Ways to be Booked Solid In Advance with Cake Orders
Would you love to be booked solid for like months in advance with Cake orders?
This is every Caker’s dream. Are you struggling in your cake business? Are you barely making enough money to cover bills? Are you wondering why you just have 2-3 orders a month?
Dear Caker, it is possible to have so many orders that you may have to turn some away. Believe me.
All you need to do is to know your target customer, have a strategy and implement.
This week I will be sharing with you hot ideas and tips to help you from being a non-existent Baker to being booked solid in advance.
Be friendly with Vendors
Make friends with party planners, party venue operators and vendors that serve your ideal clients and try all you can to be on their Vendors List. That means you will be among their first to call if their Client needs a cake. Once you are on their list, do not stop there and be comfortable waiting for the phone to ring, you’ve got to network, network, and network.
Every vendor party near and far must know you. I am not even talking about just party planners, but also caterers, photographers, owners of party shops, entertainers other cake decorators and even the DJ.
Always check in with them, you will see it will yield good results for you.
Sell Your Cakes at the Church fairs or bazaars/ Cake Events or vendor Events/ Schools or Food Fairs
It is important to have many ways of selling your cakes. Church fairs, schools come highly recommend, as this is where your target customers frequents. Also this is where they will learn about your business and order cakes from you!
Note – have business cards on your market stall table to give out with also a notepad to be able to take orders. Also be prepared to give free samples. This works a treat.
Get a Website
A website is a must for your cake business. Having your own website makes you and your business more professional, creates inquiries and orders and ultimately makes you money, which is your end goal.
Your website doesn’t have nothing fancy or cost a lot of money. There are a number of free websites that can have you online in just a day. With a website, it will give an opportunity for customers to view a gallery of your work and to get orders straight away.
In addition, a website address is an essential to be able to put onto your business cards, flyers and other marketing materials. So, this means, you will need to have a website address at the point of ordering your business cards.
Also with a website, you can connect with your current customers by way of weekly email newsletters where you will be able to share your recent cake orders or new recipes or sales.
Be an expert
Set yourself as an expert in your field by reinforcing what you are good at. Are you good at wedding cakes, 3D designs or character cakes? You can display this knowledge by blogging, submitting articles, or sharing your work and content on social media or simply by making short instructional videos.
You can also submit recipes, tutorials and cakes to magazines for articles and photo shoots. Just know that your cake pictures must be of good quality to get featured in magazines. You can enquire via email and social media about being featured in a publication and always follow up if you do not hear a reply.
I’m telling you if you persevere with this strategy and you become the go-to person for a particular skill, the sky is the limit.
Attract Success and you will be successful
What type of business do you want? Write it down and then mirror the business you want to build.
We are all attracted to success. Appear like you are busy and you will become busy. Do not wait for an order to make a cake or to post a cake on your social media page. Make a cake or even a dummy cake and post it. This will give the impression that you are in high demand and people would be vying for your attention. Not only is this a good way of practicing your cake techniques, it will help you build your own portfolio.
Offer cake decorating classes
Offering cake decorating classes for both adults and children is a great marketing tool. Doing classes for kids especially during the holidays is a must as mums will love you for it.
This will open the floodgates of orders for children’s birthday cakes You need to conduct the classes in the school holidays before the long summer ones begin.
Follow up
Try and follow up on customer requests for cake order quotes. If a prospective customer requests a quote and you do not hear back from them within 3-5 days, check back with them with an email or a phone call to ensure they didn’t forget to get back to you.then use all your charm to close a sale.
Join your Target Audience Facebook Groups
Where do your target customers hang out on Facebook. Find out and join. Be social and post pictures of birthday cakes you have made. Sharing your experiences your awesome cakes such as a Frozen or Mickey Mouse cake (which are very popular) will ensure you get orders from mummies.
Some of these tips will require you to be brave and confident in your product because you are reaching out to a wider audience. So be professional in dealing with people and ensure that your business is well organized.
Hope you found this useful? For more tips and information about setting up your own cake business, make sure to check out my E-Course ‘The Baking Business School Cake E- Course‘. From the rules surrounding getting your business registered, marketing and business strategies as well as pricing guides including Templates, guides, Workbooks and checklists to help you build your cake passion business dream.
Enrollment for the Baking Business School E- Course is still ongoing. Don't miss this chance to start and to take your cake business to the next level.
Till next week.
Happy Caking.
RotimiCakeLady