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Onesday Thursday? Sorry - ❄️ we had a big snow storm (big for the Washington DC area is anything over 3 inches, and we ended up with 8 - 10 inches, ☃️ so rest assured, my car won't be clean again for 2 months).

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 193 - SMART Baby Goals, 👶 we cover a better baby way to tackle big goals - and that's by not making them big, but making them rather small.

Let me jump right into an example of my own. ✍️ Last year (and for the last 5 years before that), I had the goal to learn Procreate (the iPad app that redefines digital drawing). 🎨 I'd bought the top-of-the-line iPad, the fancy Pencil, and Procreate... and proceeded to say each year, ✏️ "I'm going to learn to draw."

But my goal wasn't S-M-A-R-T. It was too broad. 🤓 S-M-A-R-T stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

My "I wanna draw" was not specific. 🤷‍♀️ Draw what? It wasn't measurable because you can't measure "can I draw yet." And because it wasn't broken down into steps, it thus became unachievable, and "sometime this year" was not a viable option for "time-bound."

My goal was running before it could crawl, and thus it never got any traction. We have to make it small (baby) before we can make it big. 🏃‍♀️💨

🤱 A lot of time, we see bakers say BIG goals - 🤑 "I want to increase sales by 50%," or 🔟 "I want to teach 10 cookie classes this year." Love them - but those are really easy goals to say and really hard goals to beat.

What if we made these goals smaller? 👶 Baby...ier? What if "I want to increase sales by 50%" was, "I'd like to sell 1 more dozen each week this year than I did last year." Still pushing you, but definitely S-M-A-R-T because it's smaller and a lot more specific, we can measure it, we know we can do it (hey, what's 1 more dozen), it's relevant to our business, and it's time-bound (each week).

🎨 That's what I did with my lofty "learn how to draw" goal. Instead of "take 1 Procreate class a week," I switched it to, "Just ✨open✨ the Procreate app once a day." Whatever happens after that - it counts. Because the goal is so small and easy, it's easy to tackle, but it's not impressive.

And therein is the key - 🔑 small goals aren't sexy, but they are attainable, and completing 100 small goals this year will get you so much further than not completing 1 giant goal.

🧠 Small is Smart. 🤏

Here are some small crawling goals that you can use to get your goals to toddler stage.

👶 1. Social Media - Consistent Posting 2x per Week

• 🍼 Focus on 2 times per week - be gradual, you can increase posting once you've learned how to stay consistent with just 2x per week.
• 🍼 Focus on 1 platform - set up up cross-posting if you'd like, but focus on 1 platform for now.
• 🍼 Add in 1 copy formula to work on each *month* - not each post. Learning just 1 copy formula (AIDA) is better than learning them all and using zero.

👶 2. Financial - not "all the money" but rather "1 extra dozen per week"

• 🍼 Ask, "How would I find 1 more sale a week?" - let that question guide your marketing to find just 1 more lead.
• 🍼 Focus on value-adding in community groups - community group admins love valuable content, so become an asset before you make your cash grab.
• 🍼 To help make it achievable - premake dough so you have it ready to go.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 192 - Workin' Birkin, we're following a pretty funny story taking over TikTok.

You see - 👜 Hermes is a line of really high-end luxury items like purses and belts. And if you have a Birkin bag, you're looking at tens of thousands of dollars alone. But the king of the Birkin bags? The Kelly Bag - a bag that you have to be invited to be able to buy... 💰 for almost a hundred thousand dollars.

But last week, ⏰ a TikTokker discovered that Walmart has launched its own Birkin of sorts... a knockoff the internet how now dubbed the "Workin' Birkin" from "Walmes."

Hilarious doesn't begin to describe it, but what's even more interesting is the marketing lessons we can pull from 🤑 Walmart's mass-produced copycat Kelly.

Is Hermes going to shift its marketing strategy to compete with the behemoth of Walmart? Is Walmart testing its entry into the luxury designer bag market? No and no - here's why.

👛 1. Different Market Segments

Hermes sells to really rich people. Walmart has built a brand on the savvy money-saving shopper. Their market segments never overlap. The person who wants an authentic Kelly bag won't even glance at a Walmart's sliding doors. The price-conscious Walmart shopper ain't gonna be clickin' to Hermes website. Their market segments aren't even in the same parking lots.

And you shouldn't worry when a new baker starts posting in your community groups - they're not sharing your market segment. You're years into this - your skills are honed, your prices are set by your defined costs. You know exactly what it costs to stay in business, and you charge a profit accordingly. The new baker? They can charge a lower rate because they do produce a different product that does attract a different buyer. Don't you worry about them - the market takes care of everything.

👛 2. Supply and Demand

Hermes could ramp up production to compete with Wally World's massive production empire. Scrap the hand-made and sub it out for the mass-produced, right? WRONG. The more supply available of authentic Birkins, the less valuable each Birkin becomes. That's the law of supply and demand. The more supply, the less demand for it. The more demand, the less supply around to fulfill it. It's the invisible hand of the market at work.

👛 3. Costs Covered

You can't work for less than it costs to make, right? You'd be losing per order. So let your costs dictate your pricing. Same with the newbie. They can charge less because their labor rate is lower, they have lower indirect costs, and they don't have as much overhead. You - you can't. You have that Eddie to pay for, that Universal Bosch to keep powered on, and that Heavenly 70 Amerigels to use. You gotta cover your costs + profit - no if, ands, or Birkins.

👛 4. Exclusivity means Money

The higher your prices the more exclusive you're able to make your order inquiries. Hermes hand-makes each bag - taking up to 20 hours to produce. They can charge more for their lack of availability. That translates as "exclusivity" to your marketing. If Birkin can slap a $100k price tag on something that a grocery bag can functionally replace - why are you so worried about pricing lower than your competition? Price HIGH. Get EXCLUSIVE high-paying customers. We aren't selling food - we're selling a luxury edible product.

️👛 5. Perceived Value in Luxury Pricing

Finally - the perception of value creates money. Oreos are cookies. Your custom-decorated dozen is cookies. Why can you charge 20x the price of Oreos?

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