I'm sure this topic has already been discussed, but I can't get any results on the search feature. How do you handle cake tastings? Do you offer it for free, how many flavours do you offer, etc. I have been baking a fresh small cake for them to sample, and maybe offer some other flavours if I have something in my freezer, but I haven't charged them for it. I have a small business making wedding cakes for a bed and breakfast/resort. Thank you all for all of the help and advice. It is a great help to those of us just starting out!
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-fsearch-results.html
if you scroll down to about the 11th post here and down you'll see tons of different threads about tastings
oh and just wanted to say............I used to never charge for tastings and always put a "cap off" on what and how much they could order...but recently I started charging for tastings and I'm so glad I did!!!! It all started with a phone call for a "cake tasting"...I could tell the girl was young (teenager) and I could hear a crowd of other girls in the background...she wanted to schedule a tasting, but didn't want a consultation JUST wanted me to drop off samples and she'd get back to me on what she liked if she wanted to choose me for her cake. This is not THAT out of the ordinary, I drop off samples to people all the time that KNOW what type of cake they want design wise but don't know what flavor. Well, I had a hunch it was a prank to just get some free cake...so I told her she could pick up to 4 flavors of cake AND filling (4 total) and that it would be enough for 4 people to taste and she was all happy and then I said and it will be $20.00 and you can pay that anytime between now and the tasting! She was like........."oh well, I didn't realize there was a charge...I'll call you back" needless to say, I never heard from her again!
So it got me thinking, maybe that's not a bad idea to charge. So i started charging and what I did was...anyone who places an order over $100.00, gets that "tasting fee" applied to their final payment...so in the end if they book with me, their tasting will have been free. So far everyone is totally understanding of why i charge them (because time and money are spent on ingredients and baking for it........I bake fresh for EVERY tasting)...and then it gets applied so they really don't feel they're out anything.
They always have the option of just ordering a small 6" round in one flavor for $10.00 if they want...but usually they're wanting to try 4 different flavors!
Nope. But I would never ever ever schedule individual tastings. I would never have a free weekend. I already block off one weekend a month (usually, not lately) for no cakes at all.
I host group tastings once every couple months. I schedule about 2 or 3 couples to a 45 minute to 1 hour time slot, have about 5 or 6 cake samples, and twice as many fillings/frostings/fondant. This is on a Saturday or Sunday, everybody sits around and compares what they like and chit chat about this and that, I record what everyone likes, take down notes about design ideas, copy links to pics online, whatever I need to, and we either do all consulting after that through email or get together one more time individually, pay the deposit, bing bang DONE!
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