Happy Father’s Day!!!
In honor of all great fathers including mine, I fondly dedicate this issue of Smart Cookies to them.
Starting a Homemade Cookie Business. Three aspects of any small business adventure and an example of a family-owned cookie business.
A Similarity Between Fortune Cookies and Tuiles. With usual cookie ingredients, you can easily whip up a batter to make either fortune cookies and tuiles. The creative fun comes in shaping them.
A Versatile Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe. Ingredients, baking direction, and illustrative images to show off a great peanut butter cookie recipe.
Rugelach with Apricot and Pistachio Filling. Cream cheese is just one of a few ingredients you need to make these delicious rugelach. There are also images to help you through the preparation process.
Trivia question: From a cookie recipe, what indication do you have as to how rich the cookies are? Answer
A Homemade Cookie Business
For baking enthusiasts who are thinking about starting a homemade cookie business, here are some helpful tips.
- Don’t confuse enthusiasm with passion – Enthusiasm comes and goes. True passion holds the key to success. The idea of having your own business is so exciting that it is easy to mistake enthusiasm for passion.
- Don’t imitate your competitor’s strategy – Identify your own advantage point and capitalize on it.
- Prepare a business plan. A cookie recipe tells you how much of certain ingredients to measure and how to assemble them. Likewise, a business plan tells your investors and financial lenders how you are going to manage your business.
- Know the size of your market and customer base. As valuable as the Internet is at providing helpful information, I would not rely on it as a sole source for customers.
- Don’t spend a lot of money on any one marketing program until you see the result.
- Connect with your customers and expand that connection.
- Don’t sell your homemade cookies as a product, but focus on their effect. For example, your customers are cookie lovers who don’t want the extra calories or need a special diet. How can your homemade cookies resolve this dilemma for your customers?
- Don’t price your homemade cookies just to cover cost plus a mark-up for profit. Instead, price them to their value to your customers.
- Don’t commit to a large inventory of ingredients until your homemade cookie business is stable and growing. A large inventory can adversely affect your cash flow which is the lifeblood of any business.
Have a great Summer!
Published date: June 11, 2007
Copyright 2007 by Trinh Lieu. All right reserved.