The business of cake decorating has come a long way. Ordering a cake for your celebration wheater it’s as simple as a birthday, anniversary or wedding is now a trend. No more do we just want a round cake but rather a sculpted cake that fits a theme, style, or budget. What does this mean? Quick simply that there is enough business for everyone no matter how many cake decorators there are in a single place, it is possible to get overbooked.
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” Wow, made 3 wedding cakes, 2 birthday cakes, and one anniversary cake this week. I am so tired. I need some sleep” or “OMG I baked 9 cakes for this weekend” That does sound crazy, doesn’t it? honestly, if this is a one-man job it is crazy. Think of the number of cakes being mixed, baked, frosted, covered in fondant, and decorated. Often all these cakes are done in one week. Wow. It can be crazy. I learned my lessons the hard way. I’ve never overbooked myself to the excess as those Facebook posts above but I have felt overwhelmed with orders and it has been more than I can handle. Staying up late at night after the kids are gone to sleep was an almost regular feature at one point. Waking up and going straight to work on a cake without a cup of tea was not fun and nor was working so long on orders that you forget to have lunch or dinner. The worst, of course, is that you are so overbooked you cannot take a break to attend to kids.
If you are getting more orders than you can take – ask why? Are you charging less than your competitors? Perhaps pricing your cakes below the market value? Are you underpricing your talent? Perhaps it’s time to hike your prices so you get the right kind of clientele.First, decide how many hours of the week you wanna work.Then, figure out how many cakes can you make in those number of hours.Once you know the number of cakes. Divide that number by the number of days.Often we cake decorators are most busy on the weekends, so instead of diving by 7 days – just use the days that keep you most busy.Efficiency is the key –Decide how much cake you bake on average in a week. Pick one or two of those days of the week to bake. Only do baking so you work more efficiently.Pro tip – If you bake from scratch you can keep the cake for a day or two in the freezer and it will still be fresh for many days. I did all my baking on Mondays and Wednesdays. Figure out which of the common things you can do in bulk.Ganache, buttercreams, fillings, fondant. These are things that can be done in bulk to be more efficient. I even did all my cake boards once a week. Often cakes in a particular week would have an identical board that week.
My solution – I put my cake prices on my website and my contact form was a cake order form. Having the cake pricing guide on my website (with the disclaimer that the final price is subject to change) a few things get automatically taken care of on my list. Why?
You filter those customers that do not fit your budget. They see your price guide and realize they need to find another cake decorator. Sounds scary but it’s the truth that – not everybody is your customer.When people hit the contact form on your website – they have a form to fill out. This saves a few emails back and forth with me asking them the time, date, theme, price budget, colors, etc. So now when I get a cake inquiry – I get more information like – Type of cake, the number of servings, date of the event, theme, colors, Pick-up, or delivery. With this, my very first response to the customer is often the price and design option.
When I started, I was so proud of my cake flavors I did a free tasting. This means if you wanted a cake you let me know and I’d be happy to have you over and treat you to some cake. You can decide if you want to order or not. The problem with this was that I did a lot of tasting but very few orders. Why? well, tasting is free so for some… it’s let’s go eat some free cake. Not everybody is like this but I’ve been unfortunate to have quite a few. And when you cross that line, often we have to compromise something else. Perhaps quality? Ask yourself, if you had fewer orders would your cakes be better in terms of the quality of your work? If the answer is yes, then that’s something to think about. What if you did fewer orders, offered a better quality of workmanship as a result were able to charge more? Is that a possibility? Remember, if you are a wife and mom, you must also take into account the quality of life you provide for your family. Everything has a cost if you don’t find that delicate balance.
