In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 165 - Stab at Collabs, Corrie took one for the team and signed up for a local vendor collab on Monday so she can give us the bake-down this week. And I think you'll like what she has to share with the classroom.

Okay, so what's a local collab? If you're familiar with our cookie collabs on Instagram - it's not that exactly. Our digitally-based SCM collabs get a bunch of bakers together and engaging with each other on a single day for 1 hour to help boost the alg'rims.

👉 1. What's a Local Collab?

Similarly, a local collab gathers local vendors together and helps them create a referral network + content generation. The collab that Corrie' participated in was spearheaded by a local picnic planner (these are all the rage in our area now) who sourced a florist, her own picnic setup, a baker, a photographer, and 5 models to create a staged bridal shower.

We'll break down the pros and cons of these local collabs based on Corrie's "on the ground" experience this week + how to plan your own in the event you don't have your own local dreamy picnic planner.

👉 2. Pros and Cons

Rarely in marketing is anything a 100% free and clear win - there's always the give and take (we just hope the give exceeds the take, amiright?!). Same with these local collabs - they're front-loaded effort followed by repurcussion results - thus it's hard to track the value proposition until after services have already been rendered.

• ❌ Con: free work (you're likely not getting paid for this)
• ✅ Pro: Referral network + connections
• ❌ Con: No guarantees of leads
• ✅ Pro: Passive long-term lead gen (referral list)
• ❌ Con: It's only as good as the camera equipment
• ✅ Pro: Social Content + social sharing with other vendors
• ❌ Con: Lots of moving parts and people
• ✅ Pro: Most versatile baker wins

👉 3. Setting up / Joining a Collab

Corrie got lucky and caught a community group "call for vendors" posted by the picnic lady. I know in our area, there are dedicated Facebook groups for local area vendor calls. In the event that you don't have an event planner creating these collabs, you can set one up yourself. Sure, more footwork, but also - more power (muhahaha). What I mean is people tend to respect the hostest with the mostest, so use that to your advantage.

• ️🎈 If you want more wedding work, partner with the picnic / event planners
• ️🎈 If you want more birthday work, partner with the balloon garland people / face painters
• ️🎈 Joining a collab is harder to find - search community groups for leads

👉 4. Breakdown of This Collab

I'm not going to type this out - but in this week's podcast, Corrie does a verbal walkthrough of how it started, how it went down, what she expected vs what happened, and how she'd approach creating your own if this sounds like a lead generator you want in on. Regardless - it's a great way to get good content.

👉 5. Recap: Things You Wish You Knew

Rare in life do things go off without a hitch - and this local collab with so many moving pieces and people was not exempt. Being a baker, you'd have to be flexible with events that are outside or involve a lot of folks with ever-changing plans.

• 💧 "I wish I knew that there was potential for this to get rescheduled multiple times - rain dates."
• 💧 "I wish I could have known the color palette beforehand and frozen my set so I was more flexible for the rain potential."
• 💧"I wish I knew that the distance is very far from my home and thus my target audience since we can't ship in Virginia."

🍗 Loss Leaders - How losing can help you win.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 164 - Loss Leaders, we covered, well, what a loss leader is and how to implement it as a marketing strategy in your baking business.

💰 If you've been to Costco (formerly Price Club) anytime in the last 2 decades, you've seen (or smelled) their rotisserie chickens priced at $4.99 - a staggeringly affordable price that hasn't changed since 2000 (💸 save one price bump in 2008 which was reverted a year later in 2009).

Costco loses money on each of these birds. 🤑 Why? It's their loss leader. These underpriced prepped chickens get people into Costco stores, where, according to the CEO in 2015, these rotisserie chickens bring in $30 - $40 million dollars of additional product sales.

🤔 How? By pricing something like these chickens ridiculously low, they get people into Costco stores. They position these loss leaders deeper into the store near things you'd typically grab when you make a grocery run. The more you grab on your "I'm just picking up a rotisserie chicken" fueled grocery run, the more money Costco makes - by you buying other non-bird related things.

So - cool for Costco, but how can we take this "loss leader" strategy into baking? ✌️ Full confession - we use it in our memberships. Our "loss leader" tier is the $2 Transfer Club. Priced at, you guessed it, $2/mo, this membership gets you an instant download of over 180 digital transfer sheets. That makes each sheet less than $.01. But on Etsy, a similar royal icing transfer sheet can cost around $3 - $4.

🤔 "Why undercharge so much, twins?"

Because with such a low buy-in of $2, you've made an account on our membership platform. Switching to a membership like The Class Kits or The Cookie College is as simple as two clicks now. Plus - 🤝 we're able to build trust with you since I promise members 1 transfer a month but I deliver members around 4 - 8 transfers a month. If you like how you spent your $2 with me, imagine how much you'd love The Cookie College.

Okay - let's bring it back to baking. How can we implement the Loss Leader strategy for home-based bakers?

1. Car Cookies.

I like this one - 🚗 car cookies as your bakery's loss leader. I like it mostly because it means you've already made money before losing it. A car cookie (also known as a "thank you cookie") is a cookie affixed to an order going out. It's intended to give the purchaser a taste test of their order which is often intended to be a gift they'll never get a bite of. 🤤 Now they'll be hooked on that delish sugar cookie recipe you've got and come back for more.

2. Free Samples + Taste Testers.

🍴🛑 Put down your pitchforks. I know "free" and "cookie" aren't words we readily use in the marketing group, but we're talkin' loss leaders here. Free samples (heyo - another Costco strategy) get folks in the door for events like markets and pop-ups. The odds of them buying are higher post-sample.

Another take on this approach is asking local community groups (while abiding by the no-selling rules) for taste testers to give you feedback on a new product. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This accomplishes two things: new people trying your products (and giving you feedback which is a bonus) + you're able to sell without selling when you make the post.

3. G-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s.

When used sparingly, g-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s can be a decent loss leader. 🧠 Keep in mind the disclaimer: how you get them is how you keep them, though. Too much f-r-e-e and you'll get folks who only jump on these types of promos.

We've been working on getting Corrie a new website 🕸 - and we got the barebones bits together - so we thought it'd be fun to audit an unfinished website on today's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 163.

The big takeaway is this: there are many website hosts + templates + themes + plugins. 💻 Find what works best for you and don't be afraid to change and shift as your business grows and pivots.

⚠️ Now - this podcast focuses less on the mechanics behind the website, and more on the layout of the website along with the copy, imagery, and buttons. We explained why we used it, what we still need to edit, and things we'd like to move around a bit. That's the beauty of a website audit - it helps you know what you need to tweak!

Here's the basic layout of the website - heavy on the brand colors, big CTAs (call-to-actions), she wanted to elongate her funnel to add a form so she can further vet leads - see, it's about what works for you even if it doesn't make sense to someone else (because - you know we say to keep that funnel shorter for high converting website leads, not longer).

So what do we want to focus on when we talk website layout. 📑 Here's a starting list (note - this will be different for different bakers).

1. Find a website platform that's right for YOU.

🔗 But for Corrie's website, I went back to ol' faithful - Shopify. Why? Well - I've used it before, and I wanted to see if it changed much (hint: it changed a lot). Do I think everyone needs to use Shopify? 💻 Not at all - but for what Corrie wanted and what I had experience with, it's what we went for.

There are so m-a-n-y hosts, so don't be afraid to try them out (most have trial periods for free) to see which feels right. 💵 You may have the budget to hire someone to build your website for ya (or were born a twin), or you may want to "DIY" it and figure it all out (along with some new curse worse). Some website platforms give you tons of freedom (💔 which can break the site) and some keep it very structured (which is less customized, but also - 💢 a not broken website).

2. Keep the top CTA-centric.

Towards the top of the website - called the top bar, menu, and banner ribbons - 📣 keep them CTA-focused meaning constantly call your web traffic to take an action. ➡️ Order here, ➡️ get started here, etc. We don't want to make our most primate website real estate about the dog we had when we were 3 years old that we named our bakery after. No, no - we want their money. So make it easy for them to give it to us.

3. Add in some content that adds validity.

If they scroll past our prime web real estate, they may be looking for more trust-building. 💯 A great way to do that is through various segments of your home page that add validity to your bakery. Yeah - the very same stuff we told you to not put in the top section. Hey - they didn't buy, we need to convince them more. ✅ About me, ✅ about my process, ✅ FAQs - these can help answer questions (and address objections before they come).

4. Your branding matters.

🎨 Find your brand colors (coolors is a cool website to help you do that) and make that home page match. 🟪 The more "wow, this all matches their logo and brand identity" your website gives, the higher the trust factor from your audience.

Websites are a compromise - what works well for the bots vs the humans. What looks pretty versus what the client needs to see. What the page should say that's enough words without being too many words. You give and take until you find a design that works for both you and your clients!