🍗 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!

This week we cover a topic that can get some bakers into trouble - hiding in the bushes of their exes. Kidding - that was our mom, but the concept still applies when it comes to stalkin' our clients.

The issue arises when we feel we're owed more than just the money we made for an order. As someone who loves to peek over the fence of past lovers myself, it can be tempting to sneak a peek at a client's Facebook page or business page to see if they've posted pics of their party... and then to turn a lil' sour when you realize they did and just conveniently happened to forget tagging your and your bakery business.

😣 "Well, twins - referrals are the lifeblood of my lead sources! I need tags and shoutouts to earn more income. And you said you're business-centric, right?! It's okay if I comment, "So nice baking for this event - I'm the cookie baker, @[tags business passive aggressively]."

I hate to say it boo-bear, but your "praise" was piles o' cash and anything beyond that just ain't owed to you. While yeah - the tags are awesome, the posts full of praise about you amazing, and the emails fawning over your fantastic flood can make your toes curl... it is not owed to you.

📚 In the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy - a book written for men, but still some great takeaways - 🤫 Robert Glover talks about "covert contracts" - these are contracts made not in writing. And that's what's happening with this whole bein' owed beyond the bread (ahem - casheesh).

I see this happen in the Marketing Group - 😣 bakers who feel as if they're owed more than just the money they were paid. It's a quick recipe for resentment, and we're here to break up with the bad mojo.

1. Your money is your motivation.

💵 Fall in love with money (within reason). What we mean is: your only job was to bake cookies. In exchange for those amazing cookies, someone gave you the life energy they exchanged with their employer in the form of money - they gave you some of their life - 🤑 and the money was the physical representation of that. That was the contract. Nothing more. 🍰 Anything additional is icing on the cake (that they proverbially paid for so - again - not required).

2. Stop stalking.

🙈 Blinders are the best way to tune out the torture of wondering if you were tagged. You can't know what you can't see, right? Stop stalking your clients (and while we're at it, your exes... right mom?). If you can't stop from looking or party pics are showing up in your feed, Facebook has a "mute friend" option - use it.

3. Create review-generating assets.

😩 "But twins! I need tags to get leads!" Sure - leads do come from tags, but they also come from good reviews - so instead of stalkin' your client, send a follow-up email asking them if they wouldn't mind leaving you a review on your Facebook Page or your Google Business Profile. 📑 If you think you should be allowed to market to their party attendees, use a Munbyn thermal printer to throw a cheap printed sticker on the back of each cookie (adding the ingredients can help it look less like "PLEASE HIRE ME" and more like "hey - allergies include, but also... hire me, maybe?"

4. Incentives for reviews.

🎁 Not my favorite approach - but when it works, and if you work it right, it produces great results. The thing about thinking you're owed tags is likely because you're too dependent on word-of-mouth for your lead gen. By building up other lead sources, you can grow... well... other lead sources.

5. Learn to let it gooo.