood flow into the joints. Supplements. Check with your doctor first, but you can find things that helped joints in joint pain like that. But you don't want to go too far gone where you're like I can't even decorate now because my back hurts so much. So I'm going to quit because of that. So stretching. I know that I have a hunchback. Like, I have bad posture. So my husband says at the gym, you need to focus on things that make your back stronger. Because if you can focus on back pulls, it'll pull your shoulders back and you'll have better posture for it.

[A]

I was doing base pulls.

[B]

Yeah. Doing those things now will set you up for success later versus good. Getting to the point where you're like, it hurts so bad, I can't do it. And then you're just quitting because it's too much of an uphill battle. So I use a hand massager. I have a back massager. Stretches, supplements, walks in between sets is a great one. 1.

[A]

The reason why I had to use the restroom, I have to interject here is I've been trying to drink as much water as you're supposed to in a day. So I. I googled like, what is the benefits of this nightmare scenario? And they were like water. Yeah. They said behind. Besides all the things water really benefits, the joints are. The joints between your bones are made of water.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So when you're dehydrated, which me all the time. Time. You are creating that friction point that can't be undone by not drinking water. Yes. Yeah, I agree.

[B]

And the piping bag thickness, you don't know, but it can actually cause hand cramps when the bag is too thick and you have to give it extra pressure to get the icing out.

[A]

I prefer the looser bags. I know the florals don't like it, but in our classes we do the

[B]

loosest bags, not the loosest ones because people have popped them so much. But I do like one down for from that.

[A]

That's a great question. And I hate your dog to pass. But as Corey, as a dog owner, I know that she's also suffering.

[B]

Always cleaning, always vacuuming.

[A]

And then it sent me back the autoresponder from her text that says use Code twins to get 15% off cookie design Lab. Oh, nice. So if you want to enter to win Cookie Design Lab, the the text encode is 571-556-5644 store or use code twins to get 15 off.

[B]

Yeah, and I was using yesterday. Super handy. Makes custom cookie cutters great for your clients and getting super custom orders.

[A]

And they're adding a lot of features. I did ask her to be on the podcast, so I'll come up to that. But next week, look for Taylor which is just another baker giving their experience, which is unique to them. But I mean, if we don't learn from other people's experience, what do we learn from? I know, I know. Okay. Our sponsors Cookie Design Lab, which I mentioned is Code twins to get 15 off bakey bake, which Corey mentioned. Someone had asked us, they said, do you use your best products in cookie classes when you teach cookie classes or not? And I was like, Corey doesn't. But. However, in this last class, use every meringue powder you owned.

[B]

I said, I gotta use up the meringue powder. I got it to test it out for somebody, but then I said, I don't want them to expire and then to go bad, so let me use them up for this class.

[A]

Which one's this bag of ice cream icing?

[B]

I used Wilton's.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Which is hard to buy.

[A]

Genie's Dreams, which changed just a little bit of the formulation.

[B]

Enco, which I really do like.

[A]

You do like Enco, but it's out of the country.

[B]

It's.

[A]

Yeah, it's not in the.

[B]

It's. I want to say South America. So the whole bag is written in Spanish. So if you can't get past that, you're going to have some issues. But it. What's up? Right. White. And I use Bakey Bake. So it's funny. Wilton's. One lady is like, there's so many

[A]

bubbles in the yellow.

[B]

That was Wilton's.

[A]

Oh, really Interesting. Somebody in the class we taught on when we teach it two Saturdays ago. Yeah, two Saturdays ago.

[B]

And I will say I.

[A]

You.

[B]

I don't like to throw away icing. So we had some people who didn't show up to class, so I. Oh, you're gone.

[A]

No, I'm coming back. I want to switch away.

[B]

I don't waste the icing. So if someone didn't show up to class, I brought it home so I could use it. And the yellow does have a lot of balls in it.

[A]

Really?

[B]

I don't know. I couldn't tell you.

[A]

And it wasn't so funny that she said.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She so specifically said that that lady was in it to win. I. I should be selling soon, but she signed up for the two of those. So if you. I'm sorry. Back to the cookie classes. If you wonder why we publish our Halloweening December class Christmas class so soon is because I want people to sign up for it. And they do when they come up to our classes. Yeah. Daisy makes his code twins. 10 for 10% off. Primari and Eddie, they're actually launching pre orders for Connie. She sent Corey an email this morning. Jennifer did pre orders for Connie and Corey. Can you tell us who Connie is? I refocused my myself.

[B]

Connie is a an edible food printer. Not like Eddie where it prints directly on food but this is great for cake people or cookie people who don't have an Eddie. You know, wafer paper, sugar sheets and things like that. That is what Connie uses. But you know, it's been a headache. People have gotten a Canon printer and used edible food coloring in it but it get jammed. They don't like the way that the colors come out.

[A]

I've heard rumor that can will run a print on paper before they ship out the printer. So even if you switch them out, technically it's safe.

[B]

It's not but so this Connie is food safe and uses edible food coloring and supposed to be printer. And if you didn't know, Primera is actually a printer company.

[A]

That's I understand it's big into labels. Like labels that you put on like yours. Like what I get soft soap from Amazon. I'm sorry for Walmart. Like that kind of printer.

[B]

Yeah, big, big old hunker like man like big hunker.

[A]

So yeah, I should ping. So Taylor, we have next week but I should ping Jennifer because she was saying like how do you think we should market this? Come on the podcast.

[B]

If you say that one more time. You say it every week. We're gonna get them on the podcast

[A]

podcast and they got too busy. That is why I have

[B]

Taylor.

[A]

I was like hey, she sent that this morning. I was like hey, you down to be on it next week? She was like absolutely, I am. That's the energy ani primer. And Eddie, very Corey will swear by Eddie. It's a pretty cool machine. If you're interested in it, join their Eddie printers user group or even join their unofficial Eddie group to find really just fascinating approaches to using this. Oh yeah lady. And people were kind of rude to her but they kind of corrected it. In the unofficial Eddie group she used Boost Eddie. She used a concept. She sent it to AI. She had AI print on the cookies and then she piped on top of the AI generated image to create this like three tier concept. And it was mind boggling and people were like unsure if it was AI generated but half of it was. But she piped on top of it. She used Eddie, she used AI. They. She used all these tools to make something I've really never seen before. It was pretty fascinating. It was pretty impressive. And you know know, shame on the people who shamed others for trying something new. But it was, it was a great set. And if you want to use the code sugar cookies at Bosch Nutra Mill, which is the Universal plus mixer, sugar cookies will get you $20 off. It does pay us 20 bucks, but you get 20 bucks off. So we use that to run the podcast. So thank you so much. Court. You have a twin Trist.

[B]

My twin terrest. I have been. If you didn't know, I'm a big holiday person. We know we started is on its way. The stores have now actually rolled out their Halloween decor so early in July. I'm all for it.

[A]

July's been. And I know I say this every year. It's been too hot.

[B]

It's been quite hot.

[A]

Too rainy.

[B]

I think people are excited. And you know, if you want your summertime, you're still going to have every single ounce of it. But if we want to just look forward to the cooler weather. I've been scouting.

[A]

I've enjoyed your memes.

[B]

Yeah, they're only fall based.

[A]

I'm sorry. And if you're willing to come to West Virginia. I found a road called Apple Orchard. No, like where you process them or something like, it's like Apple picking Lane. And they're so just endlessly, as far as I can see of apples.

[B]

Well, apple picking time. It's. It's right now we're sun. You think of sunflowers as fall.

[A]

It's not.

[B]

It's actually a summer flower. We're in sunflower season right now.

[A]

Lean into that.

[B]

No, I was thinking about going to Birdside Farms because they have like these tickets. You can go.

[A]

I got my oil changed by that couple that lives by Burnside Farm. I drove past massive amounts of sun.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

More than you could imagine.

[B]

And then you'll never guess. Apple season's before fall. So it's going to be, I think in late August, Sl September. So they'll still be hot when you're picking.

[A]

I would like to go there. Can you come to West Virginia? I'll find one.

[B]

Why do you keep wanting me to cross my state? Virginia, born and bred.

[A]

But we have land here in West Virginia.

[B]

Virginia for lovers.

[A]

This is my twinrest. You know that Camp Snap camera I had?

[B]

I don't remember that thing.

[A]

That little dummy.

[B]

Oh, yes, yes.

[A]

So it had two problems. It. You had to turn it on to take a photo and then you had to wait that awkward three seconds. Seconds. Yes. They have come out with a new one. No turning on the camera. I Already did. So I'm back to my 30 photos a month. It's a dummy camera so you actually can't see what you take a photo of. But I went through all my campsnap photos of when I was taking this. I just, it was just great recollection of what was going on.

[B]

Question you post. You take your cell phone photos like constantly.

[A]

Why do you need his more intentional? Like Stan 1, 2, 3 street. The myself was like get rid of. Get away from me. These camps that ones I feel are like so intentional.

[B]

Like unlike if you're just hearing this, they don't create actual real film. It's still a digital camera, but it. It's reminiscent if a digital camera and a real old school camera had a baby.

[A]

It actually wants to be a throwaway camera. It says we are the throwaway camera, but you don't have to throw us away. That's the brand branding and it feels

[B]

like a throwaway camera if you've ever held one. But it creates digital photos but it's not a digital camera because you don't have a screen where you can say, I didn't like the way I smiled.

[A]

You can't delete what you took. You can only see. Of course you can upload it to your phone or your. Your computer. But like when I was looking back through those photos I took, I was like, these are things I wouldn't have uploaded from my phone because I'm like, it's just forgettable. But these are things I'm so happy I can see what we're doing. Doing.

[B]

I think that's to my mooch, my moots. M O T M O O T S H that I get 10 photos a month printed.

[A]

Yes, yes. Reminiscent of that because you're like, I wouldn't have done anything with these by themselves on my phone, a phone photo is like the worst value.

[B]

It is Snapchat memory though.

[A]

Love it. We like it. But you wouldn't print off sound chat memory necessarily.

[B]

No, I would not do.

[A]

I did buy it. It'll be here next time week. Be taking 30 photos a month. That's my goal.

[B]

Is it only allow you 30 photos a month?

[A]

No, I'm 500 on a single charge. But I'm just saying minimum 30. That's my goal and 30 every month so I can like document. If you took 30 photos a month, you essentially took a photo a day.

[B]

Do you think home and this is a random question and I want you to answer honestly because I have my own thoughts. Do you think home ownership has caused you to be less of a minimalist

[A]

and a little bit of a maximalist. I'm gonna say. There's nothing in this house bigger. No, but like, if you're.

[B]

You had a camera that worked even though it caused.

[A]

So what I was thinking I was gonna offer it for you, to be honest. Oh, no way.

[B]

Okay, never mind.

[A]

She's a minimalist.

[B]

Because I was like.

[A]

Because my thing about minimalism is I'm not minimalist. I'm minimal. Ish. Meaning I absolutely want everything I've ever seen in my whole life. Life. But if I purchase a thing, it either has to replace something or it has to fill a need that was very necessary. So, okay, so I went through my closet, I organized my closet. I was like, there's a lot of things I don't wear specifically. Like Viper stuff. You go to this meter, you buy a shirt. So I emailed this guy, 75, he has all these grandkids. I was like, hey, would your grandkids like these shirts? So now I've gotten all of the shirts. I just am not grabbing. Yes. I like the concept of them. I like owning them. I don't use them. So let me give them people who would use them.

[B]

So I feel like it's wasted money that you had. You bought them and then now you're giving them.

[A]

I mean, technically, yes, it is. But these, A lot of these ships were included in signing up for. Yeah.

[B]

So then I know that Pacsan had you in a chokehold for not giving away.

[A]

But okay, this campsite. I was like, well, if I offer to you at arch, but if I offer to you. Granted, you're dealing with 3 second delay, but no $70 cost.

[B]

I guess I know home owner, like, because you live with Gans for a bit and she's very particular about stuff in her house. It was easy to not bring anything in because you got chastised when she saw it. But home ownership, to have like the. It wants. It wants you to buy it.

[A]

Screaming, buy stuff.

[B]

It'll take up every ounce in a kitchen cabinet.

[A]

I'm going to tell you this so may because I know you're going to move some soon in my basement. Like I'm telling you, I'm trying to be the system. I am a systems person. So what I did is I got everything of like, kind, like quality together and I put it in a clear bin. And it's important that the bin is clear. Yeah. Which I know people are like, let me get an opaque bin. So I can't see what's in there. Once the bin is opaque, you don't own the thing anymore.

[B]

Oh, it owns you and the space and the.

[A]

Yes, storage. So I got these clear bins and the clear. The clear bins are actually smaller than the shelf. And you'd be like, well, that's wasted space. That's intentionally wasted space. Because the wasted space is actually, actually not meant to be full. Now that everything is together and like, kind, like quality, I'm going to go parse through it and be like, are you using this? No. Then it needs to go. When was the last time you touched it? Three, four, five years ago. You don't need it. Then you can say, do I want to resell it? Do I want to donate whatever? That's where I'm at. So I was even thinking, like, yeah, obviously there's nothing behind me. I have no furniture yet because I'm not ready with the systems to allow for furniture to enter the space. Face.

[B]

And she doesn't want her cat ruin it.

[A]

Yeah, I can just. And it's gonna ruin it.

[B]

The cats do, like, train stuff.

[A]

Their little nails. And I. Did you remember when I had you pinned down? Munch? I couldn't do his thumb, so I did it and did it on my own.

[B]

I didn't like that. I didn't like to be an evil, evil person.

[A]

To attend Archer's at his Memer Pea's house for the month. But he backs it soon.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Coming up next week.

[A]

Are you excited about it? Does he want to wash my house for a couple days in August?

[B]

I'll have to see what day school starts.

[A]

It would be August 5th, 15th. I'm so sorry.

[B]

No, I'm sure he'd be fine with it. My issue out there.

[A]

I can mean to halfway.

[B]

Oh, maybe at that sushi place then. I like that's.

[A]

That's even close to me. Tell me when my neighbors keep buying the subways. I didn't go to the subway. But I asked him. I was like, what about the subway? Must be. He said, the minute that subway's for sale is mine.

[B]

Oh, no way.

[A]

And he'd be local to his house. He would love it. And he was working at the Subway in Manassas for three months to get off the ground. So I'm going to go and leave him to what?

[B]

Oh, to leave him a review.

[A]

Yeah. He said free cookies, free setups.

[B]

Couldn't you really go to any Subway?

[A]

I said, nobody likes the Subway more than my nephew.

[B]

Oh, that will eat a sub sandwich.

[A]

Yeah, I tell them I was like I'll get room for your subway.

[B]

People are like I hate Subway. I think Subways did you know they

[A]

have what you're getting?

[B]

They actually have healthy wraps now and they are so good. They're so good.

[A]

Gosh, talk me into it because I'm not convinced. Okay, well I'll get it when I go to their somewhere.

[B]

Ranch chicken wrap.

[A]

I love Ryan.

[B]

It has like 15 grams of protein and it's actually either 3.99 or 49 99.

[A]

Oh my goodness.

[B]

That's yes.

[A]

Right. The price is just killing me.

[B]

Leaving my house.

[A]

Yeah. Immediately. $20 if you go to Walmart which I know you don't. Yes. What is their great buys? Is that their brand? Great value, great value. There's these tuna and I don't lose me on the tuna. It's these Mediterranean Bowl. It's 15 grams of protein. I look forward to the thought of eating it his olive oil some del almost bring you one even though we're

[B]

so off base and people have turned

[A]

this off now this is Twentress your

[B]

last this is the twin I have. So my son went up to his or down to grandma's wherever in Alabama for one whole month. That means I've not had to buy a snack or taken them or entertained.

[A]

I was just listening to a budgeting thing. They're like feeding kids.

[B]

But I have not. Not so if you think about it, even if you leave your house to go on a drive, you're using gas and you might be like well I already paid for it. Well you're just getting close to another fill up. So I have not left my house and if we go we take my husband's car right on gas and he gets like a million miles.

[A]

When's the last time you drove your car?

[B]

I had to drive it on the weekend but it during the week it sits it's a giant paperweight. And I said wow. I 1 I'll need an oil change probably in two months. But the longer I don't drive the the more I stave that up. And you're every time you you leave your house you spend something whether it be in gas stopping at a place to even get something a refreshment.

[A]

I posted this in West Virginia group and it was said the cost of a Five Guys cheeseburger is equivalent to a Dodge Challenger in 2015.

[B]

Yo. I don't Five Guys is I want to say I enjoyed their burgers but

[A]

I cannot to walk it out to my car.

[B]

A burger and no fries to be $20. I cannot. So what I've done is not left. I've gone on a lot of walks. But here's the thing. If you want to save money, you got to stop scrolling. You got to stop going into stores. Because you go into a store and talk yourself into something you never wanted

[A]

and you not need. Mari, Bart went to Ross last night. I don't know why I went. I just.

[B]

That's begging for your money to leave.

[A]

You know what they had at this West Virginia Ross? That dewy skin watermelon they had? I know what you're talking about. And it was 33% off, which is more than even the Sephora sale once a year. So did you buy it? I bought two of them. Yeah, it did. They even had syncopair from Dr. Dennis Ross.

[B]

Yeah, My thing is I have a. A cabinet full of skincare. So until that is gone, I agree. I don't need a dew drop. Till when I have it here.

[A]

Here. Since we've truly lost everybody, here's my logic. If I bought it more than 10 times, I'm allowed to buy it again because it's truly consumable for me.

[B]

I will say that if it's a consumable that you know you'll utilize in a dark out.

[A]

Cor. And I went to Bath and Body Works.

[B]

Bath and Bod, and it's your fall line.

[A]

Listen, listen, Linda, that can I. The benefit. That fall candle, which I did. Pumpkin clothes.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

The benefit of that far exceeds the cost in the terms that it's a true consumable. If you buy candles and don't burn them, you're back into the problem.

[B]

You are back into the problem. The consumable I can get behind. Because the problem is if you're getting consumables that you aren't eating or you aren't utilizing, it's taking up space. And space is valuable. The things is my issue. The stuff.

[A]

So what the non consumable. What stuff are you buying that's not consumable? Anything.

[B]

Anything that wear decor.

[A]

It's got decor.

[B]

What's so funny? I went to all these stores to look at the Halloween decor. I went to probably four different stores and someone's like, I do wait to see your haul, but I didn't buy one thing.

[A]

So I was like, oh, I mean, talk about the greatest blend is you get the high but not the purchase.

[B]

I'm getting the high of discovery.

[A]

I got a Target and talk me off this lunch. This is my first house. I do want a Christmas tree. I Like the Christmas tree lights.

[B]

Yeah. I love a Christmas. Oh, tree.

[A]

Yes, I saw that. I saw that.

[B]

I thought that would be good for you because it's.

[A]

It's not cheap. It was $300. It's ridiculous. But it.

[B]

It's a cat tree.

[A]

Do you understand? And I've done some research on it because my 50th time target in the ad that the column that's where the cat sand is can be redecorated.

[B]

Oh, that's so funny.

[A]

Yeah. No, I thought that was a great

[B]

idea if you had a tree. But it was expensive.

[A]

No lights included. Another thing.

[B]

Yeah. Do you really care though? Put something on it. They're twinkle lights. You can buy them and then.

[A]

Do you think I shouldn't? It's a cat.

[B]

Here's my thing. I've had my tree for a number of years. I decorated the same exact way. Every single beautiful tree. I love the tree. So I'm a holiday person. If you're going to get rid of the tree eventually. No, don't get it.

[A]

I don't see myself living without a tree. It's my first tree.

[B]

But then there's cheap trees.

[A]

Oh, you're not wrong. It probably che a cheap tree.

[B]

It's hard to say. That's right. The cat tree is funny because it's cats and they get to live in your tree and it would be kitschy and cute.

[A]

You know how much die on the inside of it I it.

[B]

Yeah, but you put it away and bring it out every year.

[A]

It's new. In terms of minimalist and cat toys. Where I found the safe space is anything made of cardboard that in that's to include the Amazon box that I cut the hole out of so they can run into. Or I go to Ross and they have a lot of that repurposed cardboard cat scratchers which I seem to like. Don't go to Petco and buy the cat scratcher. It's $24 dollars. But if I know that I could recycle it and apparently the wrong recycle bin it gives me reprieve.

[B]

I guess I'm out of my cat era because they've passed away. Not any fault of my own. So money pets are money dumps. They're the only.

[A]

The payout is the joy of having joy.

[B]

And then like I'm cleaning up all the time. It's. It's endless. So I'm in my non consumer ism era where I can walk in the store and just look at the stuff and be just as happy. More in love with the fact, like, minimal charges coming into my bank account is my high. My dopamine hit.

[A]

Okay. What was it last? Non consumable. You bought. I

[B]

have only been focused on just buying consumables, so I can't honestly remember. Good job.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No decor. Oh, I guess. Oh, the candles.

[A]

Consumable. No consumable. I can count candles. Consumable. As long as they're used. So Cor and I got pumpkin clove. It was a bogo. So we each got one and the other. Yes. We could have done that together, but I didn't want to. You already burned through one. I'm half. I'm almost done with my. My guy.

[B]

Yeah. Love. I love a candle. I have some candles. I. I just can't get behind the scents. I need to either give them away, you know?

[A]

Yeah, they would love them. Yeah.

[B]

No, I. That's. The thing is, and I've studied it, the reason why people want bigger houses isn't because, you know, they're bigger people. They want bigger houses because they have more stuff. And the stuff is coming out of the. The cupboards and the drawers, and they're like, we've outgrown this house. No, your stuff has outgrown the house.

[A]

You're.

[B]

But if you do not use the stuff, the stuff owns you. I'm big. If you're going to eat that bag of candy, get the bag of candy,

[A]

because you're going to eat it and be. Be with, like, irrevocable joy because, like, it's consumable.

[B]

But then if you are just hoarding on to things.

[A]

I saw this tik Tok and this girl had, you know, like, above the garage, they have this kind of. Of like peak storages. They have like, they're not. You couldn't make it a bedroom.

[B]

Yeah, it's a lot a loft, but

[A]

not even a loft that's like. I mean, sure, you can make it functional, but you'd be emptying into somebody's bathroom. So, like the master bathroom. She had turned it into a storage closet for her fall and Christmas decor. And someone was like consumer consumerism's final boss because it was like, like, wow, I bet your house is a vibe. But like, at what cost?

[B]

But then.

[A]

So you.

[B]

You're getting a tree. The problem with the tree is it does take up space to store it for 11 months out of the year.

[A]

Because the tree is truly the fascinating question because it forces the hand of. That's Christmas. And it is a vibe. But it does need to be stored. So Then you're like, well then leave the tree out all year. It's not who I am as a person.

[B]

No, Heather would not do that. But I would say a cheaper tree.

[A]

Tree would be the best dessert.

[B]

That is not a trooper tree. Yeah, it's more inexpensive.

[A]

Tree would be. It is fascinating. Well, I'm glad you're on your journey because Corey is going through her decluttering which you're big into. Amazon Marketplace for reselling at $5 $6 a pop, which is fast. Sure. Yeah, sure.

[B]

It's no, no sweat off my back if you want to drive 30 minutes for something for $5 at least I recoup some of the gifts guilt versus just giving it away. But I was going through old clothes and I was like, wow, these could have a new home somewhere else. Not in my drawers.

[A]

Where the what helps me for clothes is especially like higher end like business jackets that I love that weren't the cheapest. I say if I donate this, somebody who couldn't get a job otherwise may be able to land their dream job because they dressed the part. But if I have it in my closet, I'm not wearing it. They can't get the job. That's how I released myself.

[B]

I if you're working on the consume like buying less, going into a store and not grabbing a cart or a hand cart and just wait.

[A]

When I was in Ross yesterday with this like lemon slice cardboard thing for the cats, it was impossible to carry. It made me inconvenient.

[B]

Yeah, that did happen. And what's so funny is I actually had a cart one day because I went to the grocery store and I was like, oh, this cute little dudette. It was in my cart and I, I said walk that right back to

[A]

where you found it.

[B]

Go put that back.

[A]

Something I do is if it's not on my shopping list, it can't be bought.

[B]

Oh yeah. A pre done shopping list is going to keep you on the straight and narrow. You have to know yourself though and be able to police yourself in the grocery store. The store has one job to sell

[A]

you stuff and it that's their goal. This one has set me free a bit. Walmart is the storage facility until you're ready to take it out of the store storage which is just take it to check out and buy it. Right. That's seen as your storage facility. It'll always be there. The needles, the thread always will be there.

[B]

So I love adding. I'm getting a dopamine high, adding things to cart and never checking out my Amazon cart.

[A]

My save for later. Ridiculous. Yeah.

[B]

Tick tock is dangerous because there's an ad every two seconds.

[A]

I'll just add it to cart.

[B]

Keep scrolling.

[A]

It resets my card there and it knows it shouldn't. Thank girl. Yeah, it never said that. I might have bought it, but I'm not gonna buy it if you don't delete it.

[B]

Oh, and I told Nate this, my husband, and he was like, that's a good way to think about it. In my younger 20s, you couldn't have talked to me about retirement. I was so out of my realm of like, possibility and mindset. I'm like, I'm gonna be working for another 50 or so. I didn't even think about it. But now as I enter into my 40s, only 37, so I don't wanna hustle that if I don't have to. If you think everything time, it has a price to it. So a lawyer's hour might be worth $400. You know, if you food, your hour might be worth $15. But everything you you buy cost you some life.

[A]

Blood. Blood time. Yeah.

[B]

So you might be like, I'll buy this fall decor. That's $20. If you make $10 an hour, you have two hours.

[A]

You have so hours of your life.

[B]

But then I am also thinking about if I spend the $20, that's one extra day or two extra hours I tack on before I can rec retire.

[A]

So I'm telling myself the this eighth wonder of the world is compounding interest. So if you guys want the ultimate back sell, AI open AI Chat, you can do Gemini, like expiring chats or whatever and be like, hey, I'm 37. I plan to retire at what, 59 and a half or whatever the withdrawal is. I want to buy $200 worth of this crap. How much if the annual rate of return, let's be honest, 7%, accounting for inflation at retirement, will this actually cost me? And it'll be be like $400.

[B]

But that's what is. That's so that $20 fall decor.

[A]

But so in the asterisk, what you don't acknowledge is that the fall decor, not only does it cost you retirement and cost of compounding interest, it costs you space. So I actually use AI. I said, here's the average unit price for renting a space. How much if it's in a Target bin, those black bins with the yellow tops, how much would this cost to store in the storage unit? It was like this much. And I was like, now over 1010 years. My grandmother's best friend Darlene's son is in Japan. He just moved to Japan. He's like an English teacher there. But he was saying he's like super, like Kumbaya. He's like a super approachable guy. He pays for a storage unit here in America for $1,000 a month. That's insane. But it's a year. I'm so sorry. The thousand dollars a year. But he's had it for 25 years. He does not know what's in it. That's $25,000 dollars. Yeah. Something that when he passes away, they'll throw away or let it go to auction. What would you do with his $5,000?

[B]

Wild.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So that's what I've been able to reprogram in my mind is instead of getting the little dopamine, hit the little dopamine high of whatever it is, if it's not a consumable, like, I won't use it one. It's taking up space. I think Heather is in. Summer are big into these little plush animal things. What are they called?

[A]

No, me, I like to look at them. Jelly Cats.

[B]

Jelly cats. Jelly cats have a zero return on investment.

[A]

I. I said, which jelly cat? Jelly cats are almost like the Beanie Babies of today.

[B]

But the price of a jelly cat versus the prices of new beanie beanie babies are $12.

[A]

From what I remember something like it

[B]

was like between 8 and 12. I can't recall.

[A]

These jelly cats are now $75. So I say to Summer if you listed. Because some of hers are. Are rare.

[B]

Yeah, because she bought them way back in the day when.

[A]

So I was like. Like, if we sold. She has 60 of them. These stuffed animals, they're cute and they're. They're cute as heck. But she was like the math round doesn't matter because I'm never selling them. Like, oh, okay. Like she. She gets more from the consumption of them than she does from the money. And that's where she's at. Like, she lives with my parents. She have a lot of bills. But. But go back to your point.

[B]

But I'm just saying, one, those, those little things live in her closet. Like she has to enter a room to look at.

[A]

Yeah, I don't know.

[B]

Maybe.

[A]

You know, I'm constantly battling if you're asking about buying this house, if it's changed me, if anything, it's made me extremely panicked about buying stuff, it is

[B]

because a house can be filled up and Heather's a little tiny person and bought a Single family home. So just to have space to put stuff in is dangerous. Dangerous because it's a. You can just hidey hole.

[A]

It'll eat you alive and suck up your entire existence. And I don't travel in corn. I don't spend a ton of money. But. But I probably my biggest expense is contributing to retirement. But the thought of just even buying furniture is a little overwhelming. Just it's like cost.

[B]

Yeah. And when I moved into this house I wanted a really nice furniture front room.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And it is really nice. You know.

[A]

Anyway, you buy a piano. Oh yeah.

[B]

I have a piano. I want the piano. You know what I said? If you get this piano and you don't plunker around. I do plunk on it because I don't. I don't want to have that thing own me. And I'm like looking at it like wow, what a money sell for your

[A]

piano is that it is. Is a skill set. It is almost a form of like therapeutic.

[B]

Is it consumption? It's consum. I'm plucking away consumer.

[A]

Here's what I see. Espianos and cars. They're collateral granted. Depreciating for sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Didn't you buy a used one? Did you buy a new one? Oh it's used from the 80s so it's already depreciated. It's super depreciate. So. So you using it when you sell it, you recoup most of that.

[B]

That's the problem is is there's so

[A]

many people giving away their piano Arnar. But there's a point has been so out of tune that it can't be like brought back.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I just thinking like if it takes you out. They said unhappiness is being on your phone. Doom scrolling not going to the gym. So the opposite of that is the gym membership being on your piano.

[B]

I mean and I look at those as consumables. I'm going to the gym using the equipment, using the piano.

[A]

I haven't the math of like my gym membership's 41 auto drafted which I hate. But you got a discount if you did it.

[B]

Auto draft.

[A]

Yeah but like I'd have to go to replace a planet finish which is like what $10 a month. I'd have to go four times a month at least. So I have to go four times. Then beyond that the, the health benefits. Oh yeah.

[B]

That's investing into your future.

[A]

So it's a consumable that has to

[B]

be consumed via big big one into that it's just like the Decor stuff. As I've been looking at this fall decor. It's all cute.

[A]

And this is buying the fall decor one thing. But if we go to the. The. The Pick your own.

[B]

Oh, that's a memory.

[A]

That's a memory. That's a consumable and it's an experience which gets you out of your house.

[B]

Yeah, no, I. I think that's true. And, But. And so it's been funny to see as my l. As I age, how my brain is rewiring.

[A]

You couldn't have reasoned me with 20. No.

[B]

Me and Heather in our early 20s if we saw it from Ross.

[A]

Let's get it when I buy it at a discount. But then as we get older, I'm like.

[B]

As I'm looking to move. I don't need a bigger house. Honestly. Archer's getting older and he'll fly the coop. I don't even need necessarily a townhouse.

[A]

Let me tell you this. Ruthanne's neighbor of 23 years moved. It's a couple there. They only had one daughter, but she moved out a couple months ago. So that whole. And then the daughter was at college for like, I think she got a master's. So she was gone for. For six years. So it's really been this couple. They had three. What is. Whatever right below a semi truck where it has it over the front. It's bigger than. So I asked. You know, we did the math. Estimated to move. They moved from Fairfax to Delaware. So it's these three massive trucks. The estimation on the lower end was 16,000 for the move of stuff.

[B]

That's crazy because you're taking all your stuff with you. My husband grew up dirt poor.

[A]

I think people don't understand when Cory says her husband grew up dirt poor. It was a double wide with three families in it. Yeah.

[B]

And it wasn't even a double wide at the beginning.

[A]

It was a Just a single one. Expand in Europe.

[B]

Yeah. What's crazy is he does not have a fascination with stuff at all. He honestly doesn't want stuff. He has one box of like little treasures and trinkets over his is 40 years of life. But if you look at my house, the things in it are from me.

[A]

I know whenever Corey moves, I barely get an invite for the moving day because she hates to see it. So I've been. I've challenged you. And I think you're challenging yourself to like not have that existential move.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

So getting.

[B]

Get the $5, $10 from someone willing to.

[A]

Which I really appreciate the reselling. Okay. One man's junk is another man's treasure. And whatever they do with it, it's fine. Even if they resell and flip it.

[B]

Sure, absolutely.

[A]

Yeah. Getting it out, recouping at least $5 of the 15.

[B]

So if you didn't hear, I think I've talked. I've made almost $932 off of stuff that's so great.

[A]

And she's done it off of five and six bucks. Yeah, five and six.

[B]

A lot of people coming. A lot of people coming for five to recoup.

[A]

Even a thousand dollars to put towards the moving company.

[B]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's less stuff to move, so I'll have one.

[A]

Unless truck. So you're not moving to like eight months, right?

[B]

So I said I meet with the real estate agent on Friday and then sign a little contract. And I said my goal is to find something between January and April somewhere in that time frame.

[A]

When does your lease end?

[B]

It doesn't until May.

[A]

Oh, May. Oh, yeah. So you'd have to do that. So you got. You got six to eight months to make it happen, Cap. And do you feel like you're on. On your way?

[B]

Absolutely. I'm downsizing, not bringing anything in. I mean, we're just shrinkling.

[A]

That's great. That should it be. And then you create a new methodology to approach the next house, which again, I was asking for, like, what do you want this house? And she's like, nothing bigger. Nothing more. No more one. One garage. She don't have a garage now.

[B]

And then I even said to myself, why do you want a garage? I was like, the store words at the. I don't need the storage.

[A]

Just put your car away. I support the garage segment.

[B]

Yeah, but it would. The price difference, I'm honestly would like more.

[A]

They said a garage is 50 grand.

[B]

Yeah, it's expensive. It'll up the whole ante. So if I could find, like, where. I'm like, wow, it's a steal.

[A]

Maybe.

[B]

But I'm not tied to the garage

[A]

if I don't have to. Oh, shoot. For the garage. Okay, guys, I know we completely lost you. It's just me and Courtney.

[B]

Goodbye. I got to eat something. I'm starving. Let me go consume something.

[A]

Christine.