Send us a text🫗 The AtFault Cult - Taking 100% of the blame shame.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...

Send us a text💪 5 D’s of Disarming - Making Clients feel seen, heard, and understood.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 hap...

Send us a text🛒 The Vendy Blendy Episode - Who's selling what and for how much off.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 185 - The Vendy Blendy Episode, it's the moooost wonderful tiiiiime of the yyeeeaarrr. It's the annual Vendy Blendy Episode! This is the one podcast where we cover all 77 Vendys, where they ship, what they sell and how much they'll sell it (not) for. As the hype builds for Black Friday, pre-shopping the Vendys on the podcast is always a fan favorite (or maybe...

Send us a text👻 Boo-urn Out - Staying in front of falling behind.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 184 - Boo-urn Out, Corrie wanted to do our annual 😩 "Ways to avoid getting burnt out during the baker's busy season" strategy sesh.Hey - business ownership ain't for the weak. Additionally, baking businesses reach their ordering maximums during the Q4 months (📅 October, November, and December). 🤑 It's easy to fall prey to that green we've been laying the foundation for all year, 🔥 ...

Send us a text🚫 No - Falling in Love with Rejection.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 183 - No, I wanted to cover the worst best word in the business English language: No.In business (and in life), we gotta learn to fall madly in love with two little letters: N and O.But we're trained our whole lives to reject rejection though. No one wants to be told "no" - ew gross, I almost even hate typing it. The thought of someone not wanting us would send shivers up most of our spines.No ...

Send us a text🪣 Content Buckets DebunkedContent categories explained.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 182 - Content Buckets Debunked, the twins talk all things content buckets - an approach to content planning that guides our posting schedule.What are content buckets? They're categories or themes that your content falls into. Think of them as the main pillars or sections of your blog or social media presence. Each bucket encompasses a specific area of content interest, helping ...

Send us a text👙 Correlation & Causation - Looking at the full data picture.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 181 - Correlation and Causation, we wanted to talk about the dangers of misassigned reasons why you think your marketing isn't working.Let's define things before we jump in:Correlation: a mutual relationship or connection between two or more things.Causation: the relationship between cause and effect.Coincidence: a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances wit...

Send us a text🎯 Reach 4 Q4 - Gaining reach in a complex Q4.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 180 - Reach 4 Q4, we cover reach in a hard-to-reach moment in time: Quarter 4 of the calendar year.And not just any calendar year - it's a Q4 including an election, economic policy shifts, major weather disasters, global wars, port strikes, and black Friday.🖐️ Talk about a reach ruckus! All of these major events competition for one really tiny phone screen? You're going to be in the tren...

Send us a text🤹 2 Busy 2 Business - 10 ways to up communication in Sept.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 179 - 2 Busy 2 Business, we wanted to talk about good communication (or the lack thereof... ahem... Bev).Corrie led with a personal story where she left her client, Bev, in communication purgatory wondering when or if Corrie had gotten her inquiry. See, Bev was a referral from another client, Ashley, who loved a 4 day waiting period for cookie communication. But unlike Ash, ...

Send us a text🗣️ Reading the Cookie Room - Tells your market's telling you.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 178 - Reading the Cookie Room, 🍿 Corrie jumped in with the Tiktok flavored popcorn to tell us about a viral series of posts made this week by a wedding make-up artist who was guilty of not reading the room... er, well, cathedral.What started as an innocent disclaimer in the contract that allowed the make-up artist to gather content for their social ballooned into an uninv...

Send us a text😥 When Marketing Isn't Working - What to think and what to do.🎧 This is an excerpt from this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 177 - When Marketing Isn't WorkingIn this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 177 - When Marketing Isn't Working, we wanted to talk about both mindset and methods to reboot a sluggish marketing season.🧠 In the Diary of a CEO podcast on YouTube, brain doctor, Dr. Daniel Amen who has scanned 250,000 brains, says he was asked to scan the brain of ...

Send us a text🦴 Cookie Crime Scene - Don't look back, look forward.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 176 - Cookie Crime Scene, Corrie wanted to talk more cognitively about approaching "bad experiences" in business.As a business owner, 😓 you will face difficult clients. 😢 You will have someone demand a refund. 😢 You will experience broken cookies, icing bleed, cookie spread, soap tastes, stale cookies - it's business.😭 And you will also have to deal with clients who had a less-th...

Send us a text💍 Wedding Expo Recap - Our eddie wedding vendor expo debrief.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 175 - Wedding Vendor Recap, Corrie signed us up for a Wedding Expo - and here's our tell-all - what we did right, what we did okay, and what we wouldn't do ever again. The event was complex, to say the least. Conceptually - it's genius. Execution - it's lacking. ✌️ The event was two days consisting of two "faux wedding receptions" - one upstairs (🪵 earthy forest them...

Send us a text📧 Know Newsletters - What to send to who and how often.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 174 - Know Newsletters, we talk everything you need to know about newsletters. These powerhouses in digital marketing are some of the most untouched real estate in the cottage world - and why? We're not sure - but if you capitalize on it now, you'll be cookin' (baking?) with fire come the busy season.Jumping straight into it - in the Onesday Wednesday newsletter, I included the...

Send us a text🎢 Prep 4 Q4 - How to prepare for our busy season.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 173 - Prep 4 Q4, we're preppin' for Q4 - the baker's "Super (mixing) Bowl." 🏈 Right now, you should be feeling the tides of a lullish summer slowly begin to change as we creep into back-to-school territory.🌬️ Add in the cooler weather blowing in (hey, we can hope, right?) and that signals the official kick-off for baking mayhem that will last until the week after New Year's (until Va...

Send us a Text Message.🍫 Choc-A Lot - How to increase price by increasing value.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 172 - Choc-A Lot, my sisters and my mom partook in our annual "Christmas in July" gift exchange. For a family who loves gift-giving with birthdays from November - February, the rest of the year feels like a gifting desert. Ergo - Christmas in July for the fourth year running was born.The rules are simple: you must buy everyone a gift that is $50 each, and you must gi...

Send us a Text Message.🙊 Say It, Don’t Spray It - How to ask for help in the groups.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 171 - Say It - Don't, Spray It, we wanted to cover a topic to help us help you help us. Because it's how you ask questions in Facebook groups that dictate the kind of answers you'll get.Depending on how you asked it, 🤩 you're either going to get really solid advice that moves your business forward, 🚮 or you'll end up with bottom-of-the-barrel, trash comments that...

Send us a Text Message.✂️ Class Supplies - A "bake-down" of what we bring and why.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 170 - Class Supplies, (another) Heather (of One Smart Cookies and Crafts - also a returning Vendy this year) asked us to cover what cookie class supplies we bring and why. (🤫 Pssst - if you're a Cookie Class Kits or Cookie College member, you get this list with every class drop). Let's go through our general "class supplies" list we use for every class we teac...

Send us a Text Message.😌 Corrie-tisol - Managing stress this summer.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 169 - Corrie-tisol, Corrie said, "I want to talk about ways to manage stress." And for good reason - in 2022 she was admitted to the hospital because her kidneys were shutting down. The cause? Chronic, unmanaged stress.So while this is a business podcast, the business of managing stress will keep you in business. 😫 Chronic stress is no good for the bottom line 📉 - it'll lead to ...

Send us a Text Message.🚶‍♂ Alotta Parking Lots - Volume-based pricing versus high pricing.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 168 - Alotta Parking Lots, Corrie wanted to talk... well, parking lots.🌴 We took off from the podcast last week to visit VA Beach (love that beach if you're passing through the great state of Virginny). There's a three-mile strip that runs along the oceanfront where hotels, restaurants, and shops are lined up as far as you can see (or walk). In between this...

Send us a Text Message.💼 Getting Corpy Orders - A campaign for corporate girly eras.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 167 - Getting Corpy Orders, Corrie wanted to switch from telling you to get into corporate orders and now tell you how to get corporate orders.Corporate orders are great - they have higher dollar amounts, bigger order totals, repetitive simple designs (hopefully), and could become a consistent recurring order. Corporate clients' "cut-to-the-chase" approach to ord...

🙏 Ask and Ye Shall Receive - Because if you don't ask, the answer's no.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 166 - Ask and Ye Shall Receive, we covered the unfortunate necessity to ask for what you want in business. For those of us who d-r-e-a-d rejection, not asking for what we need to get our business up and runnin' like a well-oiled machine is a "coping" strategy to avoid the word defeating word "no."But per Corrie's experience in car sales - ABC, always be closing. Always ...

🔪 Taking a Stab at Collabs - The bake-down of a local collab.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 165 - Stab at Collabs, Corrie took one for the team and signed up for a local vendor collab on Monday so she can give us the bake-down this week. And I think you'll like what she has to share with the classroom.Okay, so what's a local collab? If you're familiar with our cookie collabs on Instagram - it's not that exactly. Our digitally-based SCM collabs get a bunch of bakers together a...

🍗 Loss Leaders - How losing can help you win.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 164 - Loss Leaders, we covered, well, what a loss leader is and how to implement it as a marketing strategy in your baking business. 💰 If you've been to Costco (formerly Price Club) anytime in the last 2 decades, you've seen (or smelled) their rotisserie chickens priced at $4.99 - a staggeringly affordable price that hasn't changed since 2000 (💸 save one price bump in 2008 which was reverted a ye...