Small Business owners....inside

[black2002ls]

This is rather lengthy and it would be much appreciated if the witticisms and BS be left behind. I'm looking for quality input, not a de-railed thread, thanks!

How many of you are using social media as your primary form of marketing? I'm having trouble connecting with potential clients and creating business. I'm probably in a slightly different market than a lot of you. I am, at the moment, a cake decorator working from my home under the cottage food laws. I've had a bit of inconsistency due to my back problems. I'm 1 week post surgery, feeling great, and got released to resume activities as I feel comfortable and as they don't cause any pain. I'm hoping that this inconsistency hasn't killed my viability, and what little market share I had. I'm hoping some of you can chime in and give me some help and advise. I've given myself a deadline of the end of the year to (re)establish myself in the market and have a steady stream of business. If I can't manage that by the end of this year, I'm selling all of my equipment. I brought in approximately $4000 in revenue last year, this year, to date, I've brought in less than $500 and the primary wedding season is over, which is where the high price cakes come in to boost revenue. I currently rely on a website and a Facebook page to reach potential customers.

Last year I was able to advertise through booth space at community events thanks to the use of a commercial kitchen. I lost my connection at the beginning of the year and with out that, due to health code regulations and the way that the cottage food bill was written, I am prohibited from participating in such events. I've tried to work the "barter" system for ad space in the local papers, but they don't offer anything along these lines. I've had some luck with the local radio station with free ads and some plugs on the morning show, but its small town radio, and I have yet to get any referral business from it. I've thought about adding twitter to the mix, though I've not been able to make the connection from Facebook to the business pocket book, I'm afraid it will just lead to another avenue of discouragement at this point in time.

Anyway, here is a link to my website (this is not intended for free advertisement, I'm looking for help!)

https://www.russellsconfectionperfection.com

You will also find a link to my Facebook page there as well.

[svauto-erotic855]

You have picked a really bad business to be in. A friend/client is in the same business and would quit it in a heartbeat if the bakery had not been in the family for 80 years. My advise to you would be to look for something else. Depending of your health induced psychical limitations there are plenty of service jobs out there that will put fast cash into your pockets.

[black2002ls]

I also need to state this isn't my primary source of income. I have a full time job, this was started as supplemental income. Yes, I would enjoy it if it were able to support me, however, that is a long term goal.

I have also done the fast cash service thing, in the form of bartending and management.

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[goofygrin]

The honest truth is you cannot be successful with a Commercial Kitchen. You already know that since your revenue is down so sharply. So knowing that's the root of the problem work backwards to a solution... You can be the best marketer in the world but if people are afraid to buy your product and it's inconsistent then you can't succeed.

[2165 Turbo Rail]

Personally I would start with improving the website itself.
When I go to a site that directs me to FB pics I think "cheap".
I know you are doing this on the side so I wouldn't expect some awesome site but I'd at least make your site self contained.

I also saw some of your pics that are close ups of imperfections in the design and some of the pics were blurry.
Pick and choose your pictures and make sure they look perfect.

I know that you take time on each "build" but maybe do some specifically for pictures. Make a few cakes that are pleasing to the eye even if they aren't designs and colors that someone would want for a wedding. Obviously you would want some good looking wedding style cakes too.

as far as the pricing page goes, I'd probably not put prices because every cake is different. If someone wants a basic sheet cake, they aren't going to get it from you. People are going to have a custom cake made and a normal person would expect a "custom" price for their order, even if you give the same prices for every cake at least the person thinks its "their" price

just my 2 cents

[MustangPoser]

PM me and I will send you an invite to pinterest. You will want to start cross promoting your pinterest account on Facebook and Twitter.

Pinterest will be ideal for you, since Pinterest is all about sharing photos - but it's also become the largest referrer of traffic in the last year. If you are posting beautiful cakes, you will get traffic, and you will get noticed. So make sure you are promoting pinterest heavily. Also keep in mind pinterest largest market is woman, and the majority of your customers are woman.

I second your website needing work, you would be better off with a minimal website than what you have now. Your customers want a product to impress, and your website is sending the wrong signals.

[bcoop]

You have picked a really bad business to be in. A friend/client is in the same business and would quit it in a heartbeat if the bakery had not been in the family for 80 years. My advise to you would be to look for something else. Depending of your health induced psychical limitations there are plenty of service jobs out there that will put fast cash into your pockets.

Terrible advice. Just because a family member has a failing business, doesn't mean someone else can't make it work.


I will see if we can work something out in my test kitchen for a fee. The biggest issues I have are... No guarantee, but I will float the idea.

1.) Clean up after yourself. We aren't your mother. Seems self explanatory, yet, I find myself repeating this far more than necessary. I hate to sound rude, but nobody that uses it cleans it sufficiently. Seems simple, in reality, people are lazy and I'm not picking up the slack for anyone.
and
2.) We do have a full scale kitchen, but it's not set up as a bakery. I have standard ovens and convection ovens, but no bakery ovens. As in, no rotating rack ovens, no deck ovens, and no large scale mixers.
3.) We are in DFW, not way out east.

[bcoop]

The honest truth is you cannot be successful with a Commercial Kitchen.

LOL. seriously. I say this with all due respect. You haven't got the slightest fucking idea what you are talking about. Just stop talking. Jesus Christ... Where the fuck do you people come from?

[MustangPoser]

Here's a quick check list. I do SEO and local marketing for a variety of businesses, and promote products online. Most of my clients are service companies (plumbers, HVAC, etc), have a physical location, or sell a product online.

However, increasing your visibility online is roughly the same for everyone.

Localized Searches

Create a Google Account (ie. xxxxxxx@gmail.com or haughtysalon@gmail.com)

Go to: Google.com/Places

Click "Get Started"

Fill out ALL information. Upload at least 10 pictures. Create a video and upload it to Youtube, and enter the URL on your Google Places listing.

Categories (in this order):

Wedding Cakes
Cakes
Cake Decorator
Bakery

Verify account using your phone number (not the mailer option). If your using a virtual phone (Phone.com, RingCentral.com, etc) than you will have to verify by mail.

Go to: Google.com/Plus

Create a personal Google Plus profile, using the same account you used to create the listing on Google Places.

Create a page for a local business. Enter the same phone number you used on Google Places.

You should be able to select your business after entering the phone number. If your business does not show up, wait for the mailer to verify your Google Places account.

Upload photos (different photos than you used on Google Plus), make status updates, and spam all of your friends and ask them to follow you on

Google Plus (if you have an older niece/nephew, they probably have a lot of friends on Google Plus. Force them to get you a bunch of likes).

On your personal profile, list yourself as an employee of the exact name you used for the Plus Profile.


Website:

Put your address exactly as you entered it on Google Places at the bottom of your website (your using WordPress, so you should be able to add a text widget to the footer if you can't edit the template).

On your about page/schedule/contact page, make sure you list your address.

You need to claim both your Google Places profile and Plus profile. This is very important now for local search. This is just the "starting" point for local seo, but many companies have not even done the above - so you can gain visibility from doing just the above but you should do some research on basic local seo (local search optimization).

The goal is to appear at the top of the search results as result A when someone searches "wedding cake [your city name]" or when someone searches "wedding cake" and is located near your business (determined by IP, history, cell location, etc).



Social

Sign up for:

-- Facebook
-- Twitter
-- Pinterest
-- LinkedIn
-- Foursquare
-- ThumbTack
-- Yelp.com
-- YellowPages.com
-- SuperPages.com

You really don't need to worry about any of the sites above, except for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Getting connections and followers takes time. Your going to want to jump in and start connecting with the big dogs in your industry.

You really need to publicly interact with clients and other cake decorators (non-local). Having a lot of buzz around your pictures on Pinterest, and past clients interacting with your facebook and posting action shots of your cakes could really help build trust.

Read everything you can about pinterest.

Since things are slow, create fake profiles if you have to. I used to pay people on Mechanical Turk to interact with clients socially (Amazon's MTurk).

Using a service like Klout.com can help you benchmark your efforts. The score is arbitrary, but your increasing score will give you a visual reminder that this is benefiting your business.

You may also find value from MerchantCircle. I don't, but you may find it works for you. I would still find every local website you can and create a listing on it, the above list will get you off to a decent start.

[svauto-erotic855]

Terrible advice. Just because a family member has a failing business, doesn't mean someone else can't make it work.

She is not a family member; she is a client.

Every bakery is hurting right now. The one that I mentioned went from an average of 70k per month in sales to 20k per month and she is not alone. Her business is not failing but it is not bringing in the "Dough" like it used too.

[Strychnine]

My thoughts and observations from our (my wife's) business:

Your website can make or break a deal. She's been in business for 5 yrs now. After rebranding earlier this year there was a noticable difference in inquiry quantity. She even outright asked some of her new clients why they signed and more than one of them said, "I liked your website." If your site looks cheap, then your product is cheap. If your site looks cluttered and messy then you run your business in a cluttered and messy way. If your site looks classy and professional then you are a classy and professional business person. You know what they say about first impressions. A good site is not cheap, but it can make a big difference.

Once your site is top-notch, invest in a good SEO package. The best site in the world doesn't mean shit if no one sees it.

Start blogging. We hired a blogwriter. We know what the peak traffic times for the market are throughout the week and there are three blogs published every week at the peak times. Not always big, long writeups... maybe just something about the newest trend, or a cool design you thought up. Use good pictures.

Link the blog to Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Like other people said, get your ass on Pinterest. Cross-link to all of your other sites/tools.

Get out and meet your potential vendors. You want to do wedding cakes? Go meet with specialty dress shops, florists, venues, etc. Anything wedding related. Get your name into the entire industry, not just the baking corner. Cross promote. Stay in front of these people once you have a relationship and make them feel important.
My wife (planner) has a core group of vendors that she is tight with. She will always recommend them first, and they do the same. You need to build relationships like this and not just rely on one-off website hits and google searches.

When someone sends clients your way, send thank you notes (handwritten) or small gifts.

Get out to networking events. Here in DFW for the wedding industry there's something called Thursday Therapy. It's a happy hour once a month that moves locations (always at a wedding related place) and is frequented by planners, photographers, venue owners, etc, etc.

[bcoop]

Every bakery is hurting right now.

I was going to type up a long diatribe as to why you're wrong, but the below sums it up.

Not true.

Not every bakery is hurting right now. The restaurant/bakery industry as a whole is hurting, and while they haven't recovered to the levels we saw in 08, things are on the rise, and not all are hurting.

[black2002ls]

I'll try and address these each.

First off is the lack of a commercial kitchen and the way that it hurts business. I've got 3 decorator's within 35 minutes of me, all producing the same quality cakes, from their home, and are quite busy. As for consistency, that comes from a familiarity with your equipment, recipes, and materials so that is a moot point.

I will see what I can do to get my website cleaned up in the way of the photo gallery.

The pricing page has actually driven a lot of business to me in the past because they can see, from the moment they look at my website that I am cheaper than my brick and mortar counter parts.

[black2002ls]

A couple of other things I forgot, I have a google places page, and have submitted myself to a few different search engines. A large number of my inquiries come from google searches, IIRC you can simply google greenville bakery and my website comes up.

[Mike]

You should really consider going all out on a couple of cakes and using those for your website. No disrespect intended, but I'm not impressed with any of the work in the links posted.