73. Baking it Down - Death Ground

🌄  Death-Ground Strategy in BusinessYeah, so that title is violent - but the concept behind Robert Greene's 33 Strategies of War is actually pretty solid, and it's the focus of our Baking it Down Podcast this week.You see - when there's a mountain behind an army blocking their only way of retreat, and their only option is to "do or die," they'll fight 3x harder to win. Why? Because failure isn't an option. And when you can't afford to lose, you'll do just about anything to win. The same could apply to your business goals. If you had to sell 10 custom orders - because not selling them meant you were on the streets tomorrow, what would you do to make it happen?? I'd wager you'd do an awful lot to ensure you had a roof over your head.🤔  "but Heather, I'm not a violent person."Me either. Think of it this way...If I paid you $1,000,000 to teach a cookie class, what would you do to make it happen? Well, you better believe I'll be knocking on every door from here to Timbucktu to fill a seat, come heck or high water.👣 Warning - this newsletter may cause some feet injuries because I might step on a few toes. But I have good reason. 👣  🛌 But oftentimes in our businesses, we put a pillow fort behind us ready to catch us and all of our glorious excuses. 🛌  I couldn't teach the class because the only venue I reached out to didn't reply.🛌 I couldn't sell watercolor cookies because the one time I tried to learn it, it didn't look very good.🛌 I didn't sign up for The Cookie College because I'm too busy to take a class. 🛌 I can't post Reels, I don't know how to find trending music.Those excuses look comfy, don't they? Definitely not a mountain behind your back forcing your hand of excuses and making you "do or die" try, I'd say. They say spending 100 hours practicing something will allow you to be considered "very good" at that thing. One hundred hours sounds like an insanely long amount of time (unless you're scrolling on TikTok, then I think it translates to about 1.5 earth hours). But lemme break this down for you:10 Minutes a Day for 600 Days = 100 Hours20 Minutes a Day for 300 Days = 100 Hours30 Minutes a Day for 200 Days = 100 Hours40 Minutes a Day for 150 Days = 100 Hours50 Minutes a Day for 120 Days = 100 Hours60 Minutes a Day for 100 Days = 100 Hours If you sleep the recommended 8 hours a day, spend another 8 hours a day working, that leaves you eight hours to spend how you want to. Can you take one of those hours and allocate it to a new decorating skill? Planning a cookie class? Taking a Cookie College course? You're not on a Death-Ground strategy and the only person who stands to lose here is you. I don't care. I mean, don't get me wrong - I love you, your ideas, and your business. But if you don't reach your goals - I don't care. You care. It's your life. It's your future. Not mine. So act like you're on a Death-Ground to reach your goals. Or at least acknowledge that your pillow fort has the finest Egyptian-sourced cotton you could spend your 10-minutes a day finding.🌄 Find your mountain and put it behind you, then fight like heck for your future. 

Om Podcasten

👋 Hey - Heather and Corrie here with the Baking it Down Podcast with Sugar Cookie Marketing (a group on Facebook full of sugar cookiers turned business owners). 🍪 We're here to help you rise with your reach, flood with new followers, bake up new ideas, and make that all-important dough (while makin' that dough - see the pun there?) 🤑. What’s it about? We’re a Facebook Group turned Podcast, Membership, Book Club, and Baking 101 that’s dedicated to assisting bakers in effectively marketing online to generate more sales and better manage their businesses. 🧠 With free Facebook Live classes, hundreds of resources, and thousands of like-minded bakers, there’s a lot to learn in "SCM" (aka Sugar Cookie Marketing). ️🎧 As an extension of our Facebook group, this podcast is here to let you learn by listening. 📈 We'll cover group topics, marketing trends, and more (leaving this wide open in case Corrie wants to start singing). 💸 We take the sweet art of selling online to the cottage bakery world with marketing methods that move products (and pastries).👂 So open up those glorious ear canals because we have a podcast! Just when you’ve thought you’ve “heard” it all with those marketing "miracle" twins (that's our last name - not a proclamation), we’ve got something just for you each week! 🥣 As a baker, you don't always have the luxury of two hands needed to scroll in Sugar Cookie Marketing Group or crack open a book in Sugar Cookie Bookies, but what you can do is listen (unless you're my kid asking “what’s for dinner” for the millionth time). 👐 Hands full of flour? No problem! 👍 18 dozen iced cookies due tomorrow? Let’s do this. The Baking it Down Podcast by Sugar Cookie Marketing is a weekly podcast geared toward helping you grow your bakery business - dropping (almost) every Tuesday. 📅 We choose a topic each week that's either something new and emerging in the world of social media or something that we saw in "The Group" that was a hot topic and we bake it down... I mean, "break" it down for you. 🗯️ What you can expect in the podcast is about an hour of chit-chat with the meat and potatoes right at the beginning of the episode. 🥔 That’s when we dive into the marketing topic of the week! 📞 Oh yeah, folks can call / text / email in with their questions too - a fun way to hear from other bakers out there. Our promises to you: 1️⃣ We always make it clean = no cursing. We understand that you are busy and could be around little ones while also trying to get your weekly dose of business growth so we make sure that each episode would make our grandma proud and keep it clean so you can listen while also living your life. 2️⃣ We always make it fun. There’s a lot of negativity in the world so we try and make the podcast an upbeat and fun learning experience for you. I mean, we try to make the Instagram updates and changes as happy as we can, but come on Instagram! Give it a rest! No more changes! 3️⃣ Other than that, we take a positive approach to marketing We are also *not* professional podcasters. I feel like we need to say this because, hey, sometimes we get giggles! We do our best to extend our marketing knowledge to you all free of charge each week at the cost of listening to our higher-than-normal pitched voices and the occasional giggle spree. 4️⃣ You can find the podcast on all the major platforms and you can typically expect a new episode each Tuesday afternoon (unless life happens). We invite everyone to listen. Either start from the beginning or work backward! The episodes don’t build off themselves so you won’t be confused hearing one before the other. You just might miss new Lives we mention but you can always catch the replay in the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group on Facebook!