Love, love cake decorating but fairly new at selling my products. I don't have as many customers as I would like, in fact very few orders and far, far between. My question is how can I get a bigger customer base? My current customers love all aspects of my cakes but never refer anyone to me. I know I'll have to spend money in advertising and such in order to make money but have no ideas on how to do that. I have no license right now so I'm a bit scared to advertise. What should I do? Do I take the risk of advertising openly?
Also, in the not-so-close future, I plan to convert my garage into a home bakery BUT I want to know if I should first build a large customer base before doing this or do I get all the proper licensure and open up the home bakery and be allowed to advertise freely? I am totally aware that I have to do way more research as far as the home bakery/garage thing and all of the licenses but just want an opinion on whether to do the advertising thing and get a bigger customer base first and then get the bakery or vice versa.
Any help, opinions or advice is greatly appreciated.
whether to build up clientele before converting your garage. or to convert garage and then you will get clients, that i am not sure. but if you are NOT legal, i would be very careful about advertising. I don't know what the competition is where you live, but someone might turn you in. its a risk i would think about long and hard before doing....
I give a 5% referral credit. Used it for years and it's great! Right now, one of my brides has sent me 3 other brides from The Knot just in the past 2-4 weeks!
Here's how it works: Alice is my client. Alice sends Betty to see me. Betty books a reception for $3000. Alice earns 5% or $150 to apply to her own wedding balance.
I have no formal system in place. When Betty comes to me, she just tells me "alice sent me". I have a place on the order form "Referred By". If Alice has an open balance with me, I add the credit to her invoice totals.... I have a line on there for "Referral Credit - Betty". If Alice is already married and/or the event is paid, I email ALice to let her know she has a $150 credit on file with me. I do NOT issue checks for these amounts. It is a "gift certificate" to be applied to current or future orders only. When Alice places her next order, she shows me the email with her credit.
So on the one hand, if Alice never orders anything, then I never actually pay out the credit. (Ok, I can count how often that happened on one hand with fingers left over!)
Garage first / customer base first. It's a Catch-22. You can't really justify opening a shop until you can show you have the business to do it, yet you can't really advertise for the business until you have the shop open. 
I think it depends on how bad/quick you need the business to grow. If you are financially stable and able to do it on the side, I'd say it just takes some time. I moved here 5 years ago to PA and probably a year into my stay I built my website. I don't even remember how I got my first orders...maybe my website or something, I don't remember! My first year I only got maybe one or two orders.
My second year I maybe got a few more orders.
This year is actually the first year I've had between 1-3 orders almost every weekend since January (with a few weekends off). Some are repeat customers that maybe order once or twice every year (kids birthdays). A few are people who went to a party where one of my cakes was and decided to order (I send "business cards) in each cake order). I'd say a good amount though are people who are searching on Google and find my website (which comes up earlier on the search engines the longer its been online). Also I have put a couple ads on Craigslist although that is pretty much the only place I advertise.
I have the paperwork to work on becoming "legal", but I think I'm going to have my baby first and get a schedule established.... but I'd like to be legal and ready to go by the beginning of 2008 if possible. That way I can put business cards at actual wedding vendors and such, which is something I can't do without being legal.
I hope that helps a little...I guess if you need the business to start now you'll have to become aggressive at advertising and thus need to be legal. If you can wait and let word of mouth and maybe a website take a couple years to get the ball rolling, that will build up your customer base in a gradual way so you can start the business with a little more confidence that you already have some orders coming in.
HTH...
i had a few regular customers nothing that made it a business though, and i decided to convert my garage. ive been legal since march and it is picking up, slowly, but i have faith in 'build it and they will come'. Luckily i dont have to rely on this as income so if its grows slowly im ok with that. if you can afford to do it, do it. just be patient though.
I had the same debate not so long ago. I love decorating cakes, and thought it would be a good idea to start a home based business so that I could still be at home for my children.
I did think about doing it illegally, but knew that I could not advertise myself as I did not want to risk being found out. Because I did not want to advertise myself, I knew that I would not have a business!
So, I spoke to a local cake decorator that I have got to know quite well to discuss if there was a market out there for another decorator and she said there was! She is a very busy lady, and gets a lot of her business from another decorator who cannot keep up also!
I am currently looking into becoming legal, but am in no rush. I'm making cakes for friends and family, and quite happy with that at the moment.
Love the whole referral idea indydebi. I'm definitely going to use it.
And love the whole "if you build it, they will come" thing also sweetcakes. That's so Field of Dreams. lol.
Right now this is really a 2nd job of mine and my 1st job pays very well so I'm in no hurry but eventually would like to quit my 1st job or maybe go to a part-time basis and have this as my main focus.
Thanks everyone for the advice. If anyone else would like to advise me on this, please feel free. I need all of the advice I can get. 
This is a dream of mine as well (to convert garage into bakery). However, I need a garage first.
The hubbie and I are in an apartment currently paying off all debt. That should take about 2 years. Then we will start saving for a down payment for a house. That will take about a year. Once we are in the house I will quit working and make cakes by renting a local commercial kitchen until I have saved up enough money for us to build out the garage. Or we will slowly build it out until it's complete. So that brings us to about mid 2011 I will have my own bakery...
However, what I'm hoping happens (please Dear Jesus) is that my (right now) side cake business gets so busy that I have to quit my current job and start doing it full time (since it would be to the point to supplement my income)...lol..but that may be wishful thinking.
I give a 5% referral credit. Used it for years and it's great! Right now, one of my brides has sent me 3 other brides from The Knot just in the past 2-4 weeks!
Here's how it works: Alice is my client. Alice sends Betty to see me. Betty books a reception for $3000. Alice earns 5% or $150 to apply to her own wedding balance.
I have no formal system in place. When Betty comes to me, she just tells me "alice sent me". I have a place on the order form "Referred By". If Alice has an open balance with me, I add the credit to her invoice totals.... I have a line on there for "Referral Credit - Betty". If Alice is already married and/or the event is paid, I email ALice to let her know she has a $150 credit on file with me. I do NOT issue checks for these amounts. It is a "gift certificate" to be applied to current or future orders only. When Alice places her next order, she shows me the email with her credit.
So on the one hand, if Alice never orders anything, then I never actually pay out the credit. (Ok, I can count how often that happened on one hand with fingers left over!)
Garage first / customer base first. It's a Catch-22. You can't really justify opening a shop until you can show you have the business to do it, yet you can't really advertise for the business until you have the shop open.
This is a great idea! Gawd Indy is there anything you are not good at??!!
Another avenue you could look into is contacting local caterrers and party planners and offering them a 10-20% discount if they book their dessert orders through you. You need to get licensed first though before you do that.
good luck to you this is very exciting
This is a great idea! Gawd Indy is there anything you are not good at??!!
Pies. I can't make a pie to save my a$$.
And when I play horseshoes, I spend most of the time chasing the dang thing around the yard until it stops rolling! Not a good activity for a fat lady!!
Indy, I wanted to personally thank you since you just mentioned your referral program. I did my own take on your referral discount program, and started it back in September to increase my sales and client base. Boy, I was NOT ready for the onslaught of orders!!! 
I also offer my clients the referral discounts, with a different % amount, but gosh, it has increased my business like gangbusters! By April, I was booked out for the entire month of June. NO openings!!! Through my program, I have increased my client base by over 85 customers 
...just since introducing the program to my then-current customers. It just keeps snowballing. One tells another and then another and so on. It's amazing at what this one technique has done for my business. I appreciate you sharing this idea so much!!!
I also keep an updated referral discount chart on my homepage Customers tell me that they regularly check in to see how much credit they have accummulated. Many continue to keep adding on to their totals and plan on using them during the holidays for large orders.
Anyway, sorry to ramble, but I most definitely and whole-heartedly endorse Indy's idea. It's a winner!!!
Amy
how do you get legal
There is a thread that will give a good deal of info about this. You can find it here:
http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-32550.html
If you are looking to start one in your home you should also call the town and find out if you are in a commercially zoned area, you also need to look at the deed of your house and find out if there are any convenances. If you live in a development you may not be able to run an in home business. You also need to call your local Dept of health and human services and find out what requirements they have. This should get you started. Once you get past all of this then you need to register your business name and get insurance etc etc etc.
I hope this helps
This is a great idea! Gawd Indy is there anything you are not good at??!!
Pies. I can't make a pie to save my a$$.
And when I play horseshoes, I spend most of the time chasing the dang thing around the yard until it stops rolling! Not a good activity for a fat lady!!
well heck you have to be better at horseshoes than me, I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with an elephant 
it's very sad
I have been doing the referral program for years, the only thing I do that is different is in the case of a wedding referral, is when the person that was referred to me has paid for their wedding cake in full, then I will go ahead and send the money to the person that gave me the referral and get it off my books. It keeps me from having to do alot of extra paperwork keeping track of credits, the other reason is if someone accumulates alot of credit and plans on using it say during the busy times of the year ie. Christmas , Wedding months, then I am tied down with their large order and not getting the income, and trying to squeeze their stuff in with all the rest. I just assume get it out of the way and keep my books straight with actual income each month. I suppose there are other ways but this works for me. I also give my brides business cards and explain the program, when they give the referral they give the card to their friend with their name, address and phone on the back, the person gives me the card and I already have their info that I staple to the order so when the order is paid I just have to write a check and drop it in the mail, with a nice thank you card.
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