Hi,
I'm a newbie here and I'm thinking about starting a business out of my kitchen (it is a seperate from the kitchen that I use to cook dinners ect.)
And I have questions on how cake businesses work.
Right now I'm not looking at doing wedding cakes (it scares me) just birthday, Baby showers and things like that. When people order birthday cakes how do they decide what kind of cake they want? Do they pick out of your portfolio? or do they all ready have a idea of what they want? If they pick out of a portfolio do you end up doing the same cakes over and over again? or do they just use the portfolio for ideas. Do they usually come to the house to pick the cake or do they call? and come to the house to pick up the cakes.
How important do you think it is to have different flavors of cake available?
And Are people usually easy to deal with?
Thank You for your answers to all these questions!

HI! WELCOME TO CAKE CENTRAL AND THE CAKE BUSINESS. I HAVE ONLY BEEN IN THE BUSINESS FOR ABOUT TWO YEARS NOW. GENERALLY (FOR ME) MY CLIENTS ALREADY HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT THEY WANT. SOMETIMES THEY GET IDEAS FOR MY BOOK...BUT THAT'S RARE FOR ME. IF I DELIVER I WILL CHARGE AN EXTRA SMALL FEE FOR GAS AND MILAGE. MOST OF THE TIME THEY COME AND PICK THE CAKE UP. IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE DIFFERENT CAKE FLAVORS TO CHOOSE FROM. FROM MY EXPERIENCE...PEOPLE HAVE BEEN GREAT. MY CLIENTS HAVE REALLY HELPED SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT MY CAKES!!!

GOOD LUCK!

LES

I know where you are coming from. I took some decorating classes not too long ago and started my business also. I started out doing cakes for family and friends and expanded by word of mouth. I offer the basics for flavors (white, chocolate, yellow, marble) but I will do special orders. I made up a cake order form that has all the info I need; i.e. name and number, date and time of event, type of event, flavor of cake, filling (pudding, buttercream, fruit), and a big area to make notes about what the customer wants. I have a portfolio of cakes I have done for ideas and to give the customer an idea of what I am capable of but I take all of the info into consideration to find out what the customer is looking for and make suggestions based on that. I didn't think I would do wedding cakes either, but I have my first wedding cake order for September! I am looking forward to the challenge and I plan to do a practice cake ahead of time. Please email me if you have any further questions. I would be glad to share with you what has worked for me! [email protected]