Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪
👋 Hey - Heather and Corrie here with the Baking it Down Podcast with Sugar Cookie Marketing (a group on Facebook full of sugar cookiers turned business owners).
🍪 We're here to help you rise with your reach, flood with new followers, bake up new ideas, and make that all-important dough (while makin' that dough - see the pun there?)
🤑. What’s it about? We’re a Facebook Group turned Podcast, Membership, Book Club, and Baking 101 that’s dedicated to assisting bakers in effectively marketing online to generate more sales and better manage their businesses.
🧠 With free Facebook Live classes, hundreds of resources, and thousands of like-minded bakers, there’s a lot to learn in "SCM" (aka Sugar Cookie Marketing). ️🎧 As an extension of our Facebook group, this podcast is here to let you learn by listening. 📈 We'll cover group topics, marketing trends, and more (leaving this wide open in case Corrie wants to start singing).
💸 We take the sweet art of selling online to the cottage bakery world with marketing methods that move products (and pastries).👂 So open up those glorious ear canals because we have a podcast! Just when you’ve thought you’ve “heard” it all with those marketing "miracle" twins (that's our last name - not a proclamation), we’ve got something just for you each week!
🥣 As a baker, you don't always have the luxury of two hands needed to scroll in Sugar Cookie Marketing Group or crack open a book in Sugar Cookie Bookies, but what you can do is listen (unless you're my kid asking “what’s for dinner” for the millionth time).
👐 Hands full of flour? No problem! 👍 18 dozen iced cookies due tomorrow? Let’s do this. The Baking it Down Podcast by Sugar Cookie Marketing is a weekly podcast geared toward helping you grow your bakery business - dropping (almost) every Tuesday.
📅 We choose a topic each week that's either something new and emerging in the world of social media or something that we saw in "The Group" that was a hot topic and we bake it down... I mean, "break" it down for you. 🗯️ What you can expect in the podcast is about an hour of chit-chat with the meat and potatoes right at the beginning of the episode.
🥔 That’s when we dive into the marketing topic of the week! 📞 Oh yeah, folks can call / text / email in with their questions too - a fun way to hear from other bakers out there.
Our promises to you:
1️⃣ We always make it clean = no cursing. We understand that you are busy and could be around little ones while also trying to get your weekly dose of business growth so we make sure that each episode would make our grandma proud and keep it clean so you can listen while also living your life.
2️⃣ We always make it fun. There’s a lot of negativity in the world so we try and make the podcast an upbeat and fun learning experience for you. I mean, we try to make the Instagram updates and changes as happy as we can, but come on Instagram! Give it a rest! No more changes!
3️⃣ Other than that, we take a positive approach to marketing We are also *not* professional podcasters. I feel like we need to say this because, hey, sometimes we get giggles! We do our best to extend our marketing knowledge to you all free of charge each week at the cost of listening to our higher-than-normal pitched voices and the occasional giggle spree.
4️⃣ You can find the podcast on all the major platforms and you can typically expect a new episode each Tuesday afternoon (unless life happens). We invite everyone to listen.
Either start from the beginning or work backward! The episodes don’t build off themselves so you won’t be confused hearing one before the other. You just might miss new Lives we mention but you can always catch the replay in the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group on Facebook!
Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪
169. Baking it Down - Corrie-tisol
😌 Corrie-tisol - Managing stress this summer.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 169 - Corrie-tisol, Corrie said, "I want to talk about ways to manage stress." And for good reason - in 2022 she was admitted to the hospital because her kidneys were shutting down. The cause? Chronic, unmanaged stress.
So while this is a business podcast, the business of managing stress will keep you in business. 😫 Chronic stress is no good for the bottom line 📉 - it'll lead to burnout, and up until the day you throw the ol' "tea towel" in, you'll be cursin' the day you first picked up that piping bag.
It's M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E.
So - the solution? Well, as with everything - it's a plan of attack, not a single pill to solve all of our proverbial problems (💊 but wouldn't that be nice?!).
Here are 5 things Twin #2 did to cut down on the cortisol spikes.
☕ 1. Manage Caffeine intake.
Caffeine - I love it, I love it, I want some more of it. But when it comes to cortisol, shelving the caffeine (or at least delaying it) may be the answer. 👣 Instead of going cold turkey, try "baby-stepping" your way to a healthier relationship with the brown nectar.
- 🧊🦃 Limit your first cup until later morning (letting your body catch up naturally to what the day holds).
- 🧊🦃 Try going "every other" with a 🫗 glass of water in between caffeine-heavy sodas (where my diet coke lovers at?!).
🧠 2. Identify Stressful Triggers.
I spent 35 years strengthening my stressors, so it could take just as long to tear them down. Being able to identify what causes stress spikes is our key to developing new patterns in handling stress.
- 🧠 What are the things you can control in a stressful situation?
- 🧠 What are the things outside of your control?
Once you identify what you can change and what you can't, you can then channel your thoughts into finding solutions - not fretting about all the worst possible outcomes.
“A man who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary.” - Seneca
💆🏼♀ 3. Implement Relaxation Techniques.
Okay - we've identified what we can control, and we've let go of what we can't control. Now fill up that newly found free time with things you find relaxing. I got Corrie a Calmigo (heads up - I can't believe I spent that much money on something so basic - but hey, her kidneys were shutting down, seemed like a cheaper option than a hospital bill). Science says that deep, conscious breathing in and out can really have an immediate effect on cortisol spikes. Walking is a great way to lower stress hormones too.
- 😮💨 Breathing exercises (shortness of breath = high cortisol)
- 😮💨 Low impact exercise routine can use up excess cortisol - so walking during a stressful situation
- 😮💨 Good sleep hygiene (be on time, sleep long enough, phones outta the room, cool dark room)
🖍️ 4. Find a Non-Baking Hobby.
Unfortunately, most of us turned our baking hobbies into baking jobbies - they're no longer the stress relievers we intended them to be. The answer? Find a new hobby that lets you let down your guard for a bit. The more mindless, the better. They say not to move to your favorite vacation destination because it turns "a place where I can relax" into "a place where I have to mow and pay the HOA." Here are some mind-numbing ideas.
- 🖍️ Lettering / Calligraphy
- 🖍️ Sewing
- 🖍️ Coloring Books / Paint Gems
- 🖍️ Animal Crossing (Video Games)
