Hey everyone! I just need a little vent time.

I have made lots of cakes for my friends and their parents.
I do charge them but i do give them a bit of a discount and ask them not to tell anyone what they were charged for the cake.

Anywho one of my friend's brothers girlfriend wanted to get a bridal shower cake from me for her sister. She wanted a two tiered square cake with black fondant and white polka dots (pretty much the exact one in my photos), this cake was for her mother in law so she saw the cake and tasted it. She raved about how good its tasted and how much she loved the design. So she asked me for a quote for that cake, i quoted her 110.00 for the cake which i think is pretty fair for a two tiered square cake.

So after i get off the phone with her like 10mins later she text's me so say that she was going to look somewhere else and because if she was paying that much she would rather get it done by a professional...

I didnt even know how to respond i just sent her a message back and said that was fine with me and have a good day.

Now I am not a pro but i do feel my skills are pretty good. Anyway i just needed a little vent, im busy enough with working full time and making cakes that i dont need her order but still it kinda hurt my feelings.

Thanks for listening (or reading lol)

That was extremely rude of her.

I feel like you'll get the last laugh when she goes to a professional and they ask her to pay $220 for the same cake.

it was really rude, but prepare yourself because she will come back. She's not going to get any "professional" to do that cake for $110!!! Not on a good day!

Everybody wants something for nothing. Don't let it get you down, she is completely ignorant to the art of cake decorating. Your work is amazing, and you should be proud.

Your cakes are great. $110 is a really low price for that cake and undoubtedly the silly girl will come back and ask you to make it when she's gotten quotes from a few bakeries. So get ready to be tough and be all booked up for that date

OMG! I would be very hurt also.

How rude and what a total a$$! I looked at your cakes and they certainly are VERY professional looking to me - you do excellent work. Then let her take her business to a so called "professional" and I hope this "professional" charges her even more and then when she doesn't want to pay that price either or gets a lot less of a cake and comes back to you and wants you to do it anyway - wellllll you can tell her to ki$$ the smack of your you know what!!! I hope the cake she ends up getting tastes and looks terrible! I know that is not nice but what a nasty rude person she is.

Wait till she pays the "professional" double and it looks half as good as yours! When she comes crawling for a wedding cake later tell her that maybe she needs to seek a "professional"!


My sister in law had a baby shower that I helped plan. I was asking her what kind of decoration she wanted on the cake -assuming that her friends and I were planning and paying for the babyshower that I would naturally make the cake. Well before I even got the words out of my mouth she said oh, no I want a Shulers cake. Its this bakery that is in our area and has been for years, but the quality of there cake is horrible and the place is filthy dirty. Anywhy I just said " oh, okay." Well, needless to say I'll be damned if I was gonna buy someone elses cake! I let her friend get it. I never said anything to her about what she had done. When the cake arrived at her shower it had plastic pastel baby blocks and primary colored plastic balloons on it. The baby blocks spelled out BABB not BABY and some of the letters were upside down. LOL. I looked at the cake and said " huh, well I guess you should have let me make your cake!" LOL. So I got the last laugh! Now she sends everyone she works with to get cakes from me.

She likes your cake and likes the look of your cake and knows you personally. I just wonder what Ms. Genious thinks she's going to get from the "professional" that she can't get from you????? Her way of thinking seems to be flawed, terribly! Don't worry about it, like other CC'ers said, she won't get that same cake for $110. WHEN she calls back, i'd go up on the price....teach her!!!! Tell her you called a few pros and found out what you really should be charging.

I hate when people think they can talk down to you like that. I get really upset too.

Please keep us posted if she comes back.

What I usually do in situations like this (if they come back at the last minute) is that I charge a $10 rush fee. Just to make them squirm a bit more.

I just see it as a fee for wasting my time.

I had a couple come over to my house, spend 2 hours going over a SIMPLE design for their one year old. A week later they told me they wanted a taste, I told them that I am just a homebaker and that I dont offer taste tests (like i would bake 3 cakes just for a sample). I told them that they can just order 12 cupcakes in the flavor they wanted. No answer yet. Now I see why "professionals" charge for consultations. Two freaking hours listening to them argue over LIGHT PINK or DARK PINK!

LOL...sorry your post made me want to vent too!!!

He&$#$ no. She is so rude.

Yeah. I had a call about an hour ago for a full set of drums cake.....by next Wednesday. Oh sure. Well, I threw out an appropriate Ace of Cakes quote. Said I came highly recommended, blah blah blah. I know who she is calling next. Hee hee....good luck with that!!!

Your cake looks professional to me. $110 is a steal. I would have liked to text her the middle finger.

Some ppl never seem to amaze me. She has allot of nerve telling you that.

Good for you to be "booked" when she comes crawling back! Dont give into her.

How insulting! What a biotch!

I think your cake is professional looking and for the price, she can't beat it.
If she does come back, be booked or jack up the price!!

This happened to me once - my $75 quote was "too much" so I politely told her I was not the caker for her and referred her to two local bakeries. Having a relationship with one of the bakeries, I later found out that they quoted her $310 for the same cake. Yes, she did come crawling back to me. No, I didn't do her cake.

She'll be back.

You all are so right! I just had the same thing happen to me only it was a lady who has been been bugging meby email. She wanted a "sample" plate. I told her that I do not do those because I am a small at home bakery, too. So then she emails back "well, how am I supposed to know what flavor of cake I want?" Umm, duh, you don't already know your own tastes? So I have a couple of cakes in varying flavors to make for this weekend and early next week anyway, so I told her that I could make some cupcakes out of each batch of cake flavor I used to make these. She says "oh that'll be great!" Then she later emails and asks about the price of the shoebox cake that is in my photos. I email her back a price of $150-$50 of wich is for the shoe. She emails again "What!! For that little cake?!?!" I responded with a yes, because that shoe is handmade by me, myself and I alone! She was already kind of getting a break. I was only charging my usual $3.50/serving price instead of a carved cake price! I haven't heard from her again! But I am sure I will if I don't email her back about getting the cupcakes! I am sure she is already gonna badmouth me because of the price anyhow!

tanyascakes-You should now tell that lady the cost of the cupcakes are $15.00 which will be applied toward her bill if she wants the cake from you! LOL

I know, right! I was gonna do them for free thinking that I was being nice and I already had the cakes to make!!! I swear some people are too much!

Then you wont have to deal with her anymore. She'll be "outraged" that your charging her for sampling because she doesnt know what kind of cake she wants! LOL

Sorry dont mean to hijack

How the heck does she define "professional"? Anyone who has a store front? She'll find out that she made a bad decision. Just stick to your guns.

My daughter and I were just talking about this very subject!

The person that told you (in essence) that she would prefer to go to a professional is a twit and obviously nobody ever taught her any manners or common decency. What's wrong with just saying let me think about it? Or even just a plain old Thank You.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the professional bakery when she gets their quote for the same cake (provided they can even do it)

I am sorry she made you feel bad--I hate that!

Next time someone accuses you of not being a professional, send them this. This dialogue comes from the allbusiness dot com website and is a conversation between the author, Nettie Hartsock, and her guest, Steven Pressfield, author of several books including "The Legend of Baggar Vance". I think this says it all.

And yes - the girl who phoned you needs to read a good book on manners and etiquette!

Julie

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nettie: So what's the difference between an amateur and a professional?

Steven: An amateur does something as an avocation, but a professional does it as a vocation. An amateur is like a weekend warrior that just shows up when they feel like doing it. But a pro shows up every day. We're all in our jobs, if we have a job, we're all professionals at that every day and we can use that as a model.

An amateur comes up with all kinds of excuses of "why" they're not going to do something. A professional athlete for example, knows they always have to play hurt. They always have to play. They play with pain, something wrong with their knee or back or whatever it might be, but they get on the field no matter what.

A pro has a real sort of lunch pail, hard hat attitude. It's raining, it doesn't matter how cold it is, how dark it is, you get up and you go to work and that attitude has worked for me, because it's so down to earth.