Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

106. Baking it Down - A Refreshing Rebrand

April 04, 2023 Heather and Corrie Miracle Season 6 Episode 6
Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪
106. Baking it Down - A Refreshing Rebrand
Show Notes Transcript

👋A Refreshing Rebrand


When you likely got started in your cookie biz, "this will be something I'm still doin' in 2 years" wasn't probably top of mind. If you're like us, this was a random idea > turned hobby > turned money pit > turned "I need to make money or my SO will have my head" - fast forward to today, it's a business - but it wasn't an intentional business. 

So likely - again, if you're like us - "branding" wasn't as much the focus as "juggling 17 hats while baking" was 👒🎩🎓⛑️. Which lands us two years later with a poorly chosen brand identity and business name. 

So what do?
 

👀 *rebranding enters stage right*

Ideally, no business would have to rebrand - but, like in the case of Corrie, there are times when it makes long-term sense for short-term growing pains. Such was Corrie's plight - and here are 4 tips and 4 rebranding snafus we've seen while marketing (and rebranding ourselves). 


❤️ Tip 1 - Check What's Available 

Rule of thumb - don't fall in love with someone that's unavailable. Rule of thumb in branding - don't fall in love with a name that's unavailable. So - before you start planning your billion-dollar baking biz, check what's free - social media handles, domains, etc. Here are two websites I like to use that help with the research:

  • ✅ Social Media: https://namechk.com/
  • ✅ Domains: https://instantdomainsearch.com/


🚫 Snafu 1 - Overcomplicating It

I love the thought and care some y'all put into your brand name - but I don't always love how that reflects your user's experience when typing your name, searching for you, etc. Overcomplicated branding will mean uphill marketing for you. Examples of overcomplication can look like:

  • Brand names that include articles like "a" "an" and "the" 
  • Brand names that include misspellings like "Cookiez"
  • Brand names that include punctuation like dashes "Cookie-z Company" 
  • Brand names that are too long "The Best Cookies in America Cookie Company" 


❤️ Tip 2 - Including Brand + Keyword

In "SEO" best practices, including a brand name (who you are) + keyword (what you're selling) can help you get ahead in search results (Google). This is because you're not keyword stuffing (Cookies Cookies by Cookie Lady Cary - too many keywords in this one), but you're also not too vague (Art for your Plate by Cary - no keyword at all in this one). Examples of brand + keyword can be:

  • Mixing Bowl Cookie Company (Mixing Bowl = brand, Cookie = keyword)
  • Heather's Best Cookies (Heather's Best = brand, Cookies = keyword)
  • Cool Cow Cookies and Cakes (Cool Cow = brand, Cookies and Cakes = keyword)
Unknown:

It is what were you saying not? You're not calling them marketing. We'll call them no house Marketing Marketing dropped the word no, you said it on the last podcast you said to marketing know how and I said no how you're like yeah I said nugget too much. Boy Okay, welcome to the bigger pockets podcast where we go to the Vega get down podcast, which is an extension of the Facebook group. If you haven't joined or if you requested to join and it's still pending blank, Cory delete your pending requests and resubmit it with just podcast, podcast podcast. Yeah, if those are the answers your question for those in podcasts. I'm wondering why are so many people pinned on okay, you're not I know if you don't answer any questions automatic right? There's so much spam and scam in these groups. You can just readily accept everybody. Okay, cool. Then some people to answer the question when you let people in. You have to let them in slowly but surely, so they can get the vibe not get overwhelmed. When a lot of little wavy hands enter group kind of the atmosphere changed a little bit? Yeah, we'll bring them in. Yeah. And our group is So secondly, positive. Okay, you wrote that word yesterday and I was thinking is it succinctly or sickeningly city sleep? Secondly, I think secondly, I think you got it sickeningly sick now that doesn't sound like a row. So then the people okay, so you're doing like it's a win. There's just a few you can kind of come in, you're like, Oh, this is very positive group. Oh, we don't customer mash in here. And then they can kind of get acclimated versus if I let everyone in at the same time. It's just a little chaotic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I do, I am the only one who goes through all the admin and alerts. There's probably like, I've set up many Elitza I have to read through them. If there's a curse word, I have to delete it. So when it tags a word, it doesn't take Oh, it tags this word. It just said moderation alert. Now I have to read the comment. Oh, yeah. Well, you say the word could college and it shows up. You could say turn it off. But I am I'm letting in slowly but surely each and every day. You know if you want to be moved to the top of the list, talking of podcast back or send me the name that you're under and on it always works. Yeah. I usually immediate front of the line when you say yeah, because I can search. Yeah, yeah, fair. Okay. I can search your name. What is the podcast about the podcast is actually someone recommended this group because we talked about it one time on the podcast said we were going to do it in there. Did we Okay, so it is about re branding. Her branding. Best practices are rubbish, rebranding. booboos. We've seen, I think, let's do first best practices. Okay, so if you know, I was the chrome cookie for the longest time since day, you know, I just made it up in the middle of the night one night. I have many gripes Heather hated it. hated it. Honestly, when I made you. Okay, user interface you from a UX experience a user experience. I feel like you had three issues. You already know what you're actually gonna throw in the fourth because I know you know what I'm gonna say the first one is using the article though. Yeah, when I see a business include the word that it makes me automatically assume from a marketing perspective that somebody has the Nanda version, so the app, okay. So, think about it this way. The college is parked and for sale. I mean, sorry, college is parking for sale. So we are the college which is immediately what I suspect when I see the article, though, is that the first one was take the word that kind of flows has a place sometime, but I will say it looks weird to have a new URL. Okay. Then you had Heather, you had an adjective. Yeah, that was had a tense to it now. chromed confidence, and that'd be a verb. Anyways, your grammar folk can chime in. So the article chromed a past tense, so but a lot of people thought she was saying crumb. Yeah, you would have to really enunciate wrongly and have it do not do. I found it's because our lips don't have crumb. So you could you imagine the chromed tight? Yeah, I always had to spell it. chromed Chrome, the cross eyed Chrome has been it and that's just a wild word. Crumb. I know. There's a silent like what a wild word. Heather didn't like that. It ended where you had to say if you say the chromed cookie out loud. If you actually enunciate, you have to say that chromed paws, cookies, Clara. This is my third grade cookies was plural. So we have a lot of great chromed cookie. I'm just saying it just leaves a little question. Did she say cookies? Or cookie? Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. And then think this was gonna take no one ever does. You just say oh, gotta have a name. Okay, I'll just pick this name and then you're stuck with this rebranding question. Now the final nail in Korea's branding coffin was It was very similar to a popular chain called crumble crumble but that when I first made mine they weren't over here see crumble goes a step further and adds a belly out and just have crumble crumble. Yeah, which is a wild now we were so far from the original word so with the power of those four combined they are Captain rebrand they are a captain and what I prefer in life personally is a refresh it versus a rebrand so Tom break us down the difference between the two a rebrand is like you're changing a lot of the noticeable things so you're changing your name, you're changing your logo, you know, the color is everything Yeah. refreshes, I may be tweaking the logo or making it you know, I know a lot of people are like, this is my logo, and I'll die with it. Google has changed his logo many times. Look at AOL, look at Yahoo these big companies are not afraid of a refresh. And it helps because just like clothes have trends. So does graphic design and there's many trends that are coming going. If you've seen right now maximalism in graphic design where everything is almost too crowded, and that is kind of a retro vibe. If you see Pepsi announced its refresh, and they brought back in it's 1970s Go on. It's both so it looks like nostalgic, but brought into future feel like that's where the Middle World is that kind of right now. You remember Pepsi's. Oh lugworm kind of look like somebody with their forgot to put a belt on and it's like their pants are falling down? Yeah. My sorry. Oh, Pepsi. Id Lu. Okay, hold down. Hold on. Here it comes. See, okay. Oh. Okay. So here is this one. They always say it looks like a man with a belly. I see it right. And now their logo that they just came out with is this guy. Oh, yeah, I like that one. Right. So that was very noisy. Oh, sorry. We're gonna bring them not a word. But anyways, Pepsi Cola, rebranded, they refreshed. Now for what we were dealing with Cory and what we've done dealt with a few clients. A rebrand is kind of everything. Yeah, that's colors. The word the low. It just, it's starting over. Yeah, it kind of felt like I was stored. It is rough. From SEO perspective. It is a rough thing to do. Yeah. But there are cases in times where the long con, it makes sense to do it now. So let's talk about that. When is a good time to rebrand sooner, the better? I think, yeah, where you get? So out of the gate, if you can, if you're just getting started, you're like, I haven't even chosen a name yet. Here's some some pet tips. And I want to say they're not tips. They're highly encouraged. Because this is no misspellings. Just just really try not to do, I will say if I'm trying to tag a business in a Facebook group to give them a referral. And it's so misspelled that I'm having to leave that I will actually just fit in more million steps and nobody's going to do it. So think about a huge lead source when it comes to cookies is people tagging your page and groups. If those people can't readily find your page do you have it was misspelling or something like that. It is going to be an uphill battle again, our funnels of converting people, the longer we make them, the less sales we make. So why even start? Going uphill? Why even start going uphill with a very complex name? Nothing. What have your keyword in your name? I know, I know. It's not cute. I know. Here's what I see a lot of bakers say, Well, I don't just want to be captured into cookies. What if I want to expand one day? Welcome. Welcome to the battle that is choosing the correct name. You know, Korean, I have the policy riches are in the niches. So when you broaden your name, which sounds cool, because you open it up wide. You also aren't great. You're a jack of all trades, master of none. Yeah, right. Plus, you can't necessarily I wouldn't suggest necessarily using bakery because to me, it sounds like a brick and mortar and I'm gonna be showing up at your house. It's a rough one. So I mean, we're obviously biased because this is sugar cookie marketing. I like having the word cookies in the logo. And the in the name. Yeah. Because think of it from a search perspective. When I say search, Google search, search engines are huge traffic drivers. They say 70% of people I think use Google although chat GTP be loving it. Yeah. But you know what I was reading today, Google said made a huge announcement yesterday mentioned AI none. Why? They're not focusing on it. But what they found is that Gen Z doesn't like Google search, because Gen Z wants to see a visual vibe of the location they're trying to go to so where are they going? They're going to Tik Tok and Instagram rules. So Google says we will not be left out because Google search is pretty ugly. I guess it's taxpayer. No picture it is they're coming with a highlights. video feed. oh nine for sure. search. You can search for a restaurant and see it within Oh wow. And then they're going to like have experts that give you a honest like review kind of building Yelp into this little local guy and I not sure he didn't really spell out exactly. I just read a precursor of the whole thing but you okay, because Google knows but when we talk about search, okay, if I'm gonna give you an obscure name, let's Okay, what's your cat's name? Fuzz? Yeah. fuzzing wasm. So what of course name was business name was fuzzing wasn't okay. Well, it has her cat. She loves her cat. It's her vibe. Everything's real cute. But if I'm searching for cookies, fuzzing wasn't isn't going to show up first. And if you even saw that name it when connected right. Like, and that's a big thing is that first inclination that people have when they see your name, does it scream, I sell what you're looking for. But then you have to say, well, I don't want to be pigeonholed into just cookies then. Then you think bakery which most people associate with the storefront. And it's that it's that you know, fine line of too far too little. I prefer what let's see you do cookies. We also do cookie class, but we incorporated that into the name. Did you? Did you actually, you incorporate it into almost like the tagline. Yeah. So I guys are great. Yeah. So it wasn't necessarily in the name, but it's in the tagline right under the name. So it's mixing bowl cookie company. Cookies and classes is the tag. But you don't offer anything else? Not really. So what if somebody did cookies, classes and pies? Would you add that to the tagline? But then you'd be like, then I can only do three things. Right? So I say niching down, find what sells the best. I wouldn't be shocked if a cookie baker offered cake pops through, I always get people saying hey, can you do my cake and cookies? And I'm like no to the cakes and stuff. If you were I would say find what your predominant big seller is and lean into that. And then you know, I can go to MOD Pizza and understand that I can get a salad. True, right? So you got to give a little credit, credit to your audience that they have. I can go there but get everything on. Yeah, like not just pancakes. So as long as we're in the house of baked goods, I think we're pretty close. And I think our audience will be like, oh my goodness, that cookie baker selling a cake. What do you think about when people say, Cookie cakes? And more? And more and more has taken a lot of real estate and added nothing? It doesn't add any value? No. So for me, I'm at Shark Tank reference. For those who don't know, I would say if your name is the prime real estate coach, when you think of keyword search, you think of brand. Right now best practice is in SEO is brand plus keyword not just keyword Korean, our sugar cookie marketing group. That's an example of keyword only. Not ideal for search. But an example of it being better would be miracle twins market or something like that, where you have a brand and the keyword. Otherwise it can lend itself to keyword stuffing, which is saying Cookies, cookies, cookies, Cookies, cookies. Yeah, and then be like, well, I guess. So that's something to keep in mind. Absolutely. If I could say no misspellings at all, ever. There's a no case for a misspelling. What do you say? Just throwing it out there. I know. I'm kind of throwing off your list, including your name. And in the baking. I see a lot of baker's start off with that. And then they're like, I hate it. I hate saying my name in the logo. It would it would fit with the brand plus keyword your name being the brand. Yeah, if you're fine with your name, I'm absolutely fine with it. It does fit the model of brand plus keywords who Korea's cookies would be absolutely fine. However, Corey is a hardware for many people, speller is Heather's cookies, on the other hand is pretty self explained. And there's a million shares out there. I don't know when I see Sarah's cookies. I don't know which one is what if now, okay, let's go to the other side of this. If it's an overused name, see, the good thing about domain names is only one person can own it. Yeah. Unfortunately, Facebook, anyone can put a page name, even if it's used 50,000 times. Yeah. Right. So when I go to tagging and pulling up the wrong one, and I'm like, oh, now I'm gonna go do some research that had to do that to try to match people up to their businesses. And I was like, This is impossible. I had to, you know, zoom in on that. saying, yeah, if I have to write a research paper to figure out which brand is yours, I would say probably wouldn't go I would recommend against using Yeah, well, my name is Sarah. And so as apparently 50,000 Other bakers, I would find something else but that marries brand plus keyword cookies, cakes, pies, whatever it is. I know what people are thinking. I'm just gonna put it all in my name cookies, cakes pies. That's a long name. Yeah. So then we have the thing is it too long? Because again, as a small business, you're not only working in a digital space, you're often working in a print space. If your email is so long, it goes off the business card that three by two, that that it's still not a great name. Yeah. And I know it's tempting to say well, this says cookies is taken so serious cookies and cakes. would be great. But now look how considerably long that is. And you also added in and and yeah, yeah, the conjunction? No, those don't ask me. But yeah, so making that name tremendously long, even though you solve one problem you introduced another. Again, this is why branding is so crazy. And in which case with Cory there's a case for it even though from a search engine from an SEO perspective, it is starting over. And from my perspective dealing with like outwardly with my potential customers, even though I made the whole thing from the start of the branding idea to the rebrand it took six months, because I needed more audience them. I wanted to include them. Like I included them in on the name picking. Did I care about their answers? No, I was already gonna choose what I was like getting them warmed up to the fact that there will be a change. Yeah. Now, did you likely lose some cool? Watch? Sorry, what someone wants to do? He said, thank you. Yeah, I don't think we have I don't know. Okay, so we're still talking about the tips and tricks, not the faux pas. The popup tips and tricks again, they run back to the domain. Domain is the URL at the WWW dot right? You if you go to Sarah's cookies.com, if Sarah, if you're listening to this, enjoy the free traffic. If you go to Sarah, if you go to purchase Sarah's cookies that comments taken, then you want to say well, then I'll just purchase one of these 50,000 other extensions so.co.org.net. Now there's so many of them. Don't. And here's a big reason why when you type those weirder extensions on Facebook, it doesn't recognize it as a URL. Really? Yeah, like, I mean, you can do dot kitchen now. Yeah, guys. Yeah, you can do a lot of these. But because there's so odd I find that Facebook really likes to Major guys.com. Dakota not. So you may be thinking well, then I'll just do the.co Yeah. But here's the thing, who has the.com Because the way that the internet started the.com bubble, we don't have the.com bubble. We don't call it the dot now. But that was so pervasive that every website lived on a.com extension that now your phone automatically has a.com. Like you can press that with us. And one of the other ones, though, is same with when you go to Gmail when you're like. So yeah, you may say, Well, somebody has serious cookies that come I'll do serious cookies, that code when your audience specifically if I'm thinking of my grandmother, who you get a lot of people in their 70s Ordering cookies, when they go to type in Sarah's cookies, you say that code, they'll naturally likely put.com Yeah, in passing, if you're like, Yeah, my website, Sarah Dotco. It when I finally sit down to look you up, I'm gonna type in.com Just because I'm not gonna remember that, or do the search engine thing, but I'm gonna guarantee serious cookies is very, when people ask us dayjob question, what should I name my business, my first thing is Google what you want and see what shows up first, if the website that shows up in the first position is updated constantly, it's beautiful, it's a website with a lot of information, it's probably going to be really hard to move in in front of them. So don't want to be a competitor. So if we have somebody, if the website that's in the top spot, is really nicely done and manage, it's now considered competitive, because to fight them, it will be a fight, it won't be a natural, like, why just put something up that was barely good and moved up to the front. And to fight an SEO, it's money and time. Yeah. A lot of time, a lot of great articles. And then they have just time in on their sites or websites that are a bit older, have a lot more respect from search engines, especially if they're, you know, good at you got to think the search engine, it doesn't care about you, it cares about its user, the person searching, if a user comes to your website doesn't find what they like, Google will be like, Okay, you're not you're not first place anymore. You're gonna find somebody else who's giving the search intent, who's answering the query in a way that people want it? Yeah. Because when you click to a website, Google is watching how long you sit on that page. It's watching what you do after you click on that page. It's watching everything that happens on that page. And if the bounce rate exceeds, what the person below yeah, has that person below, you will rise above. Yeah. And there's a lot of factors that go into the ranking. But that's just like a common one that people always say, Okay, I really like cats cookies, and more, then see what happens when you search it. Yeah, I think before you leave and get there with the website, you send people to instant domain search.com. Okay. Instant domain search just lets me search a domain idea really, really quickly, and gives me the options and if it's parked, so I want to talk about something else parked domains versus websites. Okay. So sometimes there's a secondary domain market where where people can resell it domains typically domains are $13. Yeah. Domain what she's talking about is like, sugar cookie marketing.com. That is the domain. So let's pretend a Korean I don't have sure Cookie marketing.com is a website, but a reseller selling it. They can put whatever price tag they want. Yeah, so app Sumo is a lifetime deals website for software. He wanted the guy who developed it was like an influencer sorts wanted sumo.com It was resold for million dollars as a paid. Course he had the money for it. Yeah. So App Sumo. He wanted people just to be because imagine just the word Sumo. It's four letters. Yeah. Easy to remember. Yeah. And right along his friend, but he had the money for it. A lot of us who are getting started, we do not have the money. I think cookie college is like $5,000. Is that something Korean? I would want? I don't know. No, not right now. So it's always good to check. So let's pretend that cookie college was just a great website where people learned how to get cookies at colleges, right. And we wanted to enter the space I want her to say query probably back to the drawing board and the name because there's already a really high functioning website with a brand behind. Yeah, fortunately for us, it's parked and it's for sale. So a lot of people aren't gonna show up and anyways, true. Instant domain search clicking clicking contact broker it's going to be behind a paywall. Ah, click Add to cart to find out the price. Yeah. Please let us know what you want to pay. Once I was like, a while ago, I'm sorry. 1200. That's it. Yeah. Oh, no college cookie. Somebody sell us our college cookies is 2000 College cookie companies making. And I love looking at these cookies for college.com is three days. Good. But looking at these, so I typed in cookie college.com, which is you know, for sale, but cookie college.us $10? Why wouldn't I get it? Because you would not type in.us and.us is a geographical location United States? Why would I want to tell half my audience you can't buy it from me. If you're in another country. That's not buy from us. So that was another thing to keep in mind when you're coming up with your brand name. So let's talk about why you chose because I think it was an interesting name you chose it was Cory spent probably two months thinking of the name. I did. I wouldn't you have any other contenders? Yeah, what was the other one it did Dad. Dad said though. Something I could look it up. But I had one that was the top contender both were like kind of cuter. And I think my brand is kind of cute. Instead of making her brand about herself, which you see a lot of people tend towards, you went to geographical location identifiers. Yeah. So if you're around the Northern Virginia area, there's this big part of this major highway called the mixing bowl. It is a it's a highway that will eat you up and spit. You ready? We will. It has I don't know, at some point. And that makes him about 17 lanes across. Yeah. So it's huge. And everyone knows if you say the mix it will everyone's brain just went to that you know where you have to choose if you're going to DC, Maryland or tight? Yeah. Do you want to go to Maryland around Maryland? Or do you want to go to Maryland through Dc, You have to make that decision. Also, please know at the end of the road is a huge wall of traffic and we sitting in regardless. So Cory chose mixing bowl cookie company, we had a lot of conversations about company whether to abbreviate it or to spell it out in my heart. I wanted to do keto, because it rolls off the tongue a lot better. But when it came down to what was available company was available on each one. So when Cory says each one, here's another website that I like name check.com. But leave out the names. You'll see that you get why they named it that way to play into the fact that name check was taken. So name check.com tells you which handles are available. And that's what I see. Which is a bummer. Korean ice and performance sugar cookie marketing underscore Yeah. Is take is our Instagram handle because the one without the underscores taken and it never updated. Yeah. So when you go and you're saying, hey, if let's say the domain name isn't available, the Facebook page isn't available the Twitter name, whoever does the Twitter name isn't available? I would say maybe that's a sign that this is a crowded namespace. I would agree. Right? I would agree. And I think you'd want to have a little bit more uniqueness, if you could differentiator. Yeah. Right. Because again, we don't want to have our users battle to figure out who's who. Exactly. Exactly. So you may say, but I really really wanted to name you and a bunch of other people apparently Yeah, I would if I if you asked me if I was your marketing consultant, I would say let's come up with something else. The thing that me and Heather don't have it Emotions, we don't name things with emotions, you know, we just name it with the with the priority of reaching our goal here yet to make more money is what it is. That's what our if that's our goal, we want to make that as easy as possible if you're like, Well this is my art and my artistry and identity. Well, you're gonna have a lot more emotion than coronary we're like, Yeah, let's optimize for sales. In which case if you really want to make this about more than sales, you name it or whatever you want. Yeah, these are just best practices. If you're like, I want that green model so Okay, let's go back to mixing bowl Cookie Cat. I do find that to be a very long domain. So did we reserve the word Yeah, but you made my email the shorter one. So because mixing bowl cookie company so long we reserve both the mixing bowl cookie co.com and mixing well cookie company.com I redirected both to the same location and Cory can catch if I really wanted to I could set up emails on both and have him four to one if I wanted to. But I noticed on your Tiktok you had shown it I think you exceeded the character limit no I didn't have to one of them has and one of them is CO no at the beginning when I was like yeah, I want to make a coat but then you had to wait 30 days to change your name to an hour all company it is yeah, that's ideal. When you set up your email and you said girl, it's too long. I don't want to take that much when I wish I did you want to pay for tip I paid for three people are still emailing crello Like I'm still getting leads through it even though now we got to figure out where they're coming from. Or not find it somewhere. This person was recommended by somebody. So I just assumed she gave email but I do keep getting leads through there. Oh, yeah, no. Okay, well, that's another sticky but our branding is the residual places where you listen if you did any type of like it was on my my, you know when you can set up your instant replies on Google My Business. Oh, it's there list there. That's a tough one. I almost wish I could go back in time I'd make a list of where just everything you're gonna read. So okay, that walks us through kind of your rebrand best practices. Now, let's talk about snafus. snafus, I think a huge one is that residual lurking you have old it isn't really you have to look in your about sections. You have to look in listing any listing I know any listings, you can tell I'm thinking farmer's markets, if you're listed on a website, you gotta but now you say Well, should I reach out to the Yes, reach out to places where you have old listings once we helped a client rebrand. And I just went through Google search and say, Can you change the name? Can you change this name can and you just got to keep doing it. You're not going to be able to get all those directories updated. But you can if you at least try that's what you want to do. It's really hard at least when it came to our rebrand to make sure old customers found out so a couple things we did. Yeah, back to tips and tricks is for Korea's Google business profile. We did a mixing bowl cookie company company formerly the chromed cookies and that was my name on there for a while for I mean, like six months. Yeah, I left it on there. And then on Korea's cover photo we did the Moxie mocha the company logo and all the colors and the bottom formula. I think it's still there. Formerly the chrome cookies, it's somewhere No, it's still on there on the banner image. And for the longest time when, when Heather announced the rebrand, we had pin that to the tops. So it explained why there was a rebrand where we came from where we were going with the name feature added to your email signature, it would have been it would have been it would have been tips and tricks we did. Another thing you had it in your Instagram in the game I did do in my name part where it said Cory miracle. Actually, I changed it to formally the chrome cook came gave me that tip because that's searchable. And then you had in your bio. And then we had so instead of using link tree Korean I have sure me sure we've got as a lifetime deal through you'll never guess. And that we had it there might even still be there. So again, we're just constantly telling the clients what it would be nice. And I don't think you have one set up as an email marketing campaign. Or you could just say I would have been smart. But in the wake of that actually having a Facebook ad to people who like your page already, to kind of wake them up like, look what we're doing where we were, and then we could have we could have done much better with ads. Yeah, but again, it's volume. So you and I are focusing on sugar you marketing cookie college classes. Yeah. So it's kind of like, again, if you want to fill up your calendar, you're going to be more aggressive. Yes. Which is another thing I think we should talk about on the podcast. People always like what do you put back into marketing? It depends on what kind of campaign if you're an aggressive campaign growth phase, you're going to be doubling tripling down your marketing budget, and once you have that funnel kind of built up, you're gonna pull back a little bit in your marketing budget can go much down and you don't want to go to zero I always tell people it's funny because when we work with clients for so long their expectations rise to a new status quo. Yeah. And then all sudden, they're like, Well, this is how it's always been. No, it's because there's no marketing behind you. But then they're like, why? I don't need any more. I'm, I'm good. But then I'm said, you're gonna see this fall off very slowly. Because marketing takes a long lifecycle before your audience's like, I forgot what the name of Yeah, yeah. Back to rebranding. Let's talk about colors. So, Korea had a pretty key again, like many of you guys listening, she just didn't think I was going to become anything now. Just as little side hobby. Whoever starts a hobby and thinks this will be something I'm gonna do better. So Cora had just downloaded the pixel drawing app. So I drew a cookie that was crying. I just thought it was funny. Yeah. And queasy. I'll just make this my stupid logo for nothing because she was napping, a crying cookie, but it was pixelated. It was confused. It was complicated. It was hard to use. Yeah, he was cute, though. He was adorable. It was crying. So you had a weird spat. Why are you so sad all the time, because he got eaten in his head. And otherwise bored. So what we what we wanted to do this rebrand. Rather than just change the name, let's change everything. And let's completely because again, no motion to the crime cookie guy. He's cute. But money's kind of cuter. So Heather said, Let's make this look like a bigger brand. So with that feeling of a bigger brand is the trustworthiness that just comes with something that's well branded. It's doing some of that, you know, credibility work for you. You don't have to earn every single customer. It actually comes with this feeling. When you click to someone's website, or on their Facebook page, you're like, Wow, I feel like this because this company is not going to close in the middle of the night on me a great way to do this high quality photos. Yeah, high quality graphic design. A Canva templates can take you a long way they can where you think that like I don't know what I'm doing. One. There's a Skillshare class on absolutely everything under the sun. And if not, there's a free YouTube video. But when we talked about that, and this is what I know, some people will be like, Why don't want us to be seen as a big brand. I want to be a mom and pop. What Cory is kind of saying here is that, have you ever hired somebody and you're like, I'm not sure you got my email. Because I feel like you don't even have a website. The same way that you no longer would likely order from a company that doesn't have a website is the same way that Corey saying like having branding dial in just a bit is going to give your audience a peace of mind that if I call this person and give them my money, I'm going to get something out of it. I know you guys have clicks to a Facebook page out there. If you're looking for a cleaner or a roofer, you've clicked to their Facebook page to see you know, a little bit more about them. And it's like cobwebs and dust they haven't posted posted it for two years. No comments and like the review replies Yeah, that doesn't feel good as a consumer. You don't have as a consumer when or that thing fast thing slow book. It says your brain really tries to not make a lot of decisions. It's a waste of energy. It's trying to be like Hey, I got only so much time in the day. If I see one company that looks like it's updated all the time. It has five star reviews has 100 views. One cover that looks like it hasn't been seen in decades you'll you'll just naturally choose one. So having your branding your name brand dialed in will help that process along just a little faster. Yeah, and I will say a lot of people choose to talk like oh, we here at the mixing bowl cookie company, you know No, it's just me. So I will say I will be that person like you are just working with the big grandson. Interesting idea. So Cory I guess in a way using AI is still Mom and Pop. That's when I feel a lot of people say say the we think is it sounds bigger. But you're a mom and pop so what if your branding was dialed in, but it was still you quarry the baker? Yeah. And then I know for sugar classes, I just call us twins right now like we do. Yeah, I don't causes me and Heather have never been like the officiant audit like we're not official people. Like we've worked with companies that like to have that conversational approachable neighbor next door neighbor by Yeah, that's what we're more like some of our clients though, higher end clients, especially if you were going to luxury cakes for weddings. Maybe the branding is gonna look a little bit different. Maybe we're gonna have a lot more gold or yellows or you know, lux. Yeah, and I think I'm making a bunch of birthday cookie. So we need to be fun and very, right. How you brand is what you attract. Yeah. You know, if you guys don't know what a serif font is in a Sans without saris font, you know, like when I say Times New Roman, it has a little things on the edge. That's a serif font. Sans Serif, is without those edges sounds like without? Yes, so yours is a sans serif font because Sans Serif fonts seem more conversational. Yeah. Serif fonts with kerning. The spacing between each letter if you take a serif font and add spacing between it looks really clean fonts are going to be more high end. So you'd say naturally if you're a marketing person, why why most have the most money possible. That's what we're here for. You're not here to make friends. I'm here to make Franklin's so you'd say well, then of course I'm going to be up market brain But if you'd also have does it mean Korea Hartley cheering these days? Of course he wants to, we're gonna need DLR as a shirt, then maybe she's going to go for a more approachable brand. But there may be more money in that wedding venue. However, if you want to match that branding, then your text your copy your photos, I would say you wanted to go for corporate clients, they just kind of want that. My logo, you're gonna get it done. Right? Agency quick turnaround and consistency in short, concise to the point. Can you get this done? Yes, I can. Right. And if you want to go to weddings, you're going to talk about dreams. Best day of your life, more adjectives in there. When you're trying to make it really luxurious. You're going to confirm a wedding. What does a wedding person want? They want. They want to make sure you're there and they want it to be the best you've ever done. Yeah, if you're doing kids birthday parties, we're not going to come in with that wedding high end vibe. We're gonna come in with a sans serif font and mixing dough cookie company. I like making your kiddies that kind of. So you're going to kind of think about that when you're going into a rebranding phases. What is the messaging that you're going to see yourself doing today? And two years from today, assuming that this keeps going act as if that's the plan? Yes. Also with coloring, I didn't really have any colors going on in my life with the other one. It was around cooking. That's about it. There was no, there was no rhyme or reason. So Heather took it and we went bright. eye catching. This feels good. This is fun to look at. We went with like a peachy red, which I thought was a vibe and like a just a lighter than a cheesy orange. Yeah, I think it's very, it's very appealing. It's white. Yeah. So I had three colors to choose from because because here's my one thing. Well, here's it back to snafus, when I have a client that's so rigid on their logo that we're not even allowed to piece it apart. It is going to make your branding really screw hard to work with. So Cory and I came up with an icon the icon is you'll never guess a cookie is ever bite taken out of it. Yeah. And then I think I have a version of it where the bite still there. Why? Because on Facebook, we work in circles. Yeah. I think in Google, my business weren't squares. So on Facebook, if I can have an icon identifier, that means I don't have to have the text there. Now, Heather, when she when the texture is mixing bokuto there's a lot of words that you're not even having stacked to so we can make them a little bigger. It's not a big enough space. But I can have an icon. Think about Google Google's a word Goog le, but they use the G as their icon. And to incorporate the other colors, the G is all of the colors. That's how they do it. Then you have like, Internet Explorer, we all know as the E. But then they switch to edge we're gonna say kept the E Yeah. Okay. So kind of thinking of that. But coming up with these icons makes the logo usage a lot easier. Now, if you say why always I always have these clients are like, I don't touch it. Don't mess it up. Don't really, because that's just gonna be really hard to work with when we only have very small spacing. Yeah, that's where the emotion comes in. It's, it's sometimes you have to sit down and be like, how a test for the business? Yeah, what's best for the business? And if you're like, you know what, no, you won't, hey, then that's best for you. It's not best for your business. And as long as you know that, yeah, if you're saying, Hey, I don't want to do this, I know it's best for my business, but I'm gonna say no, say also finish the rest of sense. I'm making my funnel longer. And I'll have just a little bit of a harder time making sales, but I'm willing to double down on the effort because I'm unwilling to change in this one aspect. Wow, that's a lot worse to say that and then you shove it into a logo. That's very true, though. Now I liked Listen, we have to have the ability to switch the colors around. So Corys logo is white text with a white icon. However, in various places, I'll make the icon the colors and the background white and just where it fits better where it gets more attention. There's, you know, ADA compliance as well. So if your logo is really hard to view, some websites won't even let you use it yet, because it's kind of these kind of like, an example of poor colors together is bright blue and bright yellow. It's hard to see. And then so do you want to be ATA compliant ideally. So keep in mind that a lot of those colors that don't work pride on a great anyway, so something to keep in mind, but people are difficult. One thing in life consistency is death, taxes and difficult like their logos. But if you're thinking you don't like your logo, let's recap no typos try to keep the logo succinct. Don't pick something that a lot of people are already using. Simple simple, simple, the more simply you can make your logo the better. Match your vibe match your approachability. If you want to be Lux be Lux Lux Lux if you want to be neighborhood cookie baker be neighborhood cookie baker if you want to be corporate kooky bigger, can these all crossover? Absolutely. But again, we're just shortening your funnel to get really close to our target audience. When asked. I kind of really like colors that are friendly and approachable that match your vibe again. Yeah, there's such things as luxury colors, if you think royal blue, royal purple, and there's things as these approachable colors Did your like these peaches and stuff? Yeah. And things like that. What else? What else do or were you in the faux pas? I kind of feel like we just stuck them all together. I think we just complained that these people when it comes to how we marketed it was a six month long process of giving my audience the idea that it was going to happen, but also including them in on the process, like Heather made this logo and Heather hated it. But it was this circle that had a road through it was the worst thing I've ever done in my life. But what it did was allow my audience to free up sacrifice. And she posted in a community group, what does everyone think of this? Of course, you're like it like like puke? Yeah. But what it did was if the people knew that, like, Oh, you're bringing branding, oh, here's what I and it just got my name out there just a little bit more, and I let my audience kind of have a choice in it, then I let my audience have a choice in the name. And what this was doing was they weren't necessarily going to decide it for me, because I knew it was going to do, but it kept them involved in the process. So their comments helped with reach and everything like that. But also keep in mind this your if we go back to the old 2% rule, people aren't seeing your posts now. So that one time you make a post, it's just it's gonna have to be more than once. It's gonna have to be the process of rebranding. Another thing that I think you did that you're not giving yourself credit for is the videos of like, hey, Heather, ordered me tissue paper. Here's what it looks like. It's got my new logo on it. So again, those are multiple and multiple reminders that this company is switching yours. Now an example is we had another client who was like, rebrand, and I want it launched in a week, of course, behind the scenes. It had been going on but they wanted the announcement to the clients to be just immediate, like no, no hug. Yeah, just Yeah, it's so abrasive that it caused weird panic of like, what did the other business close down did buy you out? Is it no longer negative? Or positive? So what I wanted to do and of course, just work in marketing my whole life, I don't know what I'm doing. What I want to do is slowly work with the audience and keep the like circular logo kind of keep the announcement I would really like to have videos where they're announcing why the change anyways, no, it was extremely abrasive. And then it had to be reverted because the audience was like, Whoa, where you don't feel safe, so starkly different, I like that you can, you can always do a brand refresh, you're not locked into your logo, if you're like, Yeah, you know, I want to refresh it, you can, you know, spice it up a little bit. A lot of the refreshes, you'll see are very similar to what they were before. And just some aspects have been brought into whatever century that we're in currently from where they were 10 years ago. With the client that we're referencing, now it was 100% change, there was absolutely no consistency other than the services provided. So I just thought that was really hard for an audience who's already disinterested in everything to have to adapt to so quickly again, our audience has no loyalty they want simple they want familiarity and we did or the client did exactly the opposite. Complex and not familiar said people spiral even these you know companies that aren't that you don't think a lot of people have an allegiance to what they know. And then you've just said kids we're gonna divorce Yeah, and it's kind of hard to deal with that. So you got to keep in mind that your audience very very short attention spans very limited loyalty we want to respect that by pulling them along with this kind of that hug Hey, okay, we're all going to be okay and I know that these businesses that we were making cookies, but a lot of folks only order from you guys once a year yeah a lot of times on their kids birthday. So imagine when they go and you're gone I don't how are they going to make that connection so the ways that we you will lose people you is people you close down and I found that you had Yeah, you're gonna have people fall out of the funnel so you've got to plan accordingly I will say to that point changing the name there was a slight where I didn't feel like it was getting as many leads for sure in I was like Oh, little panic. So build that. Yeah. If you have to do a couple of kooky classes to flow your business as you are guaranteed to lose leads people will not another thing if you if we're just saying six months run time get that email list going I want to help Korea a lot we didn't have one put together sloppy marketing and do everything. That would have been great. Hey, guys, this is coming. Hey guys, a reminder. Then if you had a dial in CRM, it would have been like hey, Shelly, I know you order for me last year just wanna let you know I'm still out so you could get more what a great way to reach out and a lot of people like it feel awkward saying happy birthday by for me. So those are things to keep in mind. Should you rebrand there cases where I see you guys tag your pages and I'm like that you are you're having to work harder. Yeah. Because of what you're dealing with some of your logos pretty complicated. I find I'm sure you know it. It's difficult to to work with, it's very complex. It's hard to make into smaller pieces that fit different dimensions if we have a fire, versus we have a business card. What if I said a sticker? Here's the thing printed off on a thermal printer. You'll know if it takes no prisoners. That's complicated. Mike, I'm gonna bring it up. So that's just some things to consider with a rebrand or refresh. Yeah, so what we did was we got cute circular business cards, because now her icon was very easy to work with, although still circular still so good, but I think they're absolutely adorable. And the colors are, what did I do on it? You did? Like all the branding, so everything that you did you just put it on there. Okay. We did the tissue paper, the custom tissue paper, custom boxes, there may be a custom yard sign. All these have the same colors in the logo is called like giant stamps. And it's a stamp that's this big. You need that because they were stamping it on giant bags, but it was huge. Surely how we do I guess you take the pad and just stamp it like this. Yeah. The only way is a huge stamp. I suppose. See what it looks like. Where's it's gonna be? I guess whatever stamp color you wanted. You could get a punchy red, or Yeah, you could. Yeah, that'd be cute. Wouldn't want show up on a white bag? Yeah, the more the more you're willing to budge on colors and reverse them and immerse them it is it is yeah, so ask yourself Do you know the big things or the not having the.com I can you do a diamond I guess Can you add an article sugar corn I did it can you add an underscore at the end of year? Yeah there's cases there's just best practices there's good practices there's okay practices in there like that's your you're having to work a lot harder than you should have to but I think don't be scared of a rebrand I think it can you might feel alone in the sales as people get used to it take your time. Yeah, and it can actually produce more leads for you once you rebrand What do you think about timing the rebrand around a slow season. I wouldn't necessarily want to be random Christmas. I know but a slow season then when they then it's busy season. So when Easter Mother's Day, those are to me the middle of the road through to solace. Time will be July. Barna find out I guess I waited till January because I still felt like I was in feeding or it's kind of a slower time, right? Yeah. So I mean, there's some there's some logic to play in there. If you want to start warming up your audience. If I would say, July would be my rebrand I would start warming them up in January. Oh, it's six months, then come Christmas. What I wouldn't want to do is like I wouldn't know I would be like after Christmas. You might theory because why we're saying that the holidays starting in the end of September when we lead into Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those are when people are like, I'd know I bought from her last year, what's her name? They're just wanting to throw their money at somebody and they don't want to research who that is. So I guess I wouldn't necessarily time at any time near those big holidays unless it's after? Yeah, I guess. And then you can make post on next door, you have your business account there you have your Google business profile, I would make multiple posts, I would have campaign updates. Yeah, on there, I would say three months of reminding people that you change your name. And then also that email us would have been really solid because you you're back in the inbox, we could have sent an email from your old one, and then the new one would have been good again, there's best practices and then there's meeting those who talk about best practice, but that is something to keep in mind as you migrate. Also, if you had a domain and now you're getting a new one a redirect people 301 temporary redirect shows people that they've been migrated but on the website I encourage people to say real big this was this is where you thought you were going and you're still in the right place. I've just changed my name and if you're wondering what redirect is, that means if you did show your cookie marketing that calm but we changed our name to sugar cookie twins.com You'd still end up on sugar cookie twins even though you typed in sugar cookie marketing if a website it no longer exists, it pulls up a 404 error that means a website is gone to let your audience go there and would feel like you've closed and we wouldn't want that so would you be paying for two domains? Yes you would just for just for a while 10 bucks isn't gonna make or break Yeah, I think it's worth it. But I'd also probably keep that redirect going just in a case at some directory some yellow some yes you can get to may have that old domain so you can still capture that traffic. Yeah. You guys got this? Okay. I don't know I have been handing out my business cards like every time someone orders whether you're ordering just like pick up a Pio or you're I'm just including business cards. You take it give it to somebody but put this one on your fridge. There's many you're gonna sneeze a little bit. allergy season. I know. I turned on the AC it was a fluke. I'm gonna I saw on Reddit the Northern Virginia subreddit somebody's like I've just moved here What is this stuff on my car? Yeah, everyone has little circles and water droplets and pollen and someone's like Welcome to the area the trees are having babies it is wrecking with me that said we would if you rebrand it again let's pretend you wanted to okay what how when would that be when would be ideal time? I'm always thinking two years I think a rebrand every two years any shorter and I feel like you have commitment issues I would be like well if you never rebranded not a bad thing now if your branding was really complicated it might be a bad thing if you're trying to like you know yeah that's what I see most in the in the sugar cookie marketing group people like I made this you know, in the dark of night one night now I hate it it does represent me and my brand and pretty much what I see as a predominant reason when people rebrand another one is maybe you entered the market where there was no Sarah's doing cookies and now all of a series are doing cookies, maybe then I think yeah. A great way to test it is have a husband wife, not you on set you their phone, who doesn't like your page, do add in your page and see what shows up. If you aren't on the first spot, probably losing a few leads to some other software out there. And that creates a confusion of sorts. I know people are gonna say, Well, if I had market, I wanted to confess I was gonna teach a cookie college class and trademarking that system. The US Trademark Office is meant for to make you fail to file and correctly is 300 odd, non refundable. And you filed incorrectly incorrectly. So as soon as it rejects, you have a certain duration, I think you can resubmit and maybe like consider it like because you weren't totally off. It might as well Ben Rand and Greek I had no idea. I'd like to think I couldn't read. I couldn't read Greek. Immediately though, it notifies all these trademark lawyers that your whatever that felt so popular. All these lawyers reach out and say, Hey, we see that your trademark application was rejected. Can we resubmit it? So I said, Well, you know what, I'm not an expert. These people are 800 out the door. 800 bucks, plus your 300 that was rejected. I think it was 800 including that I think was 600. Whatever. Anyways, it just came through. And it worked. Yeah. So you'd say okay, so Korean i i trademark really just as an example. So I could teach a class to my classes, click here and pay that was outrageous. That was pretty crazy. It was just so many steps. Same with taxes, man, hey, I know I did wrong. I just did it wrong. They'll find you. You know, the drill. I got to do and how much ratified. But yeah, so you could essentially, you know, trademark it and then enforce it against other corporate? Yeah, that's one way to circumvent that. But again, from a marketing perspective, I would ask if that many people are using it? Is it even worth it? Can you just fall in love with the name that you thought you wanted? And in the name of making more money at less work was on wasn't pheasant lism? Was it? So yeah, you know, I see people sit down. They really put their heart and soul mind body spirit. I love that. I love that passion. Yeah. But is that passion paying the bills? I don't think I see passion. So yeah, that wraps it up. That's my soapbox on rebrands and refresh. Yeah. Do you see yourself doing your brand refresh? I think your branding looks I think right now I'm really happy. 2023 I'm really happy. I can't say that your branding will look 2026 Yeah. And that is fine. I really do like the logo and the colors. But now that the colors and the logo is established if we change the we're not like big either. It would just be Yeah, there I'd probably be just updating the text the fonts. Yeah. How they work together. They we started teaching classes and drop the tagline who knows? No classes. Let me as we move on to the next subject. I forgot to bring this up last week. But we did a collab. Oh, yeah. And it was the Meet the baker club. And I have to say I enjoyed so much seeing your faces and reading about you. I hope those who took my tips on the copy realized how easy it was to connect to your audience by giving them something to go I will say as somebody who had to make comment yeah, it was so much more enjoyable to one learn more about you about interesting facts and to be able to reply to you without, I'll be honest people who didn't use your copy and so on just said really had, this is me. I'm the baker, I had a really tough time complimenting your hair color. Right? There wasn't any substance, substance to reply to the there was no connection meet Baker was about, you know, meeting you, but also connecting with your audience and you're gonna have to use some words to connect with people. Once people have an emotional connection to a brand, I want you to go click on Facebook ads. And you'll see who has an emotional connection to a brand. Yeah, and those who don't. And because the way they write is wildly different when I click on a brand, and I click the comments, because I am so nosy that I'm striving to find drama. And I see that people are like, Listen, I love this product. I am not paid, I think I'd be willing to you love it that much that you're willing to take time out of your day to give an unsolicited unpaid review, then I might like it too. Amen. But I want to give everyone a tip you guys did phenomenal for the club. And now you still have like, you know, a thanks for sugar cookie marketing underscore, this is a good tip. Back in, I know you were in the club, it said at the bottom. And thank you sugar cookie marketing for putting on this fun club if you want to see others that tell you if you want to see other people in the club, check out sugar cookie marketing club, that hashtag, what I want to do is go and delete that. Go to delete the copy in that post your posts already got the juice, so you're good to go to Delete slack on a trend anymore. But what I want you to do is go and add like the best way to order from you. Hey, I look for I love doing birthday sets, you need to place an order one to two months in advance. I'm already booking for me. And then I want you to pin that to the top of your pin three posts. I know some of you might be thinking, What should I just make a new post? It would look redundant. And the problem is you got a lot of engagement. Engagement, which makes me was that social proof when you see a post with a lot of engagement which we manufactured engagement using the collab and your mind be like well, now the comments don't make sense. Let me tell you, nobody's reading them. They're not I'm ready to run ads. Because I have no life. But what it's doing is now when people come to your profile, it's your face friend center. And then when they click to it, because we're always gravitating towards someone's faces. When they click to it, they're getting the best information they need to place an order with you. Yes. So love that idea. You have what are your other two pin posts? Where I'm gonna only pin one? Why not all three? I don't know. Can I talk about the transfer saying, You people, it is a gimmick to get your butt in the group. So I thought it'd be fun in April corner, I talked about it to give away a transfer sheet a day. Every day, bro. At some point in the day when I get to it, there's a free transfer download, all you have to do is click a button. Yeah, but after the 24 hours that sheets gone. It's gonna be like other but I didn't have chance. Exactly. It's my gimmick to get you back into this group. But the amount of you who are so mad, because you don't understand that they're expiring and you click Request view ownership. I have gotten over 300 Google email, and possibly my messaging is wrong. 200 people are tech sounds like that messaging is wrong. However, if you through the month of April. And I talk about this because I do feel bad that maybe my messaging is wrong. People can get some of these sheets, which are super cute. The last podcast of this month, I will create a URL and domain where you can click and for 24 hours, download all of them. But after that they shouldn't be accessing. So right now we've done a tulip, a carrot. You've done a pumpkin. I think pumpkin is today and a ladybug was yesterday. Oh, so then the ladybug coin that's four. That's four right there. It's four and I have them all teed up to drop. But somebody I can also make them so I've been really trying to learn illustrator. And I can't give away something that I got from somebody else. I have to make this stuff from scratch. Somebody asked for Alison balloons. Oh, I don't know peculiar, peculiar, but she was like ALS and I was like, I'm gonna make that very tiny. Now I don't know I'm making a tree scene and once an hour and a tree. How are you going to make that? Oh, I was gonna make it. Draw this with my finger. Cute L shape so this and then it comes down like that. Almost like the shape you're printing now. That says grad. But that's from you. Sounds cool. Oh, I can I do my two interest. Yeah, you're just bumping all over. Let's go back to where we talked about where you skip now to your transfer. Oh, yeah. My transfer saying let's go back. Yeah. So if you go if you're listening to this and post I'm so sorry. You've missed the month of April. But right now in April 2023. I'm doing this every day you can come in and get an April transfer freebie. We've already done the carrots which are super cute ladybugs of two different sizes and tulips today is pumpkin Is tomorrow apples? It's literally I just said that right and then I think goes gone do I think apples is cute for teacher preach? Right, right? We have presents, I was just not I'm not even following like the holiday. We got Santa had a snowman stamp, but people are like my transfer collection is gonna be the best ever. And when you need those transfers, you can just flip on their free if so I was looking at them for me so I can make a video on it. Oh, yeah. Okay. I tried to click download. If you're having an issue downloading a couple people have it's your devices issue. It's not Google Drive's issue, I highly recommend switching to a computer myself. But if you have another issue, someone said, it's probably a setting in your iPhone. And they have posted in the comments which I've been reposting how to get around that nice worst case, bug somebody else and ask them email to these PDFs, so it should be just fine. If someone's saying if the PDF isn't rendering for you just download it anyways, it should be there. It's probably just a preview screen on your device. It's having an issue, layering but fine. Back to Heather's going to hopefully post this soon. But our next collapse is a fun one is the state collab. So wherever the genuine name, yeah, would be a jazz rep mistake. Collab rep, my state love that. Love to write that one down. So well we want to do is, you know, people love the state that they're from granted you, Texas, to people love Texas grid, Northern Virginia is definitely not people from the same traffic. But what we want to do is highlight the state so you can connect with your audience a little bit more, but be creative. Yeah, the natural inclination here is just to make a cookie cutter state. Right. But I would say find things that your audience will recognize that maybe people outside of the state wouldn't know. Yeah. Quarry, the mixing bowl. That complicated road. Yeah, like how would I make? What if we made it? What if I did a screenshot of it? Oh, and try to do it was the alert. Let's say we can do mixing Belle, and then you can kind of bring so Cory will be able to tie that with Meghan, her name. Yeah, that's true. And what that does is brand awareness. People love to connect with their state, especially people who've grown up or around you and never left. So should they keep it safe? Because I know that mixing bowl is in Northern Virginia and Cory and I are from Northern Virginia, which people act like is a different part. But you're not going to resonate with people from turquoise. But yeah, and I wouldn't Yeah, they're coal mines on there. And we got no not one could do the natural bridge. It's a middle of state people would recognize that aren't do a rock printed on it. What else can we do? I definitely think Carolyn's just gonna be straight crabs. How about if you did your state and maybe the state flower on top of it? And dogwood. Yeah. Or sunflowers? Carbonite is not our state bar. I Chevy Cardinal Oh, tell me Cardinal we Q we do a Chevy stain or they get to blobby GT is not like you could you make a cute? I think a squashed one with like a little tongue, you know? Okay, and by being Vironment so that I could do one cookie that's a cardinal, the state itself maybe a car for traffic when we did brake lights, like cars, but the back of the Yeah, we took a little car and just put them in a line that looks like a child out of a queue, rather than traffic. So this one's really open to a lot of interpretation. But I would say niched down if you have some, like a local thing that's very apparent to your audience, but we wouldn't get great and then in a copy, you can let us the people in the club kind of know what it's about and then we get to learn more about your state. What your area has ours doesn't have and then we can also like connecting I could do the cherry blossoms. Baby it's it's close. Good pay to wait and you know, what do you see this the little tree that could? Okay, there's this one cherry blossom tree. He had an issue and he died. But they saved him. But he has one stick of flowers. Oh, yeah, let me see they named him Don't make me get up. Because Urraca cherry blossom tree with one limb. No, that's not sure. Okay, easy. Keep talking to me. Where are you Jim? Anyways, that could be something but yeah, so my cherryblossom idea, by the way, you don't know why you did dogwood now yeah, that's their state we're Virginians to dog when that's what her flowers you act like I'm talented envy. Number One Olive Garden Breadsticks take a pill and I will say today oh garden they did bring me cheese ravioli with meat sauce me. Did you send it back? She did tweet sandwich sour or being yet yeah, like it's a little gross yeah everything I'm gonna make some amazing but I thought it was interesting the waitress there's one of the most talented waitresses I've seen I have extensive knowledge of the brand. And the way she you know, because we kind of say like me and you against the policy. Yeah, she did her inquiry against the kitchen. So Korea's like, Hey, I'm so sorry. I can't eat tangy meat. And then the lady was Perla apparently she was like, Oh, they did that. I'm so sorry. And immediately when she said they did that, it became her was our like, Savior. And the kitchen was the like, and that's what we say to make your be be against your business. So a customer's like, can you just fit in the flash doesn't, you know, the policy says it needs to be two weeks, and I will you know, but I can find you this other thing. So it's you and the client against the policy. Yeah. And I thought the way that she handled that was pretty slick. And then she got me really good waitress. So and then obviously she the way she comped dessert. She didn't have to but Korea's like Oh, I think you forgot do they do that Z asks thing. So I think you got to add the dessert and she's like, I don't remember give me good guys or dessert when Queen. Great. For sure. And then Korea ended up giving her the desert and tip Yeah. And I was well in the world as well tell us about the cookie Hoard. Oh, the cookie card we just dropped the cookie class kits for April which is included in the cookie college but that was the big thing behind this April transfer giveaway is back to adding value while you sell to people. It's hard it is a hard pill to swallow if somebody is constantly selling you things and not giving you any value. And I don't want the cookie guide to be associated with that. So at the end of the day, every day I post about the transfer I'm gonna give you a little fact about the cookie college that may make you want to sign up now or in the future but again, no cost you to download the transfer sheet. If you didn't even want to read my little blurb you don't have to. But if you want to learn more about the cookie college it is everything Cory and I stand for in a monthly membership of which I gotta say so the cleaning college comes with the freebie photos in the cookie group and the class kids and classes and digital downloads which I have to get out today. Yes, but Easter can we just talk about Easter it's tear man wasn't in the middle that's my thought. Don't go Google Yeah, I said if you have to grab your phone and show someone picture you've gone too far. Let me just tell you the theory behind this this has nothing to do with anything baking in the podcast. When someone's comes up to you this happens a lot in our cookie classes. So it will be like my mom's aunt cousin made a cake once and they're like let me show it to you first off they have no idea in their gallery where that picture is located you have that photo there you already have a lot of photos you have generally yeah you've gotten that photo yours and a lot of y'all aren't organizing your folders I'm Case in point too we got to scroll going on so what they do is when you're on your phone time is time for you yeah we thought that there's a time where when you're scrolling through your images because your brains like keep going remember this all looks yeah like oh I think I'm close but we here on the outside that are Wait I'm just passing fast but we're staying lower awkward time we're looking at in your mind you still got stuff going on? Yeah we've stopped thinking yeah I'm just waiting to see this photo it's the when you're when we went to eat were some people that we didn't know local she I think she was on her phone for 20 minutes we finally had to continue with the new cars but then when she dialed back in we had a revert Yeah, so gone but she was like still stuck in the old conversate here's a here's something I've been noticing if they wanted to they would if the person you want to show the photo to wanted to see it. They would say hey, would you mind sharing a photo? So I'm training they're not going to be my older sister. My older sister has this problem where she shows YouTube videos that are really long. Yeah, you don't show long seven minutes we you did it the other day when you said let me show you this tic tock but then you start looking for visual cues from people that were still watching. You weren't like show me the TIC TOCs and then you were like look go show dad this one so I show that they're not interested Oh, you're like this is you? Look guys everyone laughed at me never said like why does this happen this has nothing to do with democracy why when you see a funny video like a tick tock or real you didn't make it safety numbers but you sounded it you've saved this so much psychologically going on there where you take ownership of something take ownership, like I played a song for my son that I found last night and he was aghast Okay, and I was like, No, it's really good but why am I that? Archer said Oh, no. Yeah, cuz you it was I accidentally told Cory I kind of like birds and now my tic tac sins are obsessed with birds. Yeah, I didn't birds teasing birds can be. I didn't like parents that can talk parents that can talk are mind boggling. It doesn't matter if you just like a bird it can live to 8383 years old a bird or you know, and the scenery Yeah, how you see, this is when you wouldn't want to pull up. Why are we talking about showing photos? Were at the auger and oh, that was a tangent man. Not really sure what led there? Pulling up your phone showing pictures time slows Interstellar. Every minute on your phone is seven years old. I don't know how we migrated over there like the birds do you want to say yes, I have decided on the 3d printer when I joined this Facebook group yesterday. I'm easily impressionable well let me see if I can find it. Anyways Time has stopped giving I'm gonna recommend this group. Talk about your twin for 20 women you come on where you spend money like a reckless Okay, 3d printing for women and girls. That is today women and girls. Wow. Wow, it was very specific. Anyway, they're doing this group. And somebody was saying hey, if you could go back into these is these are women these are engineers I think the things that they're showing good right? CMS so they're talking in that group like what 3d printer if you could go back in time and get do two colors, but he has three color Tonto there's I don't know how to do it. I don't I'm not smart enough. But these ladies in this group are saying I would get a soy evolve for soy ball for I say to myself as I run a Google Google it on the podcast. So I thought like a lot of people Oh, no, I was gonna get the oh six. A lot of people recommend Prusa mini which seems really cool, but it's pretty expensive. Yeah. Anyway, so I was like, Okay, well, let's see. Let's see what this so vol printer has, that they these people like so much. And it is so crazy. What it does, it can print two filaments at the same time. And it's the price of the Prusa it's not as pretty, but it looks like a glorified editor. However, self leveling, self leveling two different filaments in the same print. I don't think my brain doesn't even know Yeah, but it can handle two different types of film in the same print or it has mirror modes. So let's say if you had a cookie cutter of a lion looking to the left you could also print to the right at the same time that would not help my correction. No not at all. But it seemed pretty cool and I was reading more and more about so here's the features that it has. This is when I think I'm gonna get it's 500 which is what the price is 400 Is that someone said that's what the recommended price isn't the biggest factor but you want efficiency and ease of use. So it has independent dual extruders independent meaning you can also print two different things at the same time two completely different things or you can print the two different colors insane can't even wrap nor can I metal Titan direct drive, which I think that was the thing that was testing it the bed was level auto leveling, as a silent board, large build volume don't even know that means touchscreen filament sensor so it can tell you a filament turning out also had to do to visually see that it's running out. Visually a lot of people go to bed, because these prints can take up I mean, 14 hours, it made a noise and it pauses it so for some reason it's bragging about the large SD card like that was a huge feature because it's the Indra has a micro no resume printing I thought was pretty neat. So a lot of times at the end of rate stops it's just restarting over Unifor in the last few seconds of a print Did you order something FedEx Yeah, what did you get? A cardboard. Oh, oh, and then here's one thing I like belt tensioner which I've actually been having a little bit of issue with the Ender because of belt as gets loose and loose over the time that you printed. Other printed may occur last week and I couldn't really tell I said this before it's gonna split. This wall splitting seems to be a belt issue. Of course, there's 50 More other problems that could be but I did tighten the belts and I thought that we'll see when these prints finish up. Thanks Sam's cookie Garonne of digital illness. Ya know what, when it goes wrong, and 50 ways. So anyways, I think this is gonna be my move the SPO for IDEXX 3d printer and the auto leveling and do a class on that. I don't know what do you mean? It'd be interesting. I've never heard anybody in a cookie groups talk about this 3d printer group counter. I mean, talk about what if we printed two cutters in two different colors, you could just want you could just be more efficient. Yeah. But too, you can also use those to print so it can take turns with filament colors while it's printing one object so you can have two filament covers, colors and one object of course, I only know how to print cookie cutters. I'll need to take a class on printing other things. That's my twin trust. I don't know if I have a 20 I don't think it's traced back. You're weak. You cleaned I did get new on Cloud Chase. You did? Because that's the strongest toenail Nora Yeah, so if you remember my big toe bust through the top of the shoes, but guess what oncloud added to their new shoe to reinforce a toe reinforcement right on the big toe right where my hole was? I honestly think they listened to customer feedback. And they pivoted please say this about Chick fil A listening to customer feedback and implementing it feels so great, right? It does like a feature you didn't even think you should get you got Yeah, Chick fil A was gonna take its site off the menu. It's it's a side salad. I don't think I've ever ordered that. It's all I order. It's my favorite thing to order it's just the salad with none of the extras like tomato or something no chicken or nothing. Just salad to tomatoes, dried a bit of cheese. Then whatever dressing pack you're gonna It's like nice to add to an unhealthy meal you know, just a little bit green to counteract those. But they're taking it off the menu. Wow, people are like this is one the only healthy thing other than the big salads but the big salads are committed. Yeah. And you got to get on and he got chicken I just wanted something simple like little green. I really just wanted ranch in my mouth and I wanted it and not feel guilty. But then they said okay, you know what? We're putting it back on the menu. We're not taking it off and also we're adding a drink you've asked for for six years. Watermelon lemonade. Oh yeah, it's refreshing. Yeah, they said we brought that back as well say I love people rejoice. Yes oncloud I bought another pair of and these these aren't clouds are not cheap my friends. The minute my grandmother her that they return those shoes and gave you credit to buy the nicest pair she went out of her. Yeah, I got I regret the color and I got my first pair of black tan and blue. Tan like I just went around. Yeah, he's got to commit. It makes it look like a hiking shoe. I look like it just came off. I have you gone on walk in those shoes. It's great. It has changed my little I'm still wearing the holy one. See these cheap shoes I got from DSW on sale on sale and sale plus a birthday turned out these are making gave up on when I took my five mile walks. And my knees were screaming Yeah, you need some good walkers. I really wasn't a believer until I tried it for these oncloud that are made for running and walking and marathon. Yeah, so I did there. They got a thick old so they have they're lightweight, though. They're lightweight, but the soul was a little chunkier in 10 years. I wish I'm usually a low profile guy right here. Yeah, I don't think I think it's kind of cute. Look at this. Look at this and look at that. You got some chunky holes. Yeah, but it's cute though. Yes cute. But boy does it change the way the issues were is that like strap it to your foot tight on I'll be fine. But no, I mean my knees were really hurting. And now they don't. I ran my first half marathon with the wrong shoes. Yeah, I know how to drive my last five toenails. Really? Yeah, turn blue black it's so hot right now. I will turning up so let's go on to Facebook Lives coming up and I'll add the state cloud I'll do it this week I promise but thank goodness to everyone heard the call to action. One person that could colleges like I had to do so much research for flip insurance that I feel like I have enough knowledge to just pass on what I learned which is great at the end of the day guys if you would love to teach a Facebook Live you don't have to be an expert you just have to have enough knowledge that people would like to learn which I can guarantee you a lot of us want to learn we do and if you did the research and we don't have to by all means was the other one. Just escaped my mind. It's Oh farmers markets. Yes, armored markers. This will be great. So we have those two coming up. We have the state club coming up which I'm gonna give us a break for the month of April. I think it'd be in June and then we have goofy con which is flying at Campbell Brooks. Got us buches she knows. She knows. So we'll be at cookie con Ohio on May 1 have to rent the car. Oh yeah, because you won't let us drive you tomorrow. And then we'll do a heavier on May 1 Just read before official cookie kind of starts, but the elective classes would have already been going on that day. I think so. Nice is really laid back. We'll just find a restaurant that has some pails. Hopefully it's got chips and salsa. If not, we'll find out. We're gonna just do it at the Kalahari resort where it could kind of see you there. You'll be hearing some hoot and holler and some high pitched voice and there's a Facebook event where I'll keep everyone updated as we get closer and I can find it if Danny Weiss No, no, we'll be scouting venues where we were scouting bad news all day. All the testing. I want to move to the sponsors and I have a Edie rating and Edie review that was sent in Yeah, it says here's a review from do we need to know what it is before we go? Oh, yeah, it is a direct to food printer. And I'm talking like directly on food. It's not wafer papers or anything like that. It's printing on top of your royal icing. And people are doing some amazing things. Want to paint some of these pictures. Imagine printing the egg design onto an egg shaped cookie. Yeah. And then piping whatever details or names in when people mix the abilities that a and a printer has with their piping. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So think like you did a cute bunny plaque but their names are printed on it. Oh yeah. Easy because that's takes the longest is let us say like, you know like getting them is a big color and that Easter baskets. Mm. That's hard to stencil. It's two seconds. I didn't remember I did on those eggs. Last year this. Do you have a game stencil? Can we do a comparison? I don't even have a game stencil, I suppose. All right. So this says I love you LA. That's how it starts out. I just recently received my Edie printer and immediately completed my first order of 500 logo cookies. I was amazed at the ease of use for this printer and the excellent quality of the image printed onto the cookies. I use the carousel while printing 503 inch round cookies. And the logo looked amazing. Once printed, there were only like two or three that were not perfect due to slight misalignment of the printed logo. Fantastic that over 500 Cookies printed turned out perfectly followed the drying advice from primeira. And the logo remain dried once in the polybags. I am so happy I made the purchase. And I'm very happy with the quality of the printed image and the ease of the use with the Eddie predator. Why can they read a review version? Yeah, and if you want to know, Eddie is currently rated 4.8 at a five stars on Trustpilot. And I know 100% That's really I mean, that's amazing. But Eddie is pretty fantastical. It sounds so crazy. Because it is it is crazy. I would I was gonna say let's do a gig. I'm off. But I can't I don't know how my mind isn't like you know a game. It's like checkers. But it's different color. Red, red. Just read checkers. And when the two reds cross, it's a deeper read. Okay, yeah, maybe. Next is a core backwards. And if you didn't know, they just had their Did you get a dent? No, I did not. This is genius. This is a genius idea in general from a marketing standpoint. So a core backers, when they make these backers, they will only send it out to you if they're perfect. But a lot of times in the manufacturing or when they're being sent to them. They'll have dents and scratches that are pretty minor. But a court wants him out because they're not perfect. But now these are just sitting in their warehouse. So what they did was a dent in Scratch to say you could get these backers that usually full price you're looking between 70 and 80. But they were 50% off. She said Yeah, use beads to cover it up. Put a plate there, put a cookie honestly, Photoshop and you could Photoshop it out. It's super easy. So a lot of people were able to get these. I mean, they sold out she started at midnight on Friday. And it sold out by morning. Oh really? Yeah. Wow. I mean 50% off and suddenly you can cover up with she's never offered 50% off but she said I think it's you know, it would benefit them because it's not perfect but also get these in a nicer way into getting good prop on that rounds. We kind of like pushed her into starting at midnight. She was just going to do it randomly on Saturday during a time but we were like past it now. I didn't really take your pressure works friends had done so. Okay, and then we have bacony bake rank powder, which we're gonna have classes stage this weekend. I refilled my ready to roll. Yeah, yeah. Have you done the deal? Have you made the deal? No. Do it. Yeah, that was yesterday. I did not get into it. I saw on it. We're in our teaching two classes. And we're actually teaching kooky class kids classes, right? Yeah. The eastercon Yes, it will be secured it has. One thing I did like about the class that you haven't done since or before is one cookie in one slide. The whole thing. It helped because it was an Easter egg and you can go crazy, but you couldn't really do only one thing. I wonder if people we should probably tell them to follow the curriculum still because when you leave people to their own devices, their again time grows. Yeah, slow. I mean, the reason why they're in the order that they're in is to let them dry enough to proceed to the next. Okay, so I guess when you see a little cresting, we can move along. Back to baking a big Idaho Marang powder that Cory loves. I don't know what it is, but Cory loves it and she talks about it incessantly, and you can get it from bacony bake idaho.com It's called her royal batch Marang powder use code twins at checkout to save 10% And I think Corey said five pound bags chips, I think if not still the 10% should yeah, gives you seven more but really it has everything you need to get out the gate and write to Canada now. Can Navy does enjoy that Canada. Yeah, you guys enjoy that America's hat. We have any voicemails you would never check them anymore. Let me see if they get texts. You know it's because of voicemails, I have to download them and then I have to listen to them. Like I'm sad. And that while I do this talk so great. Um, let me see I got my husband new phone today I bought every phone that he's had, but he does not take care of them. So I ended up getting a pretty cheap phone, but his camera broke on his phone and when I get the pictures of the pets, they look like potatoes. So I said I'm going to upgrade your phone so that when you send me a picture of Fazal wasm it comes to you and Claire texts the last text was sent by a 166 area code on January 9 It says iPhone tip enable feature where you can tap the back of your phone and it will take a photo screenshot he played two fingers on your iPhone faced what happened like when it's like I'm sorry your Apple Watch like this? Yeah put two fingers on I just hold that anything happened? Oh yeah, just the world. Oh, it says it looked down and got that faster than the ticket out please. What if it was dark? I don't know what if you're incapacitated you can only hear in the middle of the night sometimes I'll wake up in this does not shine bright like a diamond. It barely shines at all but there's a flashlight. And I was like what the flashlight lifted? No, it's the screen turns white. So it's wider. You know what I saw on tic tac when my phone this guy was like, hey, people, you can set double tapping the buttons and I was like guy knew that. Yeah, but he was like, yeah, just make it a flashlight. Then you kind of look like an idiot when you actually push it out. You have to double down. I use this. I use it. I can't believe I've lived my life without the double tap flashlight. I don't feel like you ever use a flashlight before. I use it at night you never together at night. Going to bed to the basement. I don't want to commit to a whole light. I just want a little bit of a light light drill drill. I like I have to sleep it has to be completely dark really does. Don't like one light. You sleep in a hot burrito? I I can't I need to be I need one. If anything if anything touches my face media claustrophobia. Absolutely. If I do my breath, know if I need this area to have a cool for you. I feel my breath back and touch my cheek or come back and touch my nose again. If it's just hot now. I get I freaked out. Can't have it. That good supply. Are we missing something? I feel like there's something we meant to talk about. And I'm missing really? We're in an hour and an hour and that's it. That's it. That's all I was the only one I get asked Where does that come from? Well, this is in the St. Louis this week. We were saying if mom was going to take my son's on spring break and did you invite me to see a movie and then and invited me but didn't tell me because I know you said Wednesday? No, I didn't invite you. I thought Mom was gonna be like, You movie when she never said you said do you want to go see a movie with me and our tomorrow movie? Did you forget you invited me? No I did. You remember inviting me? Yes. And you but now you're uninvited me tomorrow. And there's been no details since the initial. On Friday. We're teaching a class which you can listen to old podcasts and hear exactly how we break these down. But got greedy and decided to teach tune today which is always a bear. It's great when you're selling tickets. It's terrible when you're slinging the icing over your head. But a lot of people really wanted the Easter class which is great because typically Easter is is a little bit harder to fill up. But I think maybe we didn't do Easter. We did We did always did the foot and the two peeps with two black people that are coming in today when we gave a free ticket. I mean first Saturday when we gave a free ticket to an auction. And this lady came in not only did she come she ended up ordering cookies from me and now she's bringing to her friend Joe and then the other one was someone found out from the gym because I was wearing my jacket that says Mexico cookie company. They're like you make cookies. Like that