I would look at the cake designers I LOVED, ADMIRED, and ADORED and thought how lucky they were to have the thriving, successful, fan filled cake business others adored!
I used to think nothing bad happened to them, they didn’t have difficulty building their business, and I was the one clawing my way to the top.
After a few years of realizing that with success comes failure, I started to see that when my cake business got hit with a roadblock, it was an awesome opportunity for me to grow and learn the valuable lessons.
Failure can also be avoided by learning from others…so I wanted to share a few of my failures that kept success away from me.
1. AVOIDING MY MONEY
Starting my cake business came at the cost of investing in myself with bank loans, credit cards, and other people investing in my dream.
When I got busier and my days were filled with so much stuff to do, I started to ignore my finances. I did track my cake sales! But I ignored my business expenses, looking at credit card statements, and turned a blind eye to anything money related.
And my finances SUFFERED! At the end of the year, I was left with a HUGE financial MESS.
Have you ever tried to do your taxes with no history of your business expenses in the past 8 months?
A complete nightmare!
Once I started to pay close attention to my money, tracked every penny, sat down to update my finances every week, money started to flow into my business on a more consistent basis and I understood my money.
Money needs your attention!
If you want to make more money, show your money your undivided attention and take care of your finances!
2. THINKING CUSTOMERS WOULD FLOOD INTO MY CAKE BUSINESS WITH NO/MINIMAL ADVERTISING AND MARKETING.
There were PLENTY of times where I sat around, looked at my email account and saw the scarcity of cake requests.
What the hell?! I want more orders!!!
But honestly, I wasn’t consistent in getting my cake business “out there” so people could book their cakes with me.
I thought what I was doing was good enough but apparently, I wasn’t making enough money to fully financially support myself.
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I got extremely focused on putting together a marketing and advertising plan for how I was going to get my cake business out there to consistently book more orders.
Which I talk about inside my free eBook: My Top 4 Booking Strategies for your Cake Business!
If you aren’t making enough money in your cake business, you have to mentally be COMMITTED to booking more cake orders.
Then you have to come up with a plan for how you will book the cake orders.
Which means, doing what you aren’t doing right now.
3. PRICING MY CAKES BECAUSE I WAS NEW.
What’s all about this “I have to prove myself and charge low to book more cake orders?”
Who are you proving your worth to?
Your self worth comes from INSIDE!!
Stop charging low for cakes so you can prove yourself. All that will equal is a glorified hobby business and it will be hard to break the pattern of charging low for your cakes.
I didn’t care that was new anymore. I started to build my self-worth and confidence in myself WHICH IS THE FIRST STEP OF CHARGING YOUR WORTH!!!
Most cake designers think it’s a magic pill I will sell you to charge more.
No, it’s you knowing you deserve more then you will have the confidence to charge more.
4. COULDN'T HANDLE THE PRESSURE OF MASSIVE GROWTH.
Now, this sounds crazy but when my cake business exploded with orders, I was SO overwhelmed, I felt like I had a massive breakdown and wanted to quit my cake business.
I vividly remember calling my mom crying and crying because I was so flippin’ tired of EVERYTHING!
And I did quit. (not too many people know this).
But people kept inquiring about cakes and I didn’t respond because I didn’t know how to handle the growth and I was TIRED.
After that, I learned some SOLID time management practices and implemented them in my cake business. I also started to put myself first instead of my cake business first.
Hey, the designer needs to be in tip-top shape to properly run the business. If not, the business is operating on shaky ground.
Learn from these mistakes instead of stumbling upon them yourselves.
Guessing at what to charge for your cake orders?
Still confused if you are charging enough for your cakes?
Do you know you aren’t charging enough for your cakes?
No worries!
I have a Free Cake Pricing Checklist that you can download right now and learn everything you need to learn how to price your cakes for Profits.
If you are guessing, you probably aren’t charging enough for your cakes. You can’t guess your way to success!
I hope this post gave you a bit more insight that all businesses have several learning lessons along the way! If you are experiencing trouble in the moment in your cake business, this is only proof that you are growing into a better entrepreneur!
