2023 is a year of taking each day as it comes…
I think we spend too much time coming up with New Year’s resolutions and within a week, not being able to fulfil them. The outcome is you feeling like you’ve failed! How’s that good for our minds?
I always believe you should set yourself goals and wishes rather than resolutions! Goals that are achievable but will equally challenge your comfort zone.
Set yourself a goal that will push you out of your comfort zone. It’s a plaster off situation and once you’ve done it you’ll feel so proud and won’t think or question your abilities again. I’ve had so many plaster off situations in my life, and once I’ve ripped that plaster off I’m then cross with myself for not doing it sooner! All the procrastinating and rocking back and forth in the corner of the room was in my mind, not reality. Very irritating indeed!
So don’t doubt your abilities and push yourself! Stop over thinking, if you’re someone who suffers with anxiety, try and think of the worst case scenario. Worst case scenario’s are not real it’s what you’re making up in your head not reality. Please try and remember this is cake. The world will carry on spinning regardless of whether you got the wrong shade of pink! Put it into perspective.
Every year I write down a manifestation list of what I want to happen that year. It’s always positive and gives me the drive to better myself. I would encourage you to do this as putting this out into the ether is the catalyst for making your dreams and aspirations come true.
Last week I posed a question on my Instagram story asking people if they are over-thinkers?
The results were very interesting, I would say 98% of people that said they were over-thinkers had some form of childhood trauma. Whether it was one person making a flippant comment when they were young or having a difficult childhood made them over think and doubt their abilities, which in turn of course affected their confidence in themselves.
Do you struggle with pricing your products? Why? Lack of confidence? Lack of knowledge? Lack of self belief?
This was made quite clear to Fran and I when we were at Cake International last year. I was due to demo on the Sugarin stand and ended up being late! (I don’t do late anywhere so you can imagine it sent me spinning) purely because I was talking to Haff and Rachel on their Olbaa box stand and 2 ladies separately came up to us to talk about pricing. One lady was unsure whether to buy the Olbaa big cake boxes because of the price! I immediately said to her “you pass the cost of the box onto the customer” and she said “really?” Err yes 🙌🏻 her husband was in the background nodding his head frantically at me and saying I’ve been telling her this for months. It’s not down to you to decide what the customer can afford. You don’t need to list the cost of ingredients, the price of the cake board, the price of the cake box you give them an overall price! It’s really very simple. She thanked us more than your average thank you if that makes any sense. Rachel laughed at me and said you’re so ‘straight talking’ and that’s what we love about you❤️. I am I’m afraid, why be fluffy, get to the point hahahaha. She was stressing, physically stressing over a top quality cake box. Are your cakes top quality? Yes 🙌🏻 so why display and present your top quality cake in a cheap flimsy cake box 🤷🏻♀️…makes no sense to me.
3 seconds later another lady started talking to us saying she knows she doesn’t charge enough and isn’t confident when it comes to pricing. This saddens me so much when you see such creative people produce stunning works of art yet don’t price their work correctly. Obviously I gave her a pep talk and she walked away full of confidence and thanked us again. Once we got home we received an email from this lovely lady thanking us again and explaining how it really helped and gave her the shove to charge more. We looked at her business and couldn’t believe she’d been going for around 6 years. 6 long years of underpricing her work. She had an amazing following and stunningly beautiful work.
Remember when I always say if you’re being shown enough signs to act on them? Well I’m acting on them.
Now I receive messages daily about pricing, and after the 2 ladies at CI not to mention a massive proportion of my class was taken up with talk on pricing whilst piping of course. It needs to be addressed.
Myself and Rockpool Creative came up with an amazing idea that would enable anyone worldwide to join our FREE ‘Pricing Conversation’ event. We have collaborated with an amazing line of up of speakers Melanie Underwood the founder of Cake International @thecakeshows, Emma-Jayne from @emmajayne, Haff and Rachel from @olbaa and @rockcakecreative and of course myself @cakesbyjanetaylor.
We felt it was important to have a variety of guest speakers as they all have invaluable experience, knowledge and expertise in this area. It’s will be a conversation where you can interact and ask questions. We know this will give you the knowledge, tools and confidence to price your work correctly so you are making profit. There is good money in cake making if you charge the correct amount. ‘Know your worth’.
If you haven’t already there is a questionnaire for you to fill in, it is completely anonymous but gives us the data we need establish what help is required.
And for those of you who have asked, I am now offering One to Ones on a Wednesday once a month. More information here
Jane x
