As I sit here writing a new blog post for the new year, I’m completely baffled at how a whole year has blitzed past at seemingly the speed of light. I mean… Where has the time gone?

I don’t know how 2018 panned out for you, but right now as I look back at the highs and lows, the great days and the not so lovely ones.. I am above all, thankful.

Thankful for goals met, challenges faced, skills acquired, lessons learnt and memories made. It wasn’t a perfect year, but it was certainly a memorable one!

The one word I would sum up 2018 is Progress. I look at almost every aspect of my life be it work, family, marriage and I’m grateful to see steps forward, ground covered and milestones met.

In one year of operating Sugar Sugar Cake School as an online learning platform, we’ve released a slew of courses & pictorials that have been received with open arms by the online cake community, grown our student membership by the thousands, doubled our social media following on both Instagram and Facebook, been nominated for awards and taught workshops across the globe.

But all of this didn’t just happen. I remember so vividly sitting down at the beginning of the year 2018 planning and visualising what I wanted my cake business to become in that year. And I can tell you that every goal and objective met was a result of how I set my goals for the year.

In this post, I’m going to share my 3-step planning process that I use to dream for the year ahead. Dreaming without a plan is wishful thinking. So in this blog post, I’ll be walking you through how to dream in a STRATEGIC way that will allow you to slay actual goals in the coming year.

With this Blog Post, I’ve also curated a special ‘Goal-Setting Planner’ that you can download and use in tandem with everything you’ll read here. Using this free PDF will help you put all the theory you’ll learn in this post into creating your own goal-smashing plan for the year.

It’s time to posture yourself for your STRONGEST cake year yet.

Step 1. PLAN (the RIGHT way )

I’ve had this saying drummed into me many times… If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I can certainly testify to this. I’ve seen both ends of the stick to this and I’m reminded that if I want 2019 to be a goal-kicking, wave-making kinda year, I gotta plan WELL.

Planning for me takes on 2 main actions. The first is ‘Knowing WHERE I want to go’.

So, visualise where you want to be by the end of the year. What do you want your caking to look like, what kind of business do you want to create or how do you want yourself to evolve as an artist and entrepreneur? It’s important to have a general idea of where you’d like to be.

Why?

Well, not having a clear vision of where you’d like to be by the end of the year is kinda like driving around aimlessly without a destination in mind. You’ll spend a whole lot of time and resources only to arrive.. . nowhere in particular.

So firstly, have a definite and clear idea of what you want to see in your caking and business by the end of the year. For instance, it can look something like this:

“I want to have started a part-time business which specialises in XYZ by the end of the year and would like my work to be in at least 1 publication, and making a profit from my work by the end of the year. “

From this very general vision, you can then break down your “vision” into tangible objectives. The key with this is to be SPECIFIC. Don’t just write down one of your goals as “have lots of followers on Instagram”. Be clear about numbers, figures and actions.

Some examples of specific objectives to help you achieve your overall vision can be:

• Start my part-time business by March
• Earn $ xxxx from cake sales per month by September
• Get 1 publication in a magazine
• Work to reach 10,000 followers on Instagram/Facebook by the end of the year
• Participate in one live event (market/fair)
• Complete X online courses and read X educational books

Once you’ve done that, the next bit is figuring out ‘how to get there’. How to achieve the specific goals you’ve set. So this is where you have to work BACKWARDS. Looking intently into every goal written and figuring out what you need to do in the months prior to get there.

I do this by having a visual worksheet of the entire year in front of me (this is included in the Goal-Setting Planner pdf) and then marking down actions in the months prior that will lead me to achieving those specific objectives.

For instance, if I want to set up my part-time business by March, then as an illustration, here’s what I would put down in the months of January and February (yours may look different to this):

January:

• Call local council to find out what requirements are needed to get registered as a home baking business
• Create product line and recipes
• Get in touch with accountant to discuss business set up & financials

February:

• Prepare paperwork for registration of business and council approvals
• Test recipes & products (friends and non-friends) and get feedback
• Brainstorm ideas for names & branding

Be mindful that the actions you list on each month will be determined very much on the objectives you set beforehand. You also want to make sure you set REALISTIC objectives that you can actually achieve in the timeframe you have and in the life circumstances that you’re in. (for eg. Planning to start a business in the exact same month you’re having a new baby may not be the most realistic goal).

Step 2. Focus

Whilst we can do a lot of things, we need to realise that we can’t do ALL the things. Well, maybe we can, but we won’t be able to do them all well.

It’s important to have a clear focus for your cake work in each year. Wanting to be an established teacher, award-winning wedding cake maker, shopfront owner, product developer and blogger all in one year maaaay be a little too much for one’s platter in just 365 days. It’s important to build strong towards one main area in your cake work. Once you find established growth and success in that one area, then you can think about branching into other areas later down the track.

Often, we can get caught up in the successes of others in our industry and get “inspired” to do the same things as well without actually asking the questions of:

What am I uniquely good at?

What do I want this business to look like?

What’s important to me in my cake business?

In the first year of my business, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I didn’t have a clear focus and I was higglety-pigglety all over the shop.

In the 2 years after, I had a clear focus that I wanted to specialise as a boutique wedding cake maker that could generate $xxxx income per month. Needless to say, by having a clear focus of working towards that one direction, I surpassed my income goals, went on to win multiple awards in the bridal cake industry and became established as a bespoke wedding business in my locality.

In essence, work towards building strong in one direction, and working with a clear FOCUS.

Step 3. Budget (time, investment)

This is a pretty important step that often gets overlooked. In the pursuit of our ambitions, there are often barriers and circumstances that deter us from getting there. What are they?? Usual suspects are lack of time, busyness, lack of motivation, lack of knowledge or shortage of resources. So from the outset, it’s important to count the cost of what it’ll take to achieve our said goals and make allowance for that.

So for instance, in the aforementioned illustration, our “budget” or “input” that will be required to meet all of those objectives may be:

• Clocking 5 hours of focused administrative work time each week on my new cake business
• Investing XXX as startup costs and budgeting for marketing, admin, equipment etc
• Dedicating 1 night a week to learning, practising and experimentation
• Selling my antique dresser to buy a mixer
• Enrolling in a course to improve my fondant covering

This whole exercise is about determining “what am I willing to invest or sacrifice in order to achieve X Y and Z?”.

If we aren’t willing to do this bit, then it all fizzles into one big pile of wishful dreams. Counting the cost is what sets apart the dreamers from the doers.

Also, related to this, it’s important to determine what we are NOT willing to give up in the pursuit of our cake/work goals. These are things should remain priorities even in the midst of our driven pursuit. For instance, things like family time, self-care and health are all things that I’m mindful of maintaining even in the midst of dream-chasing. If we aren’t mindful of setting boundaries for our priorities OUTSIDE of our cake objectives, then these things can often get trampled over in the pursuit.

So there you have it, simple but essential – 3 steps to making 2019 your most sensational cake year yet! It’s time to get crackin’ on your 2019 goal-setting and set yourself up for some major WINS!

Again, remember to download my free Goal-Setting Planner to start putting these steps into practice and get your game plan in order. I can’t wait to journey 2019 with you friend.

Tell me dear reader, what’s your biggest cake goal for this new year?

 

Do you ever catch yourself thinking “If only I had better photography skills”, or “If only my images looked as good as hers”. Well my friend, you’re not alone. I too know all too well what it’s like to contort myself in ninja positions, snapping countless images only to realise that none of them remotely resemble your finished cake. One can’t help but ponder… What am I doing wrong?

As many of us have already figured out, having consistently good cake images is imperative when it comes to running a thriving cake business in this particular era. With our social media platforms and websites acting as our online storefront, a common observation is that – cakers who take better snaps, are better able to pull ahead of the pack.

In my last blog post, I shared about my ‘Top Instagram Strategies for Cake Business’ and thought it would be helpful to follow up with a related topic; one that will help you create better cake photos which you can then confidently release to the masses.

But before we start, here are 2 insider secrets about taking gorgeous cake photos for posting on social media:

• It is possible to take incredible images with both a smartphone and DSLR
• Your most fave cake pics online (that you see on other bakers’ feeds) are almost always EDITED.

Well now, just HOW does one go about editing their cake images? For a start, I would recommend downloading my Free ‘Instagram Tools Guide’ where I share the editing apps that I prefer to use for smartphone cake pictures. For DSLR images, you can use Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop or similar and apply the same points discussed in this article.

Sooo… what’s the deal with EDITING and is it really worth the time and effort?

Well, here are my 2 cents on the subject: From observation of growth on both my Facebook and Instagram accounts in the past few years and measuring online sale conversions, I would surmise that Editing is a crucial step before hitting ‘Post’ or ‘Publish’ on socials as it helps our cake images return to a truer representation of what our cakes look like in real life. Often due to lighting limitations, shaking, poor positioning or plain ol’ time constraints, our captured cake pictures often need a lil’ help to get them looking their absolute best.

So in this blog post, allow me to hold your hand and walk you through my Top 5 Editing Points to making your sweet snaps waaaay sweeter.

1. Exposure

Exposure or brightness is the amount of light that is present or introduced into your image. The first edit I always make is to boost up the Exposure of my cake image to brighten it up. This always helps to take care of unwanted shadows, make the details on your cake more noticeable and create an attractive “airy” look around your images. Be careful to not overexpose your images as this can make cakes look “washed out”.

2. Saturation

Most of the time when we take an image, one of the things we’ll notice is that the colours on the actual REAL cake itself are richer and truer than the picture we’ve captured. With this, comes the need to boost up the Saturation or Vibrancy of the image. So go on an increase the Saturation on your image to give more depth to your dessert colours. On the flipside, going overboard with the Saturation can often make your cakes look “animated” and unrealistic.

3. White Balance

What is white balance? Well, often times when a white cake or white backdrop is captured by a camera, upon close inspection, you’ll notice that the white tones in real life don’t always come through as white in your captured shot. White balance is measured by the “colour temperature”, and can be manipulated in the post-editing process to determine the “warmth” or “coolness” of the image. Warm images tend to have a yellowish hue whilst a cool image, has more of a blue-ish tinge.

Before tweaking the white balance setting, determine first of all what type of “colour temperature” you’d like to consistently have your images in. Some social media feeds tend to have warmer images whilst others, a cooler aesthetic. I personally prefer to have mine sitting somewhere smack bang in the middle of the two. There isn’t a right or wrong, it just boils down to what appeals to your natural preference and tendencies. It also hinges on what suits your cake designs best. Warm images can inflict a cosy, ambient vibe white cooler images can give a crisper, minimalistic feel.

The best way to tell is to play around with the white balance toggles and settle on something that shows off your cake best. Tweaking the white balance is especially necessary to neutralise unwanted lighting hues (i.e. yellow ambient light at event venues). I personally recommend adjusting the white balance on your image so that it’s not sitting at either extremities and is something that is comfortable and pleasing to the eye.

4. Contrast

Adjusting the contrast can often bring out the finer details in your cake design. I find cakes with elements such as florals, texture, ruffles and intricate patterns do well with a slight boost in the contrast setting. There are situations however where increasing the contrast can backfire and this tends to happen more in images that have excessive shadows, or an entirely monochrome palette. So be aware that in some circumstances, it’ll be better to leave the contrast settings as is.

5. Shadows

Shadows can add depth & a certain moodiness to an image, so in some circumstances, shadows can be a welcome addition to a cake or dessert image. Often times however, harsh shadows (that are a result of photographing in harsh lighting coming from one direction) can make an image look overcast, so one of the things we can do to address this is to remove the shadowing in our image. That said, reducing the shadowing can often reduce the contrast of the image somewhat so be careful to balance the shadow reduction so that it doesn’t take away from the overall contrast of the subject matter.

6. Rotation & Cropping

Crooked cakes… it happens ALLL the time, especially if we’re not using a tripod to capture our cakes. This is especially so when trying to photograph a cake from a straight-on, front angle. No worries! After making all the prior colour and tonality edits, its then time to crop or rotate the image to make sure it’s at its best and proper angle.

7. Sharpening

Not all editing apps have this feature, but it’s one that I like to do within the Instagram app just before hitting Publish! I find that it gives my all cakes & desserts across the board a crisp finish, whilst bringing out a lot of the gorgeous details. It’s especially handy to remedy any accidental “shakes” and blurriness in our baked pictures.

*A note about filters: I personally recommend staying away from applying full filters as they can leave your images with an over-edited, unrealistic finish. I would however encourage you to experiment with using filters partially (a percentage of a filter) as it certainly can shorten the amount of editing time of an image. My personal faves are in the editing apps listed in my ‘Instagram Tools for Cake Business’ free pdf guide.

I’d love to know, how do you normally take your cake pictures and has this article helped you?

I remember it as clear as day, hurriedly looking into my bank account for the cake payment to come through. There is was…. $100 shiny dollars. Hooray! Cha-ching!! I made a sale, I got some moneeeehhh….. I sat back in my happy little cake bubble but as I did, my eyes trailed down to my final bank balance and that’s when it hit… My bank balance was LOWER than what it was when I checked in a few days prior.

All those emails back on forth, that SKETCH I painstakingly made, the cake boards & fondant I just purchased…. All this and my bottom line wasn’t growing? What on earth??!

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation?

Chances are, there is a chorus of YAASSS happening all across the globe right now as your eyeballs lay hold of this article. I’m gonna say it now, loud & clear – I believe something in our cake industry needs to shift. The truth is, whilst making cakes is fun, fulfilling and our passion…it is very much so at its core, A JOB. The emails, inventory, designing, baking, frosting, decorating, delivering, marketing… this is all attention-absorbing, energy-requiring W.E.R.K .. can I get an ayyyy-men?

The journey to building my pricing philosophy has been a work-in-progress spanning years. I didn’t wake up one day with a revelation, suddenly able to charge over $1000 bucks for a cake like I’m blessed to do now. It was a process and one that took much longer than it should have.  Along the way during that process, I also learnt so many other hard lessons about growing my cake Business. I’ve collated them all into a free Guide titled ‘Keys to Building a Successful Cake Business’, so if you run a cake hustle yourself, you might wanna check it out.

However… back to CAKE PRICING (dum-dum-DUMM). In this Blog post I’d like to share with you the “philosophy” that I’ve developed over the years which has helped me form my cake business price structure. This isn’t a How-To guide to equations nor is it a magic pill that will tell you exactly how much to charge for each product you make. That said, I truly believe these lessons I’ve learnt along the way will help you know how to approach your cake pricing with more intention, confidence and a wider perspective.

I’m sharing all this for no other payback than the hope that it helps our industry as a whole. If we ALL see our work as valuable, our clients will start to as well.. AND this will  (in time) build the health and value of our industry.

Ultimately, I want to help champion your dream and to let you know that it is entirely possible to make a good living doing what you love.

Key #1 Your cake business is, a BUSINESS

So often we cake decorators only see ourselves as just that, cake decorators. We slot ourselves into the tradesperson category but don’t realise that the moment we emailed our first Invoice and submitted our business registration, we shifted from cake maker to Business Owner. This however, is something so many of us never realise until the workload starts setting in and the struggle to sell becomes apparent. And you know what? It’s not really our fault. Most of us never wanted to be in business. We just wanted to make cakes.

So many of us started our journey simply whipping up cakes in the kitchen. We made them gooood, were told how amazing they were, and received a lil pocket money from a friend and…voila! We were suddenly in business! A little down the track though we run into snags, realise this isn’t quite as easy as we first thought and the profits ain’t as awesome as we’d hoped. Here’s where I would like to offer a mindset shift:

Don’t see yourself as a cake maker who sells cakes. See yourself INSTEAD as a cake business owner who makes cakes.

Only when you see things though these lens, will you approach your cake business as it should be approached – as a BUSINESS.

Why can’t we continue the way we are right now? Why the need for a mindset shift? Well here’s a statement which will cause some queasiness: You cannot continue to make pretty cakes for a living if you are not making a profit.

You can certainly do it as a hobby and this is totally okay if this is what you want. But if you have hopes of making this a full time gig or at least a sustainable part-time job, then it is necessary to put on your business hat. Start seeing your work as both business and cake making. This will help you approach your work more strategically and intentionally, which is the starting point for growth.

Key #2 YOU are the Boss

What does this mean? It means that you have permission. You have full permission and power to decide what you want to charge for in your business and how much you want to charge for it. I have lost count the number of times I have been shown a picture of something and asked “Amanda, how much would you charge for this?”. Honestly, I never answer with a price when I’m asked this cause doing so wouldn’t be setting you up for success. It would be very much like giving you a puzzle piece that belonged to a DIFFERENT jigsaw puzzle instead of helping you find the piece for your specific puzzle.

The thing is, there isn’t a secret cake pricing rulebook floating around that we need to measure our cakes by. There isn’t a right or wrong. What DOES make a pricing right is if that price matches the work you do and is steadily growing in its capacity to provide you with a decent income. So if you feel you need to charge for delivery, charge for delivery! If you feel you need to charge for tasting boxes, then go for it! You don’t need someone to endorse this decision if deep down you’ve done the math, looked at the costs and seen that this is financially necessary. You are the best person to know your income needs and overheads, so give yourself permission to weigh all those up and decide what your business income needs are and charge accordingly.

Key #3 Don’t charge solely-based on what others do

Related to the above point, don’t measure your prices based on what others are charging. Yes, it’s necessary to consider competition in your area and what their price points are. But only take it into consideration and don’t let that be your entire price structure. In the past, I was SO guilty of blindly following my competitors pricing. If their base price was $100, then hey, my base price was $100! *Shakes head* Silly, silly Amanda.

See, the thing is, when you price your cakes according to others you are following a road map that belongs to someone else. It ain’t gonna make any sense and it won’t lead you to where you want or need to go.

So ask yourselves these questions:

• What do I need to charge to cover my costs? (bearing in mind that your hourly wage is considered a COST and not your PROFIT)
• What is the value of the products I’m crafting? (beyond just cake, think of the significance of a cake at a special event, sentimental value, craftsmanship, artistic value)
• How do I want to position my business in the market (premium or “everyday-accessible” or somewhere in between)?
• What stage am I at in my decorating career?
• What profit margins am I aiming for each quarter of the year?

These questions will help you get a start in forming your own business’s price structure and allow you to take ownership of your business.

Key #4 Passion shouldn’t discount the Payoff

Hey, here’s something to think about… Just because baking is something we love to do, doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve to get paid well for it. I’ve met quite a few cakers who feel guilty for charging over $200 for a cake because they think it isn’t quite right to charge so much for something they consider a hobby. I also often meet cake decorators who squirm when the discussion delves into the topic of MONEY. Personally, coming from both a business degree AND pastry chef background, I am fairly comfortable talking about money. I looove talking about business and strategies for making things work.

Here’s where it’s important to personally come to terms with as you progress in your cake decorating:

Is cakes something you want to do for fun only when you get spare time outside of another job (which is perfectly okay too), OR do you want cakes to be the way your earn a living and what you spend a majority of your time working on (be it part time or full time)… and If you are on the fence with this, I’ve created a free business guide ‘5 signs You’re Ready to Start a Cake Business’ that I hope helps you.

If you’ve decided on pursuing the latter, then it’s important to see cake decorating as a ‘job-that-you-love’ as opposed to a ‘hobby-that-you-make-money-from’. Work, especially good work, rightfully deserves an appropriate wage. Which brings me to my next point…

Key #5 Your prices can ONLY increase if the quality & skill of your cake making does too

When someone wants to be an accountant, a mechanic or a teacher, they usually undergo some form of education, apprenticeship or internship. There is a dedicated amount of “unpaid” or minimally paid time of training & learning. On the flipside, for quite lot of decorators, the start of a cake business occurs rather instantaneously, without any formal education. Therefore, the early stages of our decorating career can be seen somewhat of an “apprenticeship” where we learn on the job. Over time, the low-priced cakes we make give us much needed practice to hone our skills and build our portfolio.

However, as you continue to work on your skills, take classes, dive into tutorials and spend time practicing your craft, it is only reasonable that your income should increase as well. As we now don’t have a supervisor or boss to give us a pay raise, the onus now falls on ourselves to incrementally evaluate our prices. It’s good practice to consider your pricing on an annual basis (the start of the year is often a good place to start). If you encounter repeat clients questioning your price increase, you can politely respond that the quote is based on the current year’s price structure and annual base price increases are a common industry practice.

Similarly, if you WANT to build up your business to a place where you can charge top dollar for your cakes, then you HAVE to put in the work in building up your cake techniques. You do need to invest in your cake education and continually improve your skills set through continued practice.

Practice, practice, practice! Don’t let failures or mistakes deter you.

Persevere in honing your craft and in doing this, the quality your work will increase and clients will more readily see the perceived value of your cakes – giving you permission and power to charge more for your work.

If you’re a caker in biz or just starting a business, you might wanna check out another free guide titled ‘5 Must Dos to Building a Successful Cake Business’. This one came out of a time of reflection on my past cake struggles and the fundamental factors that helped keep me on the path to where I am today.

At the end of it, pricing our work is tricky business. To put a price tag on a work that is so very deeply personal and a direct outcome of our own blood, sweat & tears is hard. To have someone reject those prices and say “that’s too expensive” is EVEN HARDER.

So if you’re trying to up your prices and no one’s biting, as yourself “How can I increase the perceived value of my product?” – Finer techniques? New designs? Clearer photos? Fresher branding? Better emails & communication?

Or if you’re getting busy with orders, are losing sleep finishing cakes & on the brink or burnout, perhaps it’s time to take a step back and ask yourself “Should I be charging more for these cakes so I’m able to earn more without overworking?”

I hope the above points have, like a compass, helped point you in the right direction and given you a clearer vision for approaching your cake pricing. Cake Decorating is a REAL JOB and cake business is a REAL BUSINESS and yes, it is entirely possible to make a good living from baking.

Remember that your work is valuable, your time is valuable and most of all you are valuable.

I hope that this blog has helped you.. and if it has, I’d love to know how…  If you think a cakie friend might benefit from this post, I encourage you to share it. Again, remember that we need as many cake decorators as possible to understand the worth of their work. Only then will there be a shift in the value of our industry & craft <3

Till next time sweet ones xx