Hello, welcome back to your slice of success.
How are you all?
I've had a good weekend.
It has been Easter here in the uk
So if you celebrate Easter, happy Easter.
I hope you had a wonderful day. Um and if you don't celebrate Easter, I still hope you had the most amazing weekend. For me, it was a chocolate egg filled feast. Way too many chocolate eggs to be eating in one day, but I do love chocolate, so why not?
I mean, why not?
Okay, so, I'm gonna wasting time.
Today's episode is a little bit of a hot to heart, so I'm gonna chat about something that I've seen a lot of on social media lately.
Something that I have also talked about to my membership group this week. And it's one of those topics I think that we all feel and maybe we don't say out loud.
It's about the posts.
The ones that say things like why I don't make this kind of cake anymore, or why I don't take these kind of orders, or why you should choose sugar flowers over the fresh flowers.
I I'm sure you've seen these kind of posts.
And I wanna talk about them.
Now, I also wanna be clear that there is nothing wrong with sharing your preferences or your process.
You know, in fact, it is so important that we explain why we do the things the way we do in our business, but lately, I've been seeing a lot of those posts popping up really close together almost like they're in response to one another.
You know, the K about why she does show flowers and then another one pops up about how fresh flowers are much better.
And it starts to feel less like education and more like competition.
It's like everyone's trying to justify or defend their position.
But from the outside, it just starts to feel a bit too much . And that is really what I wanna talk about, how these hosts land for your audience, because most of the time your audience isn't sit in there comparing sugar flowers and fresh hours like it's a debates.
They're just trying to find a cake maker who understands them and can bring their vision to life all they see are post that feel like industry in fighting, then they're gonna get confused or even put off.
It creates this tension that they didn't ask for and it's totally does not help them and make a decision.
It just makes them feel like they are choosing sides so, you know, you should reframe the message instead of saying why I don't do this, what if we said this is what I love doing and why I focus on this?
So, you know, for example, it's instead of I don't make I don't make novelty celebration cakes because I just don't enjoy them and I think you know, it's a waste of my time.
Instead of putting a negative on it and saying I don't do that, it's what I do.
I specialize in modern minimal wedding cakes because that's my passion, that's where my creativity really shines.
And it allows me to give each couple something deeply personal and beautiful.
It's the same message.
It's saying I don't make novelty cakes, but it's not about what I don't do.
It's about what I do my best.
It makes the customer feel excited and reassured rather than like they've asked for the wrong thing.
So I hope I hope that makes sense because, you know, I do see a lot of cake Macias recently a lot saying why I don't take on this kind of order You need to spend it around.
You need to tell people why you do something, not why you don't. On the topic of competition, I know the other thing that stings is when I feel like someone's copying your content or reacting to what you've posted, because I I felt it too.
That little twinge of hm, that looks just like something I said last week . And actually it's happened to me a lot recently, so I will say something somewhere in some way and I you know the very next day sometimes it's a couple of hours later.
I've gone on and I've seen someone post something almost exactly the same and I will look at when they posted it and it is after I've posted mine, so it's not like I have seen a post that's a week old.
It's a gone on.
The messages is almost the same and I look at it and and it's definitely after I've posted mine and that just feels like that's copying.
But, you know, it's it's not copying.
The truth is you you can't really be copied when you're being fully you because it's your voice, your stories, your style.
That's your secret source.
Someone can take your format or your idea, but they can't deliver it in the way that you do.
So if anything, take it as a sign that your content has made an impact, you are setting the tone, you're leading.
And honestly that's what I want for you, not just to make cakes but to lead in your space with confidence and clarity.
It's not about, oh, they're copying me, oh, I they've done it better, it's not, as you did it first, you did it best.
And you did it in a way that resonates with the audience and they did it in a way that resonates with their audience.
Everybody has their own audience.
You very rarely have the same audience as Kate makers, very, very rarely, even even if we both make maybe, you know, I make as I happens I make ready makes, but for instance, if I made birthday cakes and then a cake maker who lives 2 miles away, makes birthday cakes, we're still very different.
We have a different way, we have a different approach, we have a different style.
We're not in competition, so I can post something and that tomorrow I can see the same thing that she's posted.
It's still gonna be different and it will still resonate with the audience.
She's not gonna steal my customers, I'm not gonna steal hers and that isn't the point of it.
We don't wanna steal customers, we want our own customers.
So, you know, that competition element of seeing , like I have seen in the last week that people have posted pretty much exactly what I've posted, just tweaking it slightly.
It's okay, actually, it's it's fine.
Yeah, I have to admit, like when I first saw it, I was like, oh, couldn't you come up with your own thing?
But actually, I'd take it as a compliment because if my frontent is good enough that people want to cut the F, for that makes me happy, it means I'm doing something right and and that's the way you've got to look at it.
So my takeaway for this today is post from a place of service, not defense.
Your customers don't need to know what you don't do.
They need to know why you're the right choice for them . They want to feel inspired.
They want to feel supportive, they want to feel confident in choosing you so speak to them. Not to the competition, not to the critics, not to the algorithm, just your dream customer, the one who's waiting to find you.
You don't need to prove anything.
You just need to show up as you.
So remember, it doesn't matter.
You know, if if you see um if you see somebody saying you should choose sugar flowers, because blah, blah, blah.
Don't get defensive because you don't make sugarfl flowers.
Don't go and create a post that says you should choose fresh flowers.
You should have these.
It's not about that.
It does make it feel like if if I was I mean, I'm saying this from from a person who sees all the other cake makers, you know, I follow a lot of cake makers.
That is my business.
I wanna help cake makers, so I follow a lot of cake makers and then recently I've seen you should have fresh flowers because of XYZ, and the next day I've seen, you should not have you should not have fresh flowers.
You should have so sugar flowers because of X YZ and to me, that felt like a little battle.
And if your custom sees this, they're gonna get confused, they're not gonna know what to do and to be honest.
It's not doubt to them.
It's down to you to educate.
It's not about you should have this and you should have this.
It's give them the choice.
If your cake make it that only provides sugar flowers, that's brilliant, you know, great for you , but saying that you should only have sugar flowers and not have fresh flowers is it's not fair.
It's not fair on the customer.
If you only make sure of flowers, then you're post should be educating them on why you prefer them why you love to make them why it would enhance their wedding, not because fresh flowers are poisonous fresh flowers do this.
It's not this.
It's you are giving them negatives and that's not the way to sell.
You should be selling the positives . Sugar flowers can be kept for life.
Sugar flowers can be a display of artwork, not you shouldn't choose fresh flowers. And it goes to the same.
You know, if you don't make sugar flowers, so you always want to add fresh flowers or fake flowers , you shouldn't be going on there and saying, you shouldn't have sugar flowers because they can break because they're expensive because of this and this and this, your customers are going to feel the negativity and that is not what you want, okay?
So give them the reasons why they should have something not where they shouldn't . Okay, that was quite passionate and I apologize so that is it from me today.
I hope that this episode has given you a little bit to think about and maybe a little bit of peace if you've caught in that spiral over, should I say something back or was that post about me ? Let me know what you think.
Put me a DM if this has resonated review if you agree with me or not, you know I'm open to debate and if you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you left a quid review or if you shared it with any other cakemaker friends that you might have and don't forget to subscribe as well and just a little reminder, I am running my free confident cake business workshop.
It starts on Sundays.
It's completely free.
It's full day workshop teaching you for incredibly vulnerable things that you need to do to be successfully in your cake business. You can sign up at the link in the notes of this episode or if you head to my Instagram bio the link is also in that.
But for now, I have a wonderful week and I will speak to you next week.
Bye.
