I am a home baker and one of the things I wanted to do when I started cake decorating was to earn extra money. Business, however, is either feast or famine - mostly famine. I won't have any paying cakes for several months and then I will have one per week for a month. So, I have a new plan. My goal is 2-3 cakes per month since I work full-time. Please tell me what you think.

1. I need more children and wedding cakes for my portfolio so I am going to make some dummy cakes.
2. Take some practice cakes to work (even though they think I charge too much).
3. Speak up more about the fact that I decorate cakes. I have been reluctant since I am not legal.
4. Make a cake(s) for my doctor and dentist office and the vet.

Please let me know what you think. Thank you so much!

You're right, this industry can be feast or famine. 95% or more of my business is weddings so the winter months are slim pickins! I didn't have any weddings in April, but it gave me time to create 7 display cakes and do some financial planning and organizing. But starting in May, I have a wedding every weekend for months.

(My sister tried to put together a family get-together and sent an email about some Saturday. I replied with "summer. ..... saturdays ..... weddings ..... yeah, THAT'LL work out in my calendar!" )

The dummies are a great idea for doing photos. If you don't have a supplier for dummies, try www.dallas-foam.com

In my opinion, you'd do financially better if you move heavy to the wedding side. I can make more profit on one wedding than I would on 8 or 10 birthday cakes.

Do you do cookies? Car dealerships are a great source for a customer base. I had one salesman who gave a dz of my cookies to every person who bought a car from him. Car dealerships have meetings, birthdays, retirements, anniversaries, (for cakes) and a lot of them set cookies out for the customers who are waiting on oil changes and quick car repairs.

Realtors are another good client base. Sales rep firms, who send cookies and cakes to their customers (especially the medical sales reps - my daughter worked in a doctor's office and rarely had to buy her own lunch because of all the food and cookies the sales reps brought in to try to schmooze them!).

Thank you indydebi for your advice and insight. I would like to move heavily into wedding cakes but I know I will need to do some birthday cakes along the way so I would just like to have a few really cool ones in my portfolio.

I work in a medical office and most of the reps know that I make cakes. I just need to remind them. Last fall, one asked me to make a cake for a luncheon he was doing the next day for another department. He asked me at 3pm and wanted the cake for the next day! I gently reminded him that I needed at least one week notice.

Thanks for the suggestion of car dealerships. There is one just a few blocks from work. I can make cookies but just not the decorated ones. (I prefer to decorate cakes).

This also gave me the idea that I need to take a cake to my Pharmacy. My elderly parents use the same pharmacy and the staff is always so nice to them.

I would lreally ike to do wedding cakes but like Cambo, I'm somewhat afraid of a bridezilla and I'm also not really sure how to find the brides.

On another note, I've been to three weddings this season and I've decided that I do just as good of a job.

I really like the cookie idea. I think that might also be a very good idea to pitch to drug reps.

Check out your email provider to see if you can get a free website - that is how I got my first one started. It wasn't a lot of space, but it was enough to get me on the web...now 90% of my business comes from the website alone!

Another thing that you can do is print yourself up some business cards - not hard to do...just use Microsoft Office Word or your own word processing software - I'm sure most of them have that capability! Hand out your cards everywhere, hang them up on community billboards, school billboards, etc. - anywhere that you can think of! Leave the cards in waiting rooms, etc...you get the idea! Pretty soon you will have more orders than you can handle! Then you will have to learn how to say NO!

Good luck on the marketing!
Nicole

I work a full time job as well w/ a small son so I think we're kind of one the same page as doing a few cakes a month for some extra income. I think your ideas sound great so far. I think a website would go a long way in helping you out like a pp mentioned. It's easier for someone (espeically a busy bride) to look through your gallery online in their pj's @ 2am then to set up an appointment to come to your house and flip through a book, kwim?

I also want to get some cake dummies to do some wedding cakes not only for some pictures but it's good practice too! I'm not sure where you live but I live in a very rural area so i'm planning on setting up a decorated wedding cake dummy in the local fair which sounds funny at first but I litterally live in the middle of nowhere and more people come to our fair than anything else during the summer.

Edited to add - I forgot to mention using your family! I don't even have my website up yet or business cards made out and i'm getting people interested in my cakes and cards (I also do custom photo invites & announcements) just from extended familiy passing the word around to their friends.

peytonsmommy - I think we're in the same boat too. I think your idea of making a dummy for the fair is a great idea. Would you also be able to hand out some samples?

My parents are my biggest supporters and my mother has confiscated my album to show to everyone who visits. I have a website that I give out pretty freely but I only have a few wedding cakes on there. I feel like I need a larger selection for brides to choose from so that is why I want to do some dummy cakes this summer. Plus, it would give me a great chance to experiment and do some of the wedding designs that are dancing around in my head.

Good luck and please let me know how it goes at the fair!