Renting A Church Kitchen, Advice Needed
Business By LovelyCakes4Us Updated 24 Feb 2013 , 4:06am by kikiandkyle
AYou have one order a week right now. I'd start there, where you are. Your goal is great, but there are a lot of steps and a lot of time and hard work between where you are and where you're going. With that volume, you might want your own kitchen by then. I think you need to figure out how to make the kitchen rental work with a more realistic estimate of the business you've got. Maybe start with trying to get the weekly cake for church coffee hour or be their go-to supplier for church suppers. Get your foot in the door, solidify a relationship. Then go from there and build slowly. This isn't going to happen overnight, or even in a few months. You say you're the "cheap" cake lady, but you're going to get $200 each for 8" cakes? I think you are missing some critical steps between here (where you are now) and there (where you want to be).
I'm not sure what your shoes have to do with anything nd the most recent cake central email came out riddled with typos and spelling errors, so perfect typing is not the key to success. It's a sound business plan and a realistic idea of your ability to grow your business.
A
Original message sent by kpny
Did you mean 10 dozen a month, or 10 dozen a week?.
maybe i need more coffee - but my calculation 10 * 12 * 2 is $240 - not 960.
if it was 10 dozen a week, 40 for the month, then the $960 makes sense.
Yes 10 dozen a week! 40 for the month sheesh I'm not that dang stupid people come on now lol!
A
Original message sent by BakingIrene
Well I guess this thread is going to crawl along. The OP's typing speaks for itself.
Dress pants and dress shoes are the traditional "uniform" of office workers.
High end catering and restaurant servers wear flat black shoes. Their black trousers may be cut in different styles but more along the lines of Dockers. I'm talking about the folks who do the actual work going in and out of the kitchen.
Go into any bakery--the staff will uniformly be wearing flat shoes to work safely in a place where stuff spills on the floor. The bakers wear either the white/grey chefs checked pants, or they wear white or khaki Dockers. The workers who handle the heavy jobs will be wearing steel toed shoes.
You have to dress like your chosen industry to be considered a part of that industry. If your footwear and fingernails don't match your choice of trade, then you just won't get a toe in the foor. Plain and simple. And you OP can feel as insulted as you like but I am telling you God's own truth about the working world.
Are you serious? I needed to explain what type of shoes I wear? Lmbo! FYI I have a pair of black SHOES from a uniform store. They look just like black CROCS! Please take you're negativity else where no one asked for fashion advice, trust me I look the part! As for my shirt its a custom made business t shirt with my logo and website on it please be respectful!
This is not the first time you have said something negative about my typing skills, just to inform you did you take a look at Jay Z the famous rappers typing skills on his twitter? Or maybe how some cupcake wars winners pages? I'm guesing not and if so I'm sure you wouldn't have a slight chance of getting any type of reaction out of them..
A
Original message sent by -K8memphis
i suggest you target your market
go to like minded vendors, florists, caterers who do not do cakes, bridal dress shops, venues, churches etc.
shoot your arrows at the ones who are already like minded
but you have two focuses here--the retail small potatoes and the high end tier cakes--where is your focus?
how can you retail out of a borrowed space?
I was advised by a local baker that I should consider adding custom cupcakes to the daily menu to keep up with expenses. She then told me that with cakes alone she would not be in business. Also I didn't mean "retail" I meant a daily choice for clientele.
I was advised by a local baker that I should consider adding custom cupcakes to the daily menu to keep up with expenses. She then told me that with cakes alone she would not be in business. Also I didn't mean "retail" I meant a daily choice for clientele.
where do you sell them from?
A
Original message sent by Sassyzan
You have one order a week right now. I'd start there, where you are. Your goal is great, but there are a lot of steps and a lot of time and hard work between where you are and where you're going. With that volume, you might want your own kitchen by then. I think you need to figure out how to make the kitchen rental work with a more realistic estimate of the business you've got. Maybe start with trying to get the weekly cake for church coffee hour or be their go-to supplier for church suppers. Get your foot in the door, solidify a relationship. Then go from there and build slowly. This isn't going to happen overnight, or even in a few months. You say you're the "cheap" cake lady, but you're going to get $200 each for 8" cakes? I think you are missing some critical steps between here (where you are now) and there (where you want to be).
I'm not sure what your shoes have to do with anything nd the most recent cake central email came out riddled with typos and spelling errors, so perfect typing is not the key to success. It's a sound business plan and a realistic idea of your ability to grow your business.
Thank you for the advice, no way would I charge $200 for a cake, I wrote all of that in a jippy.. I am going to be charging 3.50 per serving which would not be $200 for a 8".. Currently I only charge $40 for a 8" three layer round.
I too agree with what you have said about the shoes and typing skills, I know its something I do need to improve on that's for sure. But i will not let that alone hold me back from something I am completely compassionate about.
A
Original message sent by LovelyCakes4Us
Question, do you see anything wrong with my typing skills? Hay mite as well ask while I'm at it.
You may also want to work on not taking things so personally or reading malicious intent where none exists. A thick skin is essential in any business where you are dealing with the general public.
A
Original message sent by -K8memphis
where do you sell them from?
I was renting a kitchen for three years that could not supply the amount of hours I need to move on in my business, I have not made any cakes besides display cakes in the last two weeks. I then found this church and will be working out of their kitchen once the health inspector checks it out tomorrow. That is why I wrote this form to see if anyone had any advice to how I could ask the church to lower their price from 20/ a hour to maybe 10/15 a hour. But clearly this conversation is starting to become something other then I had intended.
A
Original message sent by LovelyCakes4Us
Total 4,570 a month - 720 renting the kitchen a month -240 for cupcake ingredients -120.00 8" ingredients -100.00 two tier ingredients -120.00 wedding cake ingredients -900.00 house rent -100 electric -55.00 phone -300.00 food -100.00 car
Leaves me with 1,640 profit..
Your personal budget and your business budget should be completely separate.
If you are paying for the kitchen hourly, how do you know how much time you'll need per month? Start from the ground up and make sure all your different products are profitable at the price point you choose after you take labor and overhead into account. Once you have the profit per order it will be much easier to make different projections for total net income.
You have not taken into account the cost of your labor or other overhead such as insurance, license fees, accounting, web site development, or marketing.
That's not terrific or anything but it would work for start up, as for marketing ill go the cheapy routes,flyers,business cards word to mouth,website,Google,Facebook,heck even door to door handing out flyers on the door knob. Etc etc
Cheap marketing often ends up reaching cheap customers.
A
Original message sent by jason_kraft
Your written communication skills are not terrible, but they could probably use some improvement in terms of spelling, punctuation, and grammar (especially homophones). The fact that other people might have worse written communication skills is not relevant.
You may also want to work on not taking things so personally or reading malicious intent where none exists. A thick skin is essential in any business where you are dealing with the general public.
You may also want to work on not taking things so personally or reading malicious intent where none exists. A thick skin is essential in any business where you are dealing with the general public.[/quot
Believe it or not I love good criticism, and this my friend to me is good criticism. As for the whole shoes ordeal that was just rude and I refuse to put up with CC member who THINK they are holyer then thou! I would never ever come at a customer like that honestly i wouldn't even respond.
A
Original message sent by LovelyCakes4Us
I was advised by a local baker that I should consider adding custom cupcakes to the daily menu to keep up with expenses. She then told me that with cakes alone she would not be in business. Also I didn't mean "retail" I meant a daily choice for clientele.
If you had a storefront with high fixed costs I would agree, but most of your costs will be variable so you would need to see how the market demand for cupcakes and profitability compares with custom cakes. If you have no storefront and fill custom orders only how would having a daily inventory of products help you?
Taking advice from others is great, but you need to vet that advice against your own costs and revenue projections to see if it makes sense for you.
A
Original message sent by LovelyCakes4Us
Believe it or not I love good criticism, and this my friend to me is good criticism. As for the whole shoes ordeal that was just rude and I refuse to put up with CC member who THINK they are holyer then thou! I would never ever come at a customer like that honestly i wouldn't even respond.
The comment about shoes (and visual presentation in general) makes sense. If you look like you are a professional baker, people will assume you know what you're doing. If you don't look like a professional baker, you can still make a good impression but you need to work harder at it and rely on your verbal communication skills.
A
Original message sent by jason_kraft
Your personal budget and your business budget should be completely separate.
If you are paying for the kitchen hourly, how do you know how much time you'll need per month? Start from the ground up and make sure all your different products are profitable at the price point you choose after you take labor and overhead into account. Once you have the profit per order it will be much easier to make different projections for total net income.
You have not taken into account the cost of your labor or other overhead such as insurance, license fees, accounting, web site development, or marketing. Cheap marketing often ends up reaching cheap customers.
Like I've stated, I wrote that all up with in minutes its just a "what if" type of thing. As for the cheap marketing thing, that's not true at all, have you read the book (starting a business with 100.00) clearly you can start as cheap as possible and once income generates I could participate in bridal shows, media, more professional looking flyers etc. As of right now I plan to have a free sample tasting once a month for three months held at the church with their consent. Flyers,internet marketing such as Google,face book,website (which is free with vista print) and so on. I think that's a good start.
A
Original message sent by jason_kraft
The comment about shoes (and visual presentation in general) makes sense. If you look like you are a professional baker, people will assume you know what you're doing. If you don't look like a professional baker, you can still make a good impression but you need to work harder at it and rely on your verbal communication skills.
To me it does not make sense as I've already got the whole attire thing down to a T. She ASSUMED I didn't have the proper attire just by reading one comment I made. And she simply did not need to go on and explain herself when its something I already know.
Note: this is not the first time I've had issues with her, a MOD had to block a thread I started due to how disrespectful she was being, so this is a personal matter. She can private message me but instead loves to beat down my typing skills constantly. You come to a point as a human being that things just go to far and this is one of them times she should shut her trap and keep her words to herself. But no she wants to make it CLEAR I have issues with typing and so on. If you ask me she's very unprofessional for nit picking on someone for their problems.
I was renting a kitchen for three years that could not supply the amount of hours I need to move on in my business, I have not made any cakes besides display cakes in the last two weeks. I then found this church and will be working out of their kitchen once the health inspector checks it out tomorrow. That is why I wrote this form to see if anyone had any advice to how I could ask the church to lower their price from 20/ a hour to maybe 10/15 a hour. But clearly this conversation is starting to become something other then I had intended.
the church did that to discourage you from proceeding i don't know of any way to get someone else to change thier price except maybe barter
what can you offer them
churches like free stuff
A
Original message sent by LovelyCakes4Us
As for the cheap marketing thing, that's not true at all, have you read the book (starting a business with 100.00) clearly you can start as cheap as possible and once income generates I could participate in bridal shows, media, more professional looking flyers etc.
You can certainly be successful without spending a lot on marketing (the best marketing is word of mouth, which is free), but it requires very strong competitive advantages with clearly defined markets. And you have to be lucky.
A
Original message sent by -K8memphis
the church did that to discourage you from proceeding i don't know of any way to get someone else to change thier price except maybe barter
what can you offer them
churches like free stuff
You really think they came up with 20.00 a hour to make me reconsider even renting? If that's the case idk.. And yes I offered to make cakes for their event, it was very brief when we met.
Hay all, I have some questions and would like some advice on renting a church kitchen, Ifound a church right up the street from me that will rent their kitchen to me, a few weeks later I went to meet with them it was brief maybe 10 minutes. They looked sceptical until I told them Ihave taken safe serve have liability and so on. The head lady of the kitchen said quote "maybe this will be a lot better then I thought"
. We then went over storage and ect, then how much to pay a hour. The lady said 10.50 I said that perfect I'm on a low income trying to start a business. The guy on the other hand insisted I pay more due to oven use. Understandable right? Yes. But then again most of my time there will be fondant work maybe a hour worth of baking. I left and received a call today he said I will be paying 20.00 a hour plus 100.00 deposit. I know this is a good price for a rental but with how tight my budget is makes $20 a hour impossible for me..Any ideas on how I could try to see if they could reconsider to maybe $15 a hour or less being as I won't really be using the oven that much.. Heck I only get 1 order a week if that lol!! Any tips advice would be great!! How would you try to see if they could reconsider price if you're income was low?
Please no negitive comments on how I shouldn't try to start a business with low income.. Trust me its possible with the str eighth of the lord.
he knew you liked the $10.50
he doubled this part of your overhead
and wants you to put up $100 when you say you're low income
yeah i'd say he wasn't trying to help out any
maybe save face that they said yes at one point--but they mean 'no not really'
A
Original message sent by -K8memphis
he knew you liked the $10.50
he doubled this part of your overhead
and wants you to put up $100 when you say you're low income
yeah i'd say he wasn't trying to help out any
maybe save face that they said yes at one point--but they mean 'no not really'
Asking for a deposit is standard procedure when renting anything, $100 is actually pretty low for a commercial kitchen deposit.
A
Original message sent by jason_kraft
I didn't get that impression, it sounded to me like the lady threw out a figure that she would pay as a tenant without considering the costs, and the guy crunched the numbers and came up with a number that would be profitable for them. If I were renting out the kitchen to a tenant I would probably start out offering an hourly rate higher than my target so there may be some room for negotiation.
Asking for a deposit is standard procedure when renting anything, $100 is actually pretty low for a commercial kitchen deposit.
Considering they have been the ones contacting me would make me think you are correct in this situation, I was starting to think they didn't want me but when I go to thinking about it, I've only called them once he has called me about 4 times so I'm guessing they could sure use the extra income. Also I wasn't avoiding them by not calling them, i was doing my re search as I am now.
I would make a counteroffer to the church for say 12-13 Hr. Then see what they come back with, I think you can get it to 15 Hr. if you push the issue.
Best of luck, Jimmy
Well I have rented church kitchens, and maybe there is some information misssing here. OP will no doubt fail to get the message, but for the rest of you, here it is:
US churches are registered with the IRS as NON PROFIT organizations.
When a BONA FIDE MEMBER of a church congregation rents their church kitchen for a ONE TIME ONLY event, there are many EXEMPTIONS to the food rules that kick in.
When a FOR PROFIT BUSINESS rents church space on a regular basis, then the church might have to comply with the full set of food safety regs as if it was in fact a restaurant or bakery. Which will cost them $$$ and might even require them to upgrade their facilities and certification. FYI the same applies to daycares and other regulated activities using church space on a REGULAR basis instead of an EVENT basis.
I believe that the church people took the OP's request to their legal advisor who pointed this difference out to them. They did their due diligence according to the laws of your state. Yes no doubt the OP will accuse me of some new sort of offensiveness...that's just the OP.
Here while I'm at it are more facts: the OP showed in her budget that she is deducting her personal household expenses off her business income to calculate profit. Sorry babe but that will get you kicked real hard by the IRS...in back taxes and penalties and audits until kingdom come. Your business finances must show all BUSINESS expenses and they can pay you an hourly salary and all employment taxes. You should file and pay those employment taxes so that you can collect benefits.
Your car gets a mileage allowance for expenses according to the miles logged for BUSINESS not the total. Your house rent (when you MUST use a rented kitchen) gets prorated by floor area for office space--and your personal grocery bill simply cannot be part of your BUSINESS finances. You seriously need to get a local accountant to advise you. Call me all the names you want...when the IRS invites you to a business meeting it ain't gonna be no picnic.
A
Original message sent by BakingIrene
Well I have rented church kitchens, and maybe there is some information misssing here. OP will no doubt fail to get the message, but for the rest of you, here it is:
US churches are registered with the IRS as NON PROFIT organizations.
When a BONA FIDE MEMBER of a church congregation rents their church kitchen for a ONE TIME ONLY event, there are many EXEMPTIONS to the food rules that kick in.
When a FOR PROFIT BUSINESS rents church space on a regular basis, then the church might have to comply with the full set of food safety regs as if it was in fact a restaurant or bakery. Which will cost them $$$ and might even require them to upgrade their facilities and certification. FYI the same applies to daycares and other regulated activities using church space on a REGULAR basis instead of an EVENT basis.
I believe that the church people took the OP's request to their legal advisor who pointed this difference out to them. They did their due diligence according to the laws of your state. Yes no doubt the OP will accuse me of some new sort of offensiveness...that's just the OP.
Here while I'm at it are more facts: the OP showed in her budget that she is deducting her personal household expenses off her business income to calculate profit. Sorry babe but that will get you kicked real hard by the IRS...in back taxes and penalties and audits until kingdom come. Your business finances must show all BUSINESS expenses and they can pay you an hourly salary and all employment taxes. You should file and pay those employment taxes so that you can collect benefits.
Your car gets a mileage allowance for expenses according to the miles logged for BUSINESS not the total. Your house rent (when you MUST use a rented kitchen) gets prorated by floor area for office space--and your personal grocery bill simply cannot be part of your BUSINESS finances. You seriously need to get a local accountant to advise you. Call me all the names you want...when the IRS invites you to a business meeting it ain't gonna be no picnic.
I was only saying it in general, not to put in my business plan. So if my business is the ONLY job I have I shouldn't pay my rent with the profit I get from my business? Well that's exactly what I meant sorry if I did not word it correctly.. Secondly I'll be paying taxes and have collected all invoices for prior sales so I'm not to worried about the IRS at all, I'm doing everything legally and will remain to..
A
Original message sent by JimmyBoombats
I would make a counteroffer to the church for say 12-13 Hr. Then see what they come back with, I think you can get it to 15 Hr. if you push the issue.
Best of luck, Jimmy
Thanks Jimmy! This is exactly why I started this thread thanks much!
A
Original message sent by LovelyCakes4Us
I was only saying it in general, not to put in my business plan. So if my business is the ONLY job I have I shouldn't pay my rent with the profit I get from my business?
So the final line in your list is not really profit, it's what you have left over for savings. The taxable profit for your business would be your revenue minus business expenses only, which is why it's a good idea to separate business and personal budgets.
If I'm not too late answering, I would ask if you could start at $15.00 an hour, and after a definable period of time when you're making more money, say "in 6 months" I can start paying you more - that is exactly what I did!
Hope this information helps,
Lisa Raffael
i looked this up recently and discovered that this church i mentioned upthread is still in hot water to the tune of four hundred thousand big ones
(originally it was for millions in taxes on the entire property--got that notched back...but still at it nine years later)
you can get a flavor of how the government in tn views this if you get a chance to skim this article
tax exemption is a very big deal and should be safeguarded
note the word purely in the quote following the link
Tennessee State Board of Equalization
Property Tax Exemptions in Tennessee
How to Apply
for
Religious • Charitable • Educational • Scientific
Exemptions
Your property must meet three requirements before it can be granted tax exempt status.
1. The property must be owned by a religious, charitable, scientific, or nonprofit
educational institution.
2. The exempt institution must actively use the property purely and exclusively
for one or more of the exempt purposes of the institution.
3. Your organization must submit an application for exemption from property
taxation.
ok--well it was in another thread about renting from a church that we all discussed tax exemption in regard to non-profit organizations and for profit organizations and the calamities thereof
but the idea still fits here
my opinion on it -- just say no to renting from a church
I just wanted to chime in that there wasn't any mention of taxes in that budget. I was self-employed for a time in 2011 and as an experienced finance professional even I found it overwhelming to keep up with all the rules on when to pay, and more importantly, how much to pay. You may also have to figure out state taxes. If you're currently selling cakes, even cheaply, I assume you already know about all of this. But since you didn't include it, I thought you would appreciate the heads up.
Also, I realize you probably won't take this in the spirit it's intended, but if you respond to people you are doing business with in the same way you do to people on here that are usually trying to offer you some useful advice, you're not going to get very far. Instead of constantly jumping up to defend yourself, take a second to think about whether there was actually some merit to what was said, because as they say, 'there's no smoke without fire'. A lot of us have had to learn the 'pause and take a breath before hitting the send button' lesson the hard way.
A
Original message sent by kikiandkyle
I just wanted to chime in that there wasn't any mention of taxes in that budget. I was self-employed for a time in 2011 and as an experienced finance professional even I found it overwhelming to keep up with all the rules on when to pay, and more importantly, how much to pay. You may also have to figure out state taxes. If you're currently selling cakes, even cheaply, I assume you already know about all of this. But since you didn't include it, I thought you would appreciate the heads up.
Also, I realize you probably won't take this in the spirit it's intended, but if you respond to people you are doing business with in the same way you do to people on here that are usually trying to offer you some useful advice, you're not going to get very far. Instead of constantly jumping up to defend yourself, take a second to think about whether there was actually some merit to what was said, because as they say, 'there's no smoke without fire'. A lot of us have had to learn the 'pause and take a breath before hitting the send button' lesson the hard way.
I would never ever ever ever talk to my customers the way I do on here, I take that very very serious when talking to my customers :)..
Thanks for the advice I am quick to defend myself that's just who I am but not for one second would I ever say anything unnessisary to my customers they deserve the utmost respect! :)
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%