I live in a college town. I've gotten many calls or e-mails for interviews about running a cake biz, job shadowing, etc. Yesterday I got a call from a lady that wanted to film me making a cake, "from start to finish" for a class of hers. I asked her what she meant by that and she said she wanted to film me mixing, baking, assembling, icing, and decorating the cake. She said she's seen them do it on TV and knows that it is sometimes a process that takes a couple of days, but she can only come in this Friday to do the whole thing.

I was kind of shocked by this request. I've always stopped to help those who ask and answer all their questions, but this seemed different. Like I was supposed to bend over backwards, re-arrange my cake baking and decorating schedule, and let her film all my cake techniques/secrets. I told her that it wouldn't fit into my schedule this week.

How would you feel about this?

If she's seen it on tv why can't she just use that film? How is she going to compensate you for your time?

Yeah... that just wouldnt happen, lol!

I *might* consider agreeing to allowing someone to come in for a few days if I had a (verifiable) letter from the professor/school so that I could see that it is a legitimate assignment. I would also make them sign a non-disclosure and non-compete agreement. I DEFINITELY wouldnt re-arrange my whole schedule for anyone without substantial compensation.

Our store is literally next door to the journalism school and the Art school at UNC, and we get requests like this all the time. We do it almost all the time if we can make it work. One, my husband is a PhD and was an English/Films professor and so we try to help students with these types of projects, but one thing to remember is that ALL of these college students are going to get graduation cakes and wedding cakes, and if they end up emotionally invested in your company, that is a good thing.

We are hosting one college student right now, who ended up blogging about her first visit here :

http://www.livelaugheat.com/

and the traffic on our website spiked by about 30% for a few days, so it ends up being good advertising from time to time.

I would tell her that you charge $100/hr. and what time would she like to start?


By the way, some of the bigger cake artists do offer "shadowing" and it's like hundreds of dollars per hour and you have to sign a waiver that you won't implement any of their techniques that you may have picked up while shadowing!

So I guess they could sue you if you went and opened up a new shop using their techniques?

I agree w/the others! Especially on a Friday and all in one day. She should work around your schedule not hers. No secrets need to be revealed. Just do basic (gereric) w/no labels etc. No was a good answer!

I don't have a problem with someone wanting to come in and film. I DO have a problem with the expectation that you should work around their schedule. If you want to see me do a cake from start to finish then you need to be here on the days that I am doing it. Not when it's convienent for you.

I just graduated a year ago from college, and I did a lot of work with local business. But I would NEVER expect someone to work around MY schedule when they were being gracious enough to help me with my project in the first place. It's one thing to help a student snarkybaker has a point about Graduation Cakes, but there is no reason to go out of your way and schedule to do so.

The last one was really problematic, because she called and asked ( It was her Master's project) AND when she comes in, she is in a Wheelchair, so on a busy Friday, we all have to work around her while getting ready not just for the weekend, but for the Washington DC cake show.

But, on the upside, the local news came in today to do a story on us as a " success story" who has been successful because of our active engagement in community projects etc... They're doing a piece called " Doing Well by Doing Good" and we're i it because of this girl becasue she submitted our name.

I'd just tell her no becasue you can't accomodate her timeline. I work out of my home and I've had people in to do photo shoots for magazines and film me for things, and it's a pain in the butt. It definitely slows the process down.