The Business of Baking Podcast
Business
Today is an exciting day because I'm interviewing Tracy Vasquez, the owner Sugar Beez, a cookie company that mostly makes really beautiful royal icing cookies. Tracy hails from Wonder Lake, Illinois. She's the mom of five grown-up daughters, and she works full-time as a police dispatcher. She is a very interesting person and her experience has been quite different to that of most of the other home-bakers that I've spoken to on the podcast, so listen in today, to hear Tracy's story.
Last year, Tracy was approached by a national grocery chain. They asked her to supply their stores in Illinois with her cookies, and then that expanded to include Wisconsin as well. Tracy discovered that she had to obtain a GFSI certification from the Global Food Safety Initiative, to provide supermarkets with her cookies. So for the last year, she has been going through the challenging process necessary to become certified. In today's episode, she talks to us about this process. We also talk about marketing, working full-time, and raising a bunch of beautiful daughters. Tune in now, to find out what Tracy has to do to obtain her GFSI certificate from the Global Food Safety Initiative.
Show highlights:
How this all started for Tracey. Why Tracy has never spent money on advertising. The benefits of SEO. Tracy discusses the conscious choice she made to follow the website and SEO path to make her name known. The bulk of Tracy's business comes from Google or Instagram. Tracy has accepted that she does her best work under pressure. Making cookies brings a good balance to Tracy's life. How the supermarket approached Tracy. Tracy talks about the arduous process of getting certified. Some of the crazy things you have to consider when applying for certification. Tracy hired a technical writer to help her understand what she could not understand before. This motivated her to keep moving forward. Although it has been pretty costly, Tracy has learned a lot, she's grown, and she's become empowered from doing this process. This process has helped Tracy become faster and more efficient, and her life has really improved as a result. Tracy makes custom cookie cutters for every order. Tracy offers her advice for going through the certification process as seamlessly as possible. All of Michelle's classes are now available online.Links:
To find out about Michelle's classes, go to www.thebizofbaking.com
Sugar Beez's website: www.sugarbeez.com
What Kids Think of Working Parents Edited
Reclaim Your Life and Your Time
Cake Flavors - How Many is Too Many?
Ask Me Anything - Business Stuff!
Ask Me Anything - Part Fun!
A Typical Small Cookie Company Story Revisited
Baking for Paleo and Keto Diets with Primal Noms
A Practical Mental Health Strategy
The Wonderful World of Custom Sprinkles with Liz Butts of Sprinkle Pop
SISU is the New Favorite Word
A Pie Empire: Stores, Physical Products and Working Together as a Couple
The Sweetest Gift with Patricia Scheetz
Cakers Behaving Badly: Solving the Problems We Complain About Most
Tips for Hiring the Right People
The Ups and Downs of Business with Laurel Harlan
The Worst Advice I Ever Received
The Best Advice I've Ever Been Given
Competitions and Competitiveness in Cake Decorating
The Changing Cake Industry
Making Sense of Advertising, Marketing, PR and Social Media with Cori Keeton Pope
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Commercial Edge: Unleash the Power of People
The emPOWERed Half Hour
Aligned Money Show
Gorse Culture PODcast : The H.R. Detective Agency!
HCI Leadership Revolution
The Ramsey Show
Planet Money