6 Steps to Pricing your Home Baking with Confidence

6 Steps to Pricing your Home Baking with Confidence

Pricing your home baking can be (and should be) simple.

But how do you know if you’re doing it right?
How do you know if you’re undercharging or overcharging?
What if you charge too much and no one orders?
What if you charge too little and do yourself in?

I understand completely how you feel right now…. When I started my home bakery, I also struggled with pricing and customers took advantage of that all the time! I don’t want that for you.

So, this post is here to make pricing quick & simple for you.

When you price the RIGHT way, you’ll earn more income from your baking and you’ll be able to make home baking your career.

This post will clear up home bakery pricing for you once and for all!

And the biggest help I can offer you is my Baked Goods Pricing Calculator that does all the complicated math FOR you.

Yup, I’m serious.

This is no joke – you can get my Baked Goods Pricing Calculator for FREE. You can download it in the Home Bakery Resource Library >> Join the Library HERE.

But before we dive into the practical side of pricing, let’s quickly talk about the emotional side of pricing.

Because if you don’t understand the emotional side of home bakery pricing, you’ll always feel too guilty or awkward to charge your customers full price.

Let’s lay the foundation right so that you NEVER have to struggle or feel awkward when you’re pricing your baked goods, sound good??

1. Understand WHY Home Bakers Feel Awkward & Guilty with Pricing

If you consider the typical prices of baked goods, they’re not exactly “expensive” compared to all the other things people buy for enjoyment…

Every day people spend thousands of dollars around the world on restaurant meals, watching movies, weekend getaways, etc.!

People easily and willingly PAY GOOD MONEY for products that make their lives better. Why should it be any different with homemade products – like home baking?

Home Baking is SUPER labour intensive, yet we feel too awkward & guilty to charge what our bakes are TRULY WORTH.

I am convinced that the reason why cake pricing remains an issue, is because we’re faced with adding a VALUE TAB to what we do… AND a value tab on what we feel WE are worth.

A lack of confidence is the REAL reason why we overwork ourselves, STRUGGLE WITH PRICING, end up jumping through hoops for demanding clients and get stuck baking things we don’t even enjoy making – for cheaper prices!

We keep thinking: “If only I had 1000 likes on my Facebook page, THEN I would know that I’m good enough to charge full price for my bakes!”

And on Reality TV Shows about baking, it’s the EXACT same story. How many times have you heard contestants say:

“If I win this competition, I will finally know that I’m good enough.” “If I win this competition, it will prove to my father that I’m talented enough to make a living from dessert making.”

Here’s the secret: “If you are not enough WITHOUT that validation, you’ll never be enough WITH it.”

The hard truth is that the “stamp of approval” you feel you need from customers to make you believe you’re a LEGIT Baker, won’t be enough to convince you that you’re valuable.

What YOU believe about your value is what matters here.

So, who do you truly BELIEVE you are?
And is that person valuable?
What makes that person valuable?

The price tabs you put on your work will always reflect how valuable you believe you are.

I had to get to a point where I stopped looking to my clients for validation that I’m okay.

I had to fully embrace that MY value comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m valuable because He loves me. REALLY think about where your value comes from.

In the past I undercharged for my baking because I felt a need to OVER-please my customers so that the odds of them liking me are higher… I was deceived in thinking that the more customers liked & praised me, the more valuable I’d feel.

But if you’re not enough without that praise from people, you’ll never be enough with it.

“The reason we ‘people please’ is not because we care about other people. It’s because we want to control what other people think of us.” – Courtney Chaal

When YOU stop looking to people for your validation and settle it in your heart that YOU ARE VALUABLE (no matter what people think of you), it becomes so much easier to acknowledge that your baked goods are valuable too!

Now let’s Cover the Home Baking Pricing ESSENTIALS…

2. The VALUE of Home Baked Goods

You may have believed until now that Home Baking is in some way “inferior” to the baking of storefront bakeries.

But you actually have it backwards!

It’s important to realize that you’re offering a VERY UNIQUE and VALUABLE service here. You are baking SPECIALLY for ONE client with all the LOVE and QUALITY they would get from their OWN MOTHER’S baking.

They’ll also get their baked goods FRESH – not 1 week old as in the grocery store and large, mainstream bakeries.

So, on every level, small batch home baking is of HIGHER VALUE than mass-produced commercial baking.

You offer them the sentimental, high quality benefits of homemade, HAND MADE baked goods without them needing to spend ANY time or effort on it.

Home Baking has an incredibly high QUALITY, NOVELTY and CONVENIENCE value. That’s worth A LOT my friend.

3. Cheap Prices Attract Cheap Clients

If you’ve been charging too little for your baked goods, you’ve probably run into some pretty darn demanding, unrealistic, bartering sort of clients. Am I right?

Chances are, that’s what drove you to start looking for cake pricing answers! The type of clients you have are just becoming unbearable and you’re constantly second guessing yourself as a baker and business owner.

So here’s the deal. Cheap prices will attract budget clients who enjoy nothing more than saving money wherever they can.

They unfortunately are the type of clients who take advantage of you. They’ll get you baking things you hate, on short notice for less money.

The way you get ideal, committed clients with better character is by CHARGING MORE. This separates the cheapskates from the true cake appreciators.

4. Cheap prices “for the love”?

When I started my Home Bakery I kept all my bakes SUPER cheap because I wanted them to be affordable for everyone.

I was buying the best ingredients, investing hours of my time and barely turning ANY profit.

There are so many bakers on Instagram that say: “You should do it for love, not for money.”

But this is FLAWED LOGIC. Let me explain why.

Let’s look at doctors for example. They fill an amazing role in society and bless so many people with their gifts and talents. Keeping people alive is their heart’s desire.

Medicine is a SUPER demanding career and there’s no doubt that doctors choose to STAY in this career for love and not money… The convenience & excitement of money wears off pretty fast when you need to work 36 hour shifts – repeatedly.

Yet we GLADLY pay them generous sums of money SO THAT THEY CAN KEEP ON HELPING US.

Charging DECENT prices for your bakes (charging what they are worth) will enable you TO KEEP ON BAKING DELICIOUS BAKES FOR PEOPLE.

If they don’t pay you WELL, you’ll need to end your Home Bakery and get a desk job somewhere… It’s pretty hard to “love people with your baking” then, isn’t it??

On this point we also need to talk about pricing your bakes for close friends & family.

Baking for family and friends is a tough one; because we love them and feel guilty to accept and ask for payment.

But, here’s another perspective: Your friends and family love you and want you to succeed – that is why they are ordering from you.

I decided a while ago to have a standard discount for all my close friends and family. The discount is 10% off my direct client prices. To offer them a discount will already seem very generous and courteous to them.

If your friend sells you a car (for example) you will be ELATED if they give you a 10% discount, right?

Set up a fixed discount rule for friends & family that you are comfortable with (I recommend a 10% discount MAX), and stick to it no matter what.

Making a rule like this for yourself and your family/friends eliminates the need to make an awkward decision every time a family member or friend orders something.

5. Transition From a Freelancer to a BOSS

I recently watched a video by online entrepreneur Courtney Chaal on this topic. All home bakers start out as freelancers meaning that someone asks for a certain bake for a certain day and we proceed to make it for them.

They then start manipulating you by saying their budget is so tight this month because of this and that, so you end up giving them a discount…

The client calls the shots. They determine what we make, when we make it and they influence what they pay for it. This means that we base our business strategy and pricing by just REACTING to our customers.

You might still be running your Home Bakery this way and be thinking “well, what other way is there??”…

There is another way my friend and that is to become a BOSS and start running your business like a boss.

A boss decides what services and products they do and do not offer. They decide what the prices are. They call the shots and determine the course of their business.

A freelancer is just reacting to clients and their business will end up going wherever their clients end up taking them – which could be in circles or downward, and not forward.

There is a COLOSSAL difference between a freelancer and a boss!!

ALL Home Bakers do start out at freelancers, but if you desire success for your Baking Business, you’ll need to make the mindset shift into the boss world – sooner rather than later.

Your customers will no longer be deciding what you bake and when you bake it for. They will no longer be influencing your prices.

YOU’LL now be the one deciding how your business is going to operate on every level – and I’m SO EXCITED FOR YOU!!

6. Download your FREE Pricing Calculator

You’ve successfully completed this training on Pricing your Home Baking and now I invite you to join my Home Bakery Library to get access to my FREE Pricing Calculator!

It’s the BEST tool for any Home Bakery Business! You simply type in:

>> Your rate per hour for your labour.
>> The time you spend on the bake from start to finish.
>> Your ingredient costs (including electricity/gas costs, decoration costs, packaging costs, etc. as well here).
>> Your profit percentage.

And then it calculates the recommended selling price FOR you! Tada!

What info are you looking for?

Hi! I’m Aurelia 🙂

I help home bakers get consistent, repeat orders, so they can stop hustling and enjoy calm, predictable income.

Free Home/Micro Bakery Business Plan Template

What info are you looking for?

philosophyofyum

👉 Click here to check out the Confident Pricing & Profit Kit

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THE PRICING CALCULATOR:

1. Join the Free Resource Library to get the Free Pricing Calculator.

2. When you’ve signed up for the Library check your email (spam & promo folders too!) for the Resource Library’s link and password 😉

3. Make sure you actually DOWNLOAD the pricing calculator. Don’t just open it online – in which case you’ll be able to enter numbers, but it won’t calculate anything. In the Library, click the pink download button – this will open the calculator online. Then click the download button in the top right corner. Open the downloaded pricing calculator on your computer and start typing in your info.

4. To use the Pricing Calculator you need to at least have a PDF reader on your computer like Adobe Acrobat Reader – which is free to download. Click here to download it for free. Follow all the prompts and install it.

5. Don’t forget to add your electricity/gas/propane AND packaging costs to your ingredient costs! If you’re struggling to figure out how much to charge for this, click here to learn how.

6. After calculating a product’s selling price, close the Pricing Calculator and don’t save it. Then open it again and start calculating the prices of your next product. This helps the built-in calculation functions not to get confused.

7. If you want to calculate delivery prices, use the calculator in the same way. Open it on Adobe. Add your fuel costs into the ingredient costs section. Add your wage per hour. Add in the time you’ll be spending driving there AND back. Add 30% profit. And then you’ll get the final delivery price your client needs to pay.

This Pricing Calculator works great on computers. If you want to use it on your cell phone, you’ll need to download the Adobe Acrobat Reader App from the App store.

Here’s a video to SHOW you how to use the Pricing Calculator step-by-step 👇

“What if I feel overwhelmed & anxious about pricing & managing my business’s finances?”

There’s no shame in that. I struggled with the same thing for YEARS! Pricing your bakes, doing your bookkeeping and taxes… This is where a business gets REAL. And it can be very overwhelming if you’re not used to crunching the numbers!

NOW I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU:

🍩 Are you worried that you’re charging too much or too little for your home baking?

🥧 Do you feel burnt out because you need to bake all the time for your biz to survive?

🧁 Do you know how much profit (exactly) your business is actually making? Or do you just kind of hope (and worry in the back of your mind) that it’s making a profit?

All of these are symptoms of not doing your pricing and finances correctly.

Managing your finances shouldn’t be such an overwhelming, complicated mission! You could just use all my templates and handle your finances in 10 minutes per week.

If you want your pricing and bookkeeping to be QUICK and EASY, then the “Confident Pricing & Profit Kit” is the perfect fit for you! It’s an online course where I teach you easy-as-pie Home Bakery pricing and bookkeeping systems to help you earn more income and run your business like a pro 💁‍♀️

I trust that this post has FINALLY given you everything you needed to settle the issues of Home Bakery Pricing!

If you have any further questions, share them with me in the comments below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can! 😉

Chat soon

Aurelia

Plan your Home/Micro Bakery in 1 afternoon. Download this free Home/Micro Bakery Business Plan template to start turning your passion for baking into an income.

Got a question? Something to add? Let’s chat in the comments section down below! (I respond to every single comment)

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5 Tips to Save Money in Your Home Bakery

5 Tips to Save Money in Your Home Bakery

Home Bakers aren’t exactly loaded, are we?

More often than not, we are resourceful people looking to make an extra income while we stay at home and take care of our families on a super tight budget.

When I started my home baking business back in 2012 I had almost nothing. I had a $10 hand mixer, 2 cheap plastic hand-me-down mixing bowls, 1 square tin and 1 muffin/cupcake tin (and a $5500 student loan to pay off, lol!). That’s it! That’s all you need.

I completely understand how daunting it can be to build up a home bakery on a super tight budget, so I’ve put together 5 tips to save money in your home bakery without compromising on the quality of your bakes.

Even though my business and finances are stable now, I still use all 5 of these money saving tips in my home bakery – because saving money is so much funnnn!

Saving money literally makes me giddy. My husband thinks that’s weird, but I’m having a great time 😂🥳

1. Create Recipes with Leftovers

“Waste not, want not” will ALWAYS be one of the most valuable phrases known to man.

When I watch cooking and baking shows I always cringe when they leave like 10% of the batter in the bowl… I don’t get why anyone would do that and it upsets me deeply.

Or sometimes people crack eggs into the bowl so fast that lots of the white never makes it into the bowl and gets flung into the trash! So painful for me to watch.

My close friends and family know me as “Miss Frugal”, but I seriously don’t mind because I have saved $100’s of dollars by being so fugal. So, boom!

When I started baking from home I mostly made cupcakes and brownies.

But cupcakes require frosting and now my frugal nature was faced with a massive problem…

I’m sure you know from experience that you always have to make more frosting than what you actually end up using, so you always end up with left over frosting.

Desperate to not waste the excess of my ultimate vanilla frosting, I always scooped the left overs into a bowl and put it in the freezer. After accumulating about a liter of this left over frozen frosting, the time had come to do something with it.

I had heard about Pumpkin & Cream cheese muffins and decided to try using my left over frozen frosting as the filling since it is about 60% cream cheese anyway.

The result was spectacular!! 5 years later I still sell 100 of these Pumpkin & Cream Cheese muffins every week – the customers call them “crack muffins”! And the best part is that all my left over frosting does not go to waste!

Sofra Bakery in Cambridge, Massachusetts has created “morning buns” from their left over croissants.

They cut up the croissants in cubes, bake them with custard (like bread pudding) and brush them with an orange blossom glaze. Genius!

Almost every breakfast joint has their version of French toast. We all LOVE French toast, but when you think about it, it is nothing more than a left over recipe! It was a way to use up stale bread and not wasting it.

Some of the best recipes are ones where people had to get creative and prevent waste. I’m confident that you can do the same 🙂 So, brainstorm some ideas of how you can use leftover ingredients, off-cuts, etc. to create new products for your Home Bakery.

Build your home bakery on a super tight budget with these 5 insider tips to save money in your home baking business - without compromising on the quality of your bakes! Even though my business and finances are stable now, I still use all 5 of these money saving tips in my home bakery - because saving money is so much funnnn! #homebakery #homebusiness #cakebusiness #bakingbusiness

2. DIY it Baby!

It’s quite shocking how much money you can save by making things yourself – especially when it comes to ingredients.

Shocking as it may seem, the last time I bought icing sugar was 3 years ago. Icing sugar is expensive. It costs 250% more than regular granulated sugar.

There had to be a way around buying this expensive ingredient that doesn’t exactly contribute to a “better flavour” or anything.

I decided to buy a Nutribullet (high speed food processor). Sure, it cost me $150, but I’ve already made up that difference AGES ago.

Making my own icing sugar (oat flour, almond flour, hummus, peanut butter, smoothies, and more) has saved me heaps of money.

Another way I love to save money is by making my own muffin & cupcake liners from baking parchment. Fluted cupcake liners are really inexpensive, but they make muffins look smaller and less rustic.

I was keen to buy muffin liners (they look more handmade, with 4 little “ears” on top), but they costed like $0,12 each – that adds up super fast!

Instead of spending that money, I rather figured out how to make my own muffin liners in mere minutes for just $0,01 each. I sell 100 muffins a week, so added up, that’s a $11 weekly saving. For me, that’s worth it.

And then one of my favourite money saving tips involves my Home Bakery’s Packaging.

Beautiful, expensive branding and packaging can be a very tempting expense. But if a wrapper is beautiful and the candy tastes bad, will you ever buy it again? No.

So, don’t spend hundreds of dollars on printing amazing packaging. Just go for simple packaging to start off with.

You can seriously get away with 50 cents per box. I like to splatter metallic gold paint on my boxes to add some flare! Here’s a video tutorial of how I jazz up my boxes.

And then you should also put your business’s details on the box. Just design a large sticker with your logo on Canva. Print out the stickers and stick one on each box. Easy, beautiful and cheap!

3. Buy Ingredients from the Right Suppliers

Source ingredients in bulk or from direct suppliers wherever you can. When you cut out middle men, you eliminate all those extra mark ups you pay for in the grocery store.

For example, I used to buy all my cocoa powder, chocolate, frozen berries (and so much more!!) in the grocery store, which was super expensive.

I eventually found a supplying company with super high quality products that sell ingredients even to small businesses like home bakeries.

Now I save like 40% in ingredient costs WITHOUT COMPROMISING ON THE QUALITY OF MY INGREDIENTS! So rad!

I also went directly to a local chocolaterie and buy 1 kg blocks of chocolate from them.

This way I get to support a local business, get higher quality chocolate AND pay less for it than in the grocery store because I buy it in bulk.

Such a win-win-win!

4. Invest in Tools that Increase your Productivity

The one thing that is just as important as saving money is saving TIME. If you can save time then you will have more time to bake things to sell for profit.

Learning to work faster is important, but you can also invest in tools that will make your baking process faster like stencils, cookie cutters, a food processor, etc.

And then there is a “tool” of sorts that is FREE… It is my favourite productivity booster! And it is simply to do things in bulk wherever it’s possible.

If I make 10 of my Pumpkin & Cream Cheese muffins at a time with all of their DIY components (liners, filling, crumble, dry ingredients, and more) from start to finish, it will take me 2 whole hours I reckon!

But by making 100’s of muffin liners at a time, making my filling a few litres at a time, sifting ALL my dry ingredients for the day and putting them in labelled baggies and more, I save SO MUCH time.

Doing things in bulk will streamline your productivity and business like crazy.

5 Amazing Tips to Save Money in your Home Bakery without compromising on the quality of your baked goods! Building a Home Bakery does not have to be expensive. Click through to learn how you can save money where it counts. #homebakery #cakebusiness #bakingbusiness #cupcakebusiness

5. Increase Your Profit

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my Home Bakery (for 3 long years) was being so set on saving money that I did not INVEST my money in making more profit in the future.

I know it feels great to save money – trust me, I am known as “Miss Frugal” among my friends and family! But honestly, making money is even better than saving money… NEVER forget this.

MAKING money is better than SAVING money.

Making INVESTMENTS in order to get more orders and baking done, is better than saving money.

Here’s an example from my own Home Bakery Journey:

In the name of “saving money”, I refused to employ someone to wash dishes and clean for me for the first 18 months of my Home Bakery.

Now, I feel so stupid for not doing it sooner! I always made the excuse that “there’s no way I can afford to employ someone to clean!”

What I didn’t realize is that employing someone to clean for me twice a week would free up more time and energy for me to do more of what actually makes money – BAKING.

Since I’ve made the investment of employing Jane to clean twice a week, I’ve been able to increase my baking profits by 30%!

It’s the BAKING that brings in profit, so free up your time so that you can spend more time BAKING.

I’ve also trained Jane to do prep work for me. This includes chopping chocolate, grating carrots, slicing apples, etc. These super exhausting and time consuming tasks can easily be taught to someone else. It’s wonderful!

Easy, delegate-able tasks include: all cleaning and prep work. Later on you can expand to deliveries, errands, etc.

And while we’re talking about this point of “MAKING money is better than SAVING money”…

Let’s talk about how you can make more money in your Home Bakery:

To get more orders, you need customers to pay attention to your business. You need to know how to attract customers to your business.

And the way you do that is with effective marketing. And I’m NOT talking about spending money on ads!

Effective marketing is all about the (free) words you use to help customers understand and believe that YOUR business is the perfect fit for them.

🌟 If you want to learn how attract more customers and orders with marketing, then this blog post is your next step >> The 4 Essentials of Home Bakery Marketing.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post!

Which money saving tip is your favourite?
Are there any other things you’ve done to save money in your Home Bakery Business?
Let me know in the comments below.

Chat soon

Aurelia 🙂

What info are you looking for?

Hi! I’m Aurelia 🙂

I help home bakers get consistent, repeat orders, so they can stop hustling and enjoy calm, predictable income.

What info are you looking for?

philosophyofyum

POPULAR BAKING BIZ TIPS

POPULAR BAKING TIPS

What info are you looking for?

Do you dream of starting a home bakery, but then thoughts of self-doubt like these start flooding your mind… “People aren’t going to think my baking is worth it. All the other bakers are better than me. I’m not good enough.” Truth is pretty much ALL home bakers get these thoughts! You’re not alone! In this post you’ll learn how to beat self doubt so you can be free to pursue your baking business goals. Click through to get the tips now… #homebaking #selfdoubt #homebakery #bakingbusiness #baking

Got a question? Something to add? Let’s chat in the comments section down below! (I respond to every single comment)

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Do You Have What it Takes to Open a Retail Bakery?

Do You Have What it Takes to Open a Retail Bakery?

**Guest content further down by Tina McJunkin from The Cautiously Optimistic Kitchen**

Welcome back to PART 2 of my Retail Bakery Series! If you missed my last post, I strongly encourage you to read it. I had the privilege of chatting with Tina McJunkin from the cautiously optimistic kitchen about the 4 LIES Home Bakers Believe about Owning a Storefront Bakery.

She shared her TRUE story of what it was like to run her own Retail Bakery for 2 years. Her story is absolutely incredible! It has really brought a HEAP of perspective and truth about the realities of owning your own bakery.

If you’ve read last week’s post and you STILL feel that opening your own Retail Bakery is a dream you want to pursue, today’s post is for you!

Tina has put together some questions for you to figure out if you have what it takes to open your own Retail Bakery.

Please note that Tina & I are NOT doing this Retail Bakery series to trample on your dreams, but rather because we want you to make INFORMED decisions and be successful!

Over to Tina 🙂

Dearest Home Baker,
I have been right where you are now.

Dreaming and obsessing over all the things I would do if I had my own cute little cake shop. How I would decorate the front of house and how I would charm every customer with a free sample as they strolled in the door. How people would FINALLY take me seriously as a baker!

Oh yes, I’ve been there.

I’ve also been on the other side of there.

I’ve actually owned and operated a real life Retail Bakery. And that, my friends, is why I’m here today. You really NEED to think about these things before you take the leap and dive in!

So… do you have what it takes to open a retail bakery? Let’s find out!

1. Do You Know WHY You Want a Retail Bakery?

I know you dream of doing this, but why are you REALLY doing this?

Do you want to make more money than you are now? Or maybe you want the fame of having a wildly successful bakery?

Is it because you want to be busier with more customers? Do you just want all that cake stuff out of your house and to stop taking over every spare inch you can find to shove more supplies?

Could it be because you want the opportunity to hire employees and delegate some of the work so that you have more time for your own family?

Do you have what it takes to open your own retail bakery? Here are 6 questions for you to answer so you can know for sure!

If you are only opening a bakery to satisfy your daydreams, you may need to think about the next few things first.

2. How Much Time are You Willing to Sacrifice?

Operating a retail bakery will take ALL of your time. I truly mean that.

As the owner, you will work 24/7/365.

Not. Even. Kidding.

If you have a storefront you will absolutely be busier than in your home bakery. Not only will you need to spend time on actually making cakes, you will spend time on so many more admin & logistical issues like:

The book work, paying bills, ordering supplies, taking inventory, hiring/firing/managing employees, handling advertising, answering calls/emails only you as the owner can respond to, creating recipes/menus, shopping, etc., etc.

It’s everything you are already doing in your home bakery, but 100 fold. So take the amount of time you spend working on your cakes now and multiply that by 100. Now you have how many hours you will work in a week.

You might think it’s impossible to work a 130 hour work week, but I’m telling you now that it’s very real and imminent when you own a Retail Bakery.

3. Do You Have a Plan?

I don’t just mean a plan of how things are going to look and how everyone is going to think your yummies are the best in town. I mean a real deal business plan.

If you are going to finance this venture, you will be required to have a plan anyway. But even if you aren’t financing you MUST have a plan!!

You Need a Plan for ALL the following things:

Know what your operating hours will be.
How many employees you will need and what schedule they will work.
If you will purchase ingredients locally or if you will use a food service.
Have your menu and recipes ready and flawless.
Have business cards and brochures printed before you ever open your doors.
Know exactly how much your items, supplies, packaging and ingredients cost per unit.
Know exactly how much your overhead will cost you.
How much will your workers comp insurance, unemployment insurance and liability insurance cost?
Will you pay sick days or maternity leave?
How much will you pay out in salaries, sales taxes, business licenses, and deposits?
Call the utility office and ask what an average bill costs for the unit you are going to operate in.
Is your building already set up for a food service business?
Will you need to get permits or build out your building?
What is the cost of your equipment?
How long will it take the Health Department to allow you to open once you’re ready?
Shop around for internet, phone, advertising, insurance, etc.
KNOW HOW MUCH THINGS ARE GOING TO COST.

There will be even more things added to this list as you get deeper into it and it is absolutely essential that you have a SOLID plan.

All Home Bakers DREAM of having their own Storefront Bakery with a line of eager customers wrapping around the block! But it's not the party we imagine it to be. Here are 6 questions for you to answer and figure out if YOU have what it takes to open your own retail/storefront bakery. #homebakery #bakingbusiness #cakebusiness #retailbakery

4. To Finance or Not to Finance?

How are you going to fund this venture?

If you are going to finance your bakery yourself you will need to have that business plan ready. There are different types of loans you can get, so be sure you research them all. You can find tons of free information on small business loans and other funding options on bank websites.

Decide if you need a down payment, collateral, or if you will be using credit cards. Also, be sure to think about how you will handle the financial situation if you are not able to make those payments.

How is that going to affect other aspects of your life? Are you using your home or vehicle as collateral and will you lose those items? Are you about to sink your entire life savings into this? Will you be maxing out those credit cards?

Once you decide on how you will finance your Retail Bakery’s start up don’t forget about those operating costs.

Be sure you have some kind of financial cushion for slow times!

Whether that is a personal stockpile of cash you have set aside, a line of credit, or one credit card you held back from maxing. Whatever it may be, just be sure you have it at the ready. You will need it – even if you’re 100% sure you won’t.

5. Are You Ready to Be a Boss?

Are you really prepared to be a boss?

Now look, I’m the first to admit I can be considered to be a bit bossy (Or so I’m told by my younger sisters, my kids, my husband) I’m the eldest child in my family, what can I say, I come by it honestly, right?

But here’s the kicker. I may be great at being bossy, but I’m a terrible boss!!!

There’s more to being a boss than bossing. You’ve got to be able to manage people. You need to be prepared to interview, hire, delegate, and even fire people.

Trust me it’s much harder than it sounds. You also need to be able to be respected (and be respectful). You need to be taken seriously, you need to be fair, and you need to be able to set standards that you expect to be met by all your employees.

Also remember that you are their employer, not their friend. You must keep those two relationships separate, even if you’re friendly with your employees (and you definitely should be!). If you don’t you separate the two you will never be able to manage employees to the best of your ability.

One other thing you will realize pretty fast is that YOU are the employee of the month – actually of the year!

You will need to know how to perform EVERY job and be willing and able to do them. If you have an employee call in sick, be prepared to jump into that position.

Be prepared to work every position at once because sometimes you just might have to!

There may be times when it’s slow enough that you need to decide if it’s worth it to pay another person to do a job you can actually do yourself.

Holidays and weekends are another time when you get to work but may decide to let your employees enjoy the time off. You will need to consider these things when you are deciding on how much time you’re willing to put in as well when you are creating your business plan costs.

6. Are You Ready to Develop a THICK Skin?

Once those doors open, you are now considered a professional. If you are still working on those decorating skills and you’ve only been doing this just a little while, no one will be considerate of that. As soon as you establish yourself in a brick and mortar store, the customers will expect you to be an absolute expert.

There won’t be much room for error.

Everything you do will be under scrutiny.
Everything your employees say and do will be under scrutiny.
Anything and everything that goes out your door will be criticized and picked apart.

The fact is when you grow your audience you open yourself up to more opportunities to be placed under the microscope. Not everyone will like your work. Heck, not everyone likes your work now. But when you open a retail bakery, you lose that personal touch.

People aren’t afraid of hurting your feelings anymore if they aren’t completely pleased. Now they’re racing to social media to let the entire world know how awful you are, all without ever letting you know they were unhappy. It’s just reality.

The thing is that it will bother you. It will ruin your weekend when you get that first call complaining about your work.

The first time, the next time, and the last time will all hurt the same. Just be prepared and know that unfortunately not all people have the decency to treat others as they would like to be treated.

There are plenty of people who are ready to spew whatever junk comes to their minds. So you have to decide how you will handle the situation when it comes – because unfortunately, it WILL come.

Do you have what it takes to open a retail bakery? Every Home Baker carries this dream in their pocket at some point! Here are 6 questions for you to answer so you can know for sure if opening a storefront bakery is the right step for YOU! #cakebusiness #bakingbusiness #homebakery #retailbakery

So there you have my six things you definitely need to think about before opening a retail bakery.

Now that you’ve thought about these 6 questions, have you considered baking from home may be just where you need to be?

Tina

Thank you so much for sharing these questions with us Tina! If you haven’t read Tina’s full story on the Reality of Owning a Retail Bakery, you can read it here.

I hope Tina’s questions have brought some clarity, perspective and shed a lot of light on your baking journey – as it has done for me!

If you have any questions, please comment below and either Tina or I will respond.

Chat soon

Aurelia 🙂

What info are you looking for?

Hi! I’m Aurelia 🙂

I help home bakers get consistent, repeat orders, so they can stop hustling and enjoy calm, predictable income.

What info are you looking for?

philosophyofyum

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4 Biggest MYTHS About Starting a Home/Micro Bakery Business

… Do I need a license to sell my baked goods from home?

4 Biggest MYTHS About Starting a Home/Micro Bakery Business

A Home/Micro Bakery Business is a brilliant way to earn money from home while doing something you love (mayyybe leaning a bit more towards “obsessed” 😉)… baking!

I’ve had my own successful Home Bakery Business since 2013 (full-time for 6 1/2 years with a full-time income too) and it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.

Every job (whether you work for yourself or not) has its ups and downs, but I’m SO exceedingly grateful for my little Home Bakery!

In 2017 I realized that so many passionate bakers have talent, but they don’t pursue their passion/dream of starting their own Home Bakery because of FEAR…

Fear that they don’t have what it takes to create a successful Home Bakery Business.

They look at Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc. and only see bakers with gorgeous kitchens, expensive equipment, and perfect baked goods, and then assume they need to “fit that mould” to also be successful. They fall for the MYTHS.

These Home Bakery Business Myths Are:

MYTH #1: You need a qualification in pastry or baking for your baked goods to be “good enough to sell”.

MYTH #2: You need a qualification in business/marketing to create a successful small business.

MYTH #3: You must be able to make whatever clients want to be successful. (Like fondant cakes, sugar flowers, Anna & Elsa figurines, etc.)

MYTH #4: And then also this belief that you need heaps of capital/money (or investors) for expensive kitchen equipment, branding, packaging, advertising etc.

All of these beliefs are TOTALLY false.

They hold home bakers back unnecessarily, and today I’m hoping to expose these myths once and for all.

I’m exposing these myths because I keep coming across amazing, passionate, GIFTED Home Bakers that lack confidence because they don’t fit the brief listed above.

It breaks my heart, because they don’t need to feel this way.

There’s another way!

BUT FIRST, let’s start by breaking down the myths. Sound good?

MYTH # 1: You need a qualification in pastry or baking for your baked goods to be “good enough to sell”.

There’s this old mind-set still hanging around in society that makes life and growth quite difficult. It’s the belief you need to formally study and have some kind of qualification before you can work in a certain field.

Over time, some new shortcuts have been created (like short courses) which aim to condense your learning experience into a shorter span of time.

Although I love the idea that you don’t need to put aside YEARS for these courses, they still have major flaws.

I’ve wanted to do a thorough course in Pastry for 5 years now. Unfortunately, all the options would require of me to set aside a minimum of 6 months to complete the course. 6 Months of FULL TIME study.

This means no work and no income plus a mild expense of $ 5000. How is this sustainable or even possible?

My friend, this is a different time. The online world has opened up doors for all of us to learn almost any skill and excel at it.

You don’t need to study a formal, expensive course for your Home Baking Business to succeed. AT ALL.

If a cake tastes amazing and rocks your world, then no one cares if the baker has a qualification or not!

You can learn and grow into the BEST baker you can possibly be without any formal training. I’ve developed 5 FUN weekly habits over time that keep me sharp and constantly evolving as a Home Baker.

These 5 Weekly Habits Include:

1. Watching an inspirational dessert show. Shows like Unique Sweets, Great British Bake Off, Zumbo’s Just Desserts etc. NOT decorating shows. Watch shows that focus on flavour! I always keep a notebook handy to write down which new flavour combinations I’ve learned, which new techniques I’ve learned and how I could implement them in a bake I’m comfortable with – like brownies.

2. Conquer something technical that has EPIC flavour (typically spaced out over a month, with research on the specific bake every week). Perfect Baked Cheesecake, Flawless Cupcakes, Perfect Lemon Meringue Pie… these are all very technical desserts, yet I’ve managed to master them through extensive ONLINE RESEARCH and then practicing baking them. It’s all you need. Really.

3. Eat something that gives you a YUM-high! Hard Work, right? 😉 Eating YUM-high food/treats is essential to keeping your flavour edge sharp in your baking. Eat something every week that inspires you! It doesn’t have to be expensive either. Get to that baked thingy that everyone in your town/city is talking about!

4. Follow GREAT bakers (not decorators) online. You will learn something NEW every time. I still do.

5. Use seasonal ingredients for inspiration. Fresh, seasonal ingredients can inspire you to create bakes you’ve never tried before. Search online to see what other herbs/spices/nuts go with that seasonal vegetable or fruit.

It's a TOTAL lie that you need a baking degree/diploma to create a successful Home Bakery! You can start your business this week while you keep working on your baking skills in the background. Your baking doesn't have to be "perfect" before it'll mean something to people. If it's delicious, you can sell it! #homebakery #cakebusiness #bakefromhome #bakingbusiness

These habits have grown me into the baker I am today without ever needing to pay a cent for training.

I’ve explained the core concept of each habit, because I don’t want to be stingy, but if you want to, you can download the full, free, 5 page guide in my Free Resource Library. I’m confident that you’ll love it!

Another super effective strategy to Grow as a Baker (for free) is to volunteer at any restaurant/eatery/bakery/suppliers that do anything related to baking. This includes breads, pizzas, doughnuts, pastry, cakes, etc.!

You get to learn, hands on, on a schedule that works for you. Since you are volunteering and providing them with free labour, they can’t exactly make demands on your time. I recommend doing weekends or like every second weekend.

This way the restaurant/bakery gets FREE extra labour and you learn for FREE – TOTAL win-win!!

I’ve explained the basics without being cryptic, but if you want to read more on this strategy of mine you can download my full guide from the Free Resource Library.

MYTH #1 BUSTED!!

MYTH #2: You need a qualification in business/marketing to create a successful small business.

Once again, my friends, this is a different era.

The online world has opened up doors for all of us to learn almost any skill and excel at it. You don’t need to study a formal, expensive course in business for your Home Baking Business to succeed. AT ALL.

The web is absolutely TEEMING with online entrepreneur & business coaches who are giving away a WEALTH of info – often for FREE.

I’ve learned all I need to from these peeps. Their free stuff has made me a savvy entrepreneur with a successful Home Baking Business even though they never speak about baking.

If you have a little bit of money to spend on this, it will definitely help though. I HIGHLY recommend “The $100 start up” by Chris Guillebeau.

This book has genuinely smashed my concepts of business and redefined my home baking business’s focus. It’s really inexpensive and amazing.

So yes, it’s paramount that you learn about business and entrepreneurship, but you don’t need to do a formal, expensive course at a university or institution.

MYTH #2 BUSTED!!

Myth #3: You need to be a master at fondant, sugar art and themed designs for your home baking business to succeed.

Now this is where I get very VERY feisty.

As any “normal” baking nerd would do, I’m part of a few Baking Facebook groups. On these groups you typically see folks posting these AMAZING wedding cakes with mountains of fondant work, sugar flowers and modelling chocolate details… They are works of art.

One day I posted a photo in the one group of the types of cakes I do. A rustic, purist, cleanly presented carrot cake.

This Carrot Cake Recipe has generated $5000+ in sales for my home bakery business. I asked in the group if anyone does cakes like these because everyone’s work seems so “wedding-cakey” or “themed”.

Everyone’s responses SHOCKED ME.

Here’s what the fellow Home Bakers said on the group:

“I love baking cakes like yours for myself, my friends and family. But in order to make a living from baking I have to make fondant cakes.”

“LOVE these kinds of cakes, but fondant cakes are what customers want, so that’s what I do most of the time.”

My heart sank!

Is this is truly what most Home Baking Business owners believe??…

It does not have to be this way. I would just curl up in despair if the only way to make a living off baking was to make fondant, themed cakes.

Here’s why…

In general, ANY creative enjoys creating something that THEY actually want to buy themselves. As soon as you start just creating for “whatever anyone wants”, you quickly get frustrated, bored and burned out.

“In order to make a living from baking I have to make fondant cakes…” But it’s not what she enjoys doing at all. She feels she HAS to do it.

TRUTH IS that there’s a WHOLE other market today that is into QUALITY and FLAVOUR. This is what I’ve discovered & experienced over the last 5 years of building my own Home Baking Business.

FLAVOUR and QUALITY (taste) create more concrete memories than sight. It’s been scientifically proven.

When more of your senses are involved in an experience, a more solid memory and rich the whole experience.

If you eat a cake with an awful flavour (includes both your taste & smelling sense) and texture, the only sense that the memory can stand on is SIGHT.

SIGHT does not create a very solid memory to begin with since it is a sense we use 16+ hours per day.

BUT if you eat a cake with a glorious flavour (includes smell) and beautiful, fresh texture then you already have 3 senses involved in the experience and memory!

That’s why the desserts and bakes from our childhoods are forever seared into our memories.

You absolutely DO NOT need to make fondant cakes to have a successful Home Bakery Business! Learn how I've been baking, full-time, for 6 years without EVER touching fondant! Click to learn how you can do it too... #homebakery #bakingbusiness #cakebusiness #homebaking #baking

I’ve NEVER heard anyone say: “oh do you remember when we ate that green fondant?! It was the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten in my life!” “Yes! And those silver deco balls, how divine!”

Nope. Never.

Over the last decade, the cake decorating scene has exploded on television and social media. It was always there, but shows like Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes, Charly’s Cake Angels etc. opened up an exciting new world to the public and bakers.

Overnight, super decorated, fondant cakes became the new beacon for “baking”. People were loving them on TV (and social media) and demanding them from their local bakers!

Now, I am not saying there’s no need for cake decorating (that would be foolish and ignorant). It’s an amazing art!! I’m just saying that the cake decorating “hype” has gone completely out of control and created this stigma that

BAKING = DECORATING and DECORATING = BAKING. This is FALSE.

You can be an amazing cake DECORATOR, but this does not make you a great BAKER.

In the name of “You eat with your eyes!”, super pretty, BUT terrible tasting, dry, tough, stale cakes have been served to the masses for years now.

I have been on the receiving end so many times… I’m sure you have too?? It totally sucks. It ruins everything.

Bottom line: lines have become blurry and the concept of actual BAKING has been severely compromised by an exterior decorating obsession.

Ultimately, WE ACTUALLY EAT WITH OUR MOUTHS, NOT OUR EYES.

And, believe it or not, there’s a whole market just waiting for someone to produce DELICIOUS cakes, FULL of FLAVOUR, that give them a yum-high and leave them in a daze. Great, full on BAKING. This is what I’ve done and you can totally do it too!

Now obviously the cake needs to be neat and presentable, but all this means is clean lines. A neat finish on something HONEST, HOME MADE and AUTHENTIC.

You never need to make sugar flowers, or spend hours kneading purple fondant, or bake a cake a week in advance so that you have enough time to put the 1000 modelling chocolate ornaments on the cake IF YOU DON’T WANT TO.

So yes, I’m going to say it OUT LOUD:

You CAN make a comfortable living as a home baker without EVER baking a wedding cake or a themed cake!

MYTH #3 BUSTED!!

Myth #4: You need loads of money and investors to start a Home Bakery Business

SO, totally and completely false.

When I started my home baking business I had almost nothing. I had a $10 hand mixer, 2 cheap plastic mixing bowls, 1 square tin and 1 muffin/cupcake tin (and a $5500 student loan to pay off, lol!).

That’s it! That’s all you need.

I didn’t even have an oven, so I baked at my (then boyfriend) husband’s student house and then decorated the baked cupcakes back at my own student house. You can make it work!

I know there are so many gorgeous kitchens on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, blogs and magazines, but don’t fall into the comparison trap.

A big, beautiful, fully kitted-out kitchen is not essential for your home bakery’s to succeed. Resourcefulness matters so much more than resources!!

Remember, this is good, honest HOME BAKING.

When your mom or grandma made your favourite birthday cake, could they manage without the $1000 KitchenAid Mixer? Was the cake delicious and memorable, even though they mixed it with an old little hand mixer?

I’m betting YES.

It's a TOTAL LIE that you need heaps of money and fancy, expensive kitchen equipment to start a Home Bakery Business! All you need is a hand mixer, the oven that's already in your kitchen and a mixing bowl - that's it. Click through to start building your own full time Home Bakery Business. #homebakery #bakingbusiness #cakebusiness #cupcakebusiness #homebaking

Focus on the quality of your bakes, not the aesthetics of your kitchen and I promise that your home bakery business will be successful.

Beautiful branding and packaging can also be a very tempting expense. If a wrapper is beautiful, but the candy tastes bad, will you ever buy it again? No.

Just go for simple packaging to start off with. You can seriously get away with 50 cents per cake box. To add a personal touch, get a logo stamp made for $10. It looks super rustic and cool!

OR you can use my super cheap method for making your boxes beautiful.

A simple, affordable logo design solution is to do a trade exchange with a local graphic designer. Creatives really look out for each other and are keen to help where they can! Offer them a cake in exchange for a logo.

If they are super good, maybe offer them a $100 voucher/credit at your home baking business. It’s a wonderfully enriching experience working with any other creative! Give it a try 🙂

The last area where big spending can be super tempting is advertising for your home bakery.

Take it from someone who’s been selling their home baked goods since 2013…

Advertising only amplifies what’s already happening in your business. It’s like pouring fuel on a fire.

But if there is no fire to begin with, you just end up with a pile of wet logs.

Here’s what I mean: If you’re already struggling to attract enough customers, advertising will only amplify that struggle.

You’ll be wasting your money.

If you want to learn how to market your Home Bakery Business in a way that attracts customers (without paying for ads), then you’ve gotta learn >> the 4 Essentials of Marketing Your Home Bakery.

MYTH #4 BUSTED!!

I hope this post has been helpful and that it’s set you free to take your Home Bakery idea seriously. The world is hurting. It NEEDS comfort. And your delicious home baking can give that comfort.

What’s next?

Now that you’re ready to take your Home/Micro Bakery idea seriously, you probably have a new list of questions popping up in your mind!

Like,

… How much should I charge for my home baking?

… What should I name my Home Bakery business?

Just click on whichever question you’ve got, and you’ll get super practical tips for those.

Comment below if you’ve got any other struggles or doubts about starting your own home/micro bakery business, and I’ll reply asap!

Hugs & donuts,
Aurelia 🙂

What info are you looking for?

Hi! I’m Aurelia 🙂

I help home bakers get consistent, repeat orders, so they can stop hustling and enjoy calm, predictable income.

What info are you looking for?

philosophyofyum