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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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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 190 - How the Grinch Saved Christmas, ️and we're BACK and Frank is DIZZY. 😿 Heather came back from a 10-hour trip to a sick Frank who turns out had an inner ear infection that led to him gettin' an early start on the kitty somersault Olympic tryouts.

But back to baking - December is a rough time for bakers. On the one hand, with all the marketing work we laid all year, we're finally able to cash in during the "Cookie Super Bowl." On the other hand - my goodness, it's a lot of work.

It's easy to become jaded by our clients during this season. While we're "baking spirits bright," we ourselves are neglected during the holidays. It's the price we pay in the industry we have chosen to be in. But it's important to stay focused on the goal: a really solid business that sustains itself both through slow and busy times.

So how do we stay focused without becoming embittered by the long hours and late nights over the kitchen oven? Here's a few tips from Sugar Cookie Marketing.

🎄 1. Manage Communications

'Tis the season to get behind on emails. When (see: not if) clients send an angry message about something you messed up (or they think you messed up), wait 24 hours to reply. For all other messages, set expectations. "Hey! Thanks for the email - I'm looking at 24-hour response times, but rest assured, I'll get back to you!" goes a long way in quelling the fears of your customers. If you've not replied to January inquiries, make a note to reply before your next "Hey, I'm taking orders" scheduled post goes up to stave off upset would-be clients.

2. "This will be the best experience they will have."

Corrie and I taught a Christmas cookie class last weekend. Factor in the weekend before, we were circa Vendy Blendy, it was easy to have a bad attitude with two overly long working weekends. We took a deep breath and said, "This is our cookie class attendee's Christmas season kick-off. Let's make it the vibe." And the same goes for you - a lot of your clients are excited about their orders. Make it the best gift they've felt that they have ever given by perking up your attitude.

🎄 3. Custumers =/= Therapists.

You're tired. We get it. Customers aren't therapists. It's easy to turn a pick-up into a vent sesh of all the orders from all the difficult people who don't understand all that goes into cookies. Word of caution: don't do that. Corrie and I frequented a delightful local Thai restaurant, except the owner wasn't so delightful. What was one lunch turned into an hour-long vent session about clients who don't tip. Here's a tip: don't do this.

🎄 4. Happy Cappy - Clean, Brushed, Smile

I hate telling people to shower and makeup when frankly, I don't like doing it. But boy does it help paint the picture that we're the happy, hearty bakers our clients expected to open the door. Think about it - would you want to see your mechanic driving in a hoopty with squeaking brakes? Or about how your real estate agent living in a dump? We want to image the folks we hire are what you believe them to be - same with our bakers. We want to think your kitchen is clean, your house smells good, and you're happy to serve every client with the freshest baked cookies ever to come out of an oven.

️🎄 5. Use AI to keep it friendly.

Nothing says, "I'm too busy for much effort" like "sent from iPhone." In the world of AI everywhere, we hardly have an excuse to not let the robot overlords have their way with our curt emails.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 189 - Marketing Lessons You Can Apply from [Redacted], ️🎉 and this week's podcast is the LAST time we'll say [redacted] ever!!! ️🎊 *

😭 * until next year.

But with every [Redacted], there are marketing lessons to be learned - 🧠 and this year we picked 10 marketing lessons to apply to your bakery-endy (okay now I'm done making up words).

📣 The biggest takeaway from the [redacted] spamming: NO ONE is seeing your posts. 📣

That's something we just have to make peace with as marketers and design our posting schedules, content types, and social media channels around. Doesn't matter how many times I said, 🗣️ "You pend until midnight," I was still asked even until midnight, what time they would get in. 🙉 And it's not their fault!

😳 There's just so much content thrown at us on newsfeeds that reading the group rules + entry questions + group description + event description + 1,345,167 posts, 4 podcasts, 15 newsletters, 57 Reels... 👀 we just simply don't have the time or attention span to absorb it all.

❌ And your audience doesn't have the bandwidth either.

Now that that's outta the way - let's talk about the 10 tips we took from [Redacted] 2024 and applied to bakeries in 2025. Corrie made it a point to only talk about topics that could be adapted to your bakeries - 👁️👁️ so attention up front!

️🛒 1. Started Marketing Early

🤫 The [Redacted]: That was the key to this year's Vendy Blendy. With the increase in the required discount percentage, it was necessary to extend the marketing funnel to 5 months (we typically do 2.5 months in the past). ⏰ Add in a funky election year affecting reach, and in hindsight, we were really happy we got this off the ground earlier this 'round.

🍪 Your Bakery: Same goes for your bakery events - classes, vendor markets, pop-ups, pre-sales. You gotta give yourself some marketing runway, otherwise, you run out of concrete (aka money). If you think 3 weeks is enough time to fill seats in a Galentine's Day cookie class, you'll want to rethink that. 6 weeks or more of marketing can ensure that you can fill seats. And hey, once you're booked, you can move your marketing focus onto the next campaign.

️🛒 2. Increase Value / Decrease Costs

🤫 The [Redacted]: With the event that shan't be named, we required a better value proposition from the sellers - they were required to up their discounts to 25%. 💲 But to offset their increased value, we decreased their costs by lowering the registration dollars. This allowed them to protect their margins a bit more.

🍪 Your Bakery: Same with your bakery's value prop. I see folks complain about a saturated market and "Whatever should I do!?" Increase your value proposition - better packaging, better customer service, better ingredients, better pizza, Papa Johns. But if you increase the value your product has, we need to shed costs elsewhere to protect our profit. You can do that by buying in bulk, printing your own cutters, creating passive income streams, etc.

️🛒 3. Posting Schedule Ramp Up

🤫 The [Redacted]: With our marketing, you could see (if reach and Zuck allowed), an increase in our posting frequency and a diversification in our content type strategy. 📈 From back in June when I made a single post to the day of (when I made about 20 posts), that increase in posts per day - intentionally. Remember - no one is seeing anything you post. More is more when the algo is calling the shots.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 187 - At Fault Cult, we admit it - you guys say we "run to the refund," 🥛 so if you want to sip the Kool-Aid, grab a glass because this pod is about joining the At-Fault Cult.

In all seriousness though, we wanted to explain the long-term benefits of the short-term losses "absorbing fault" can have on your bottom line. And here's the kicker - 😵 we'll be talking about absorbing the fault that belongs to the client.

⚔ You see, "🗣️ he said / 🗣️ she said" arguments are all about assigning blame. How much culpability does either party have? 👈👉 What was each person's role in this business blunder?

But once blame is assigned, we now have a "baker vs. client" scenario - a fight to the de🩸ath. So really, who loses? 😖 It's always the baker - because even if you're right, you're still wrong because you lose the client long-term.

🤔 "But I also lose if I refund, right?"

Yeah - You do - 🤏 you lose a little. 🔮 But what you don't (or can't) see is the long-term "a lot more" loss of the lack of that client returning - 😓 or worse, that client going out of their way to un-recommend you.

Instead of our typical list format, 🥺 I'm going to retell Corrie's podcast confession - a mistake she kinda made and the client kinda made, but she took 100% of the blame for it.

A few weeks ago, Corrie let Laurie (lol, 🙊 they rhyme) bypass her form when Laurie reached out through email. "Eh, simple order, what's the harm," she figured.

🗣️ Narrator: "But there was much harm."

Laurie had specified three simple designs across three dozen cookies: 💊 a pill (because he was a doctor), 🏈 a football (because he liked football), and ⚾ a baseball (because he liked baseball).

Easy right? 📧 However, Corrie's form requires inspo photos - but reeeemember, the client bypassed the form. 🖼️ There were no inspo photos to be referenced.

Lo, and behold, Corrie sends Laurie the pre-pickup picture to which Laurie replies with... dun dun duuun... 😲 "Where are the sports team's logos??" Corrie scrambled to add a few logos, but there was absolutely no way to get the order up to the client's expectations in enough time.

But the client was to blame, right? Because...

• 💢 Laurie was the one who circumvented the form when she saw her date was booked. All orders must go through the form!
• 💢 Laurie was the one who gave general descriptions of what she wanted leaving out the specific details about the logo. How was Corrie to know?!
• 💢 Laurie never sent inspo photos to help dictate her order requirements.

💸 Laurie Laurie Laurie... was refunded 100% of the order and apologized to. Why? Because so what if Laurie was to blame even partially for the cookie miscommunication? What does Corrie win when Laurie loses?

Corrie wins the opportunity to get a bad review and loses all potential future orders from Laurie. By being the "at-fault party," Corrie let Laurie save face. And guess what Laurie did? ⛔ She wouldn't accept the free order. She begged Corrie to at least let her pay half.

🤔 Her reasoning? 🙏 "I want to be able to order from you again in the future, I loved this experience."

When you take the blame, even the blame that wasn't yours to bear, you make your clients feel like your business is a safe space to make mistakes.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 186 - The 5 D's of Disarming, we're back to business talking about the 5 D's of disarming upset clients. As we cruise through the "Sugar Cookie Super Bowl" that is October - December, we're more inclined to make mistakes - or to miss the client's cryptic order details amid the flurry of incoming requests and changes.

Hey - we're human. They're human. It happens.

But disarming clients can make the different between disaster (in your review profiles) or domination (in your bottom line). So defining the steps to make sure you get your desired outcome is what we designed today's podcast on (can you see I'm forcing the whole "starts with the letter D" thing?).

The key to each of these approaches is to make the client feel that you've heard them and plan to make it right. Now how you go about making it right is subjective - but making it right? That's a business requirement.

🖐 1. Dispel their Worry.

When people get the guts to reach out and tell you they have a problem, see that as being gracious. Because their other options were to either never order from you again (bad), or to leave you a bad review (worse). So when a client says, 🫣 "Heeeey, I'm not 100% happy," they're choosing to be kind by giving you the chance to make it right. 😥 I'm a HUGE fan of, "I'm sorry that the experience didn't meet your expectations." You can say sorry while also not agreeing with the client - but the client's feelings are 100% valid even if they're not right.

🖐 2. Deter Anger (before it starts).

Having a solid refund policy set up before you even touch the client's money can deter anger. 💯 Corrie has a 100% satisfaction guarantee or you'll get a full refund. It signals to her clients that even in the worst-case scenario, they'll still be made whole. You can also accomplish this by getting good reviews - it tells future buyers that you're a green flag when it comes to solving issues.

🖐 3. Do NOT be Defensive!

😠 This is where I see most bakers make the left turn when they should have gone right. Defensiveness will only limit your options. Do NOT reply when you're angry!! I'm going to repeat it because so many folks make this mistake: ⛔ DO NOT REPLY TO AN UPSET CLIENT WHEN YOU ARE ANGRY. Wait 24 hours then ask ChatGTP if your response to the client sounds amicable or defensive. Hey, the robots can even help you rewrite it.

🖐 4. Discharge Them Correctly.

It's understandable to be upset when the client "gets one over on ya" by getting a refund. Wrong business move. 🥲 Remember - the client that reached out was doing you a favor by letting you make it right. 🥹 So respect them when you roll them off your books. Just because someone got a refund does not mean they're an automatic ⚫blacklisted⚫ client. Do your best to thank them for bringing up the issue to you and allowing your bakery to be better for it.

🖐 5. Do it like Chick-fil-A.

Does Chick-fil-A ever make mistakes? You bet. But you know why you don't hear about them as often? 🐮 Their HEARD policy to client issues. 👂 Hear, 👂 Empathize, 👂 Apologize, 👂 Resolve, and 👂 Delight is the approach that one of the largest, most successful fast-food restaurants takes when it comes to unhappy clients. And it works. A few months ago, Chick was backlogged and took about 10 minutes to fulfill my order. I didn't mind at all, but when they finally handed me my chicky-strips, they threw in a $5 gift card as an apology... for an issue I didn't even raise.

Talk about Delighted.