Step 1: Evaluate Areas To Go Green For a business to go completely green, there are a lot of complex areas involved. The easiest, and most obvious, is reducing or eliminating the need to print. This translates to hundreds if not thousands of dollars in savings per year as you no longer need to purchase [...]
Would you rather manage your data locally or allow a third party to host it? Do you prefer to maintain your own server, knowing you will have to replace it when it fails? Are you prepared to upgrade your equipment and devices every few years? One common dilemma businesses face is whether to adopt web-based [...]
A recent article in bakingbusiness.com took on the complicated nature of consumer eating, investigating the seeming contradiction between the rise in health-consciousness and growing spending on snack foods. Fully two-thirds of American adults report indulging in snacking, while nearly half replace meals with snack foods. At the same time, the types of snack foods Americans [...]
Does your bakery sell dough? Home baking may be rooted in America’s vision of the holidays, but many consumers are pressed for time and can’t make fancy holiday treats from scratch. Buying finished, unbaked dough allows them to enjoy your high-quality products while still filling their homes with the warm scents of gingerbread or butter rolls [...]
Offering free samples to your customers can have dramatic positive effects on sales. Customers like free samples -- consider this article about a beloved bakery where the author got a free slice of bread at every visit: the bread didn’t just give this customer a sense of delight and increase his feelings of loyalty [...]
What makes customers buy a tee shirt from a café, bakery, or restaurant and wear it around, advertising that business to everyone they meet? For some, it’s a special love for that particular business. For others, it’s a foodie identity, a feeling of being in-the-know about good food and where to find it. Some might [...]
Have you seen the Amazon cookbook bestseller page recently? Many of the top sellers come from bakeries: Magpie's beautiful primer on pies, Momofuku Milk Bar's spread of innovative modern desserts, Tartine's elegant collection of classics, and more. Cookbooks are purchased as gifts nearly twice as much as other books; put together an attractive package that highlights the unique character of [...]
Want to be part of a popular cultural trend while expanding your business and reaching more customers, without the price tag of opening another storefront? Consider adding a food truck. While food trucks come with their own costs and administrative hurdles, they also come with quite a few perks, including visibility and flexibility. Food trucks [...]
Do you want to strengthen your relationships with your customers? Give them a better understanding of the value of your expertise? Make more money during slower months? Try offering baking classes. Here Barb Gardner of Let Them Eat Cake talks about what classes have done for her, and answers the question “will my customers stop [...]
Managing a business is stressful work. In the thick of things, it can be tempting to try to save time with shortcuts that hurt your company in the long run, or to preserve focus by shutting out distractions -- such as employees’ needs. Protect your business from these three destructive management traps: Discount your team’s [...]