Welcome back to the Bakery Business Lab! Today's lesson in our FREE 5-day business planning series is all about something EVERY home baker needs to understand. SALES ARE NOT PROFIT! You can have a completely booked weekend, sell hundreds of dollars in desserts, and STILL walk away with very little money for yourself. Why? Because ingredients, packaging, supplies, overhead, and your TIME all have a cost! And if you're only looking at how much money came in, you're missing a pretty important part of the picture. LET'S PUT TODAY'S LESSON INTO PRACTICE! I want you to think about a product you currently sell (or plan to sell). 1. What are you charging for it? 2. Do you know what it ACTUALLY costs you to make it? Not just ingredients! Think packaging, fees, supplies, and other expenses. 3. How much time are you spending producing it? And here's the BIG question... 4. After looking at those numbers, is this product really as profitable as you thought? You don't have to share your actual financial numbers if you're not comfortable! But I DO want you to share what you discovered. Maybe you realized your packaging is eating into your profits. Maybe you discovered you're spending three hours on something that's barely paying you for one. Or maybe you realized one of your simplest products is actually one of your best money-makers! TODAY'S BUSINESS DECISION: Identify ONE thing you need to change, investigate, or start tracking to improve your bakery's profitability. It could be your pricing, production process, product selection, or even how you're recording expenses. You don't have to overhaul your entire business today. Just make one intentional decision based on what you've learned. AND HERE'S WHERE WE HELP EACH OTHER! If you've found ways to reduce production time, minimize waste, improve your pricing process, or track expenses more effectively, SHARE THEM! Someone else might be struggling with the exact problem you've already figured out. And if you're stuck on a calculation or aren't sure how to account for an expense, ASK!

Welcome to our first Bakery Business Lab discussion! If you've completed Day 1 of "You Started a Bakery. Now What?", you've probably started thinking about your business a little differently. Now I want to hear from you! First, how did your bakery actually begin? Did you have a business plan? Or did someone tell you your desserts were amazing and you should start selling them? Second, what's ONE thing you want your bakery to accomplish in the next 12 months? It doesn't have to be a huge goal. It just needs to be YOUR goal. And if you're comfortable sharing, tell us what's currently standing in your way. Remember, we're not here to compete with one another. We're here to learn from each other's experiences and build better businesses together. I'll be reading your responses and jumping into the conversations! Haven't completed Day 1 yet? Head to Classroom → Bakery Marketing & Sales → You Started a Bakery. Now What? to get started. The entire series is FREE!

I've just added a brand-new section to our Community called Bakery Business Lab, and I'm really excited about what I hope we can build here! One of my biggest goals for Bakers Insider has always been to create a place where we do more than just collect recipes, read business tips, and scroll through information. I want us to actually PUT WHAT WE'RE LEARNING INTO PRACTICE! And that's exactly what the Bakery Business Lab is for. Think of it as our little workshop for building better bakery businesses. Here's what you can expect: ✨ Daily discussions, challenges, and activities designed to get you thinking differently about your bakery. ✨ Real-world business exercises that help you identify what's working, what isn't, and where you might need to make changes. ✨ Opportunities to ask questions, share experiences, and get feedback from other bakers who understand the challenges of running a home bakery. ✨ A place to test ideas, share results, and learn from one another. And here's something I really want to emphasize... YOU have something valuable to contribute here, too! We all come into this community with different backgrounds, experiences, strengths, and challenges. Maybe you're fantastic at organizing your production schedule but struggle with marketing. Maybe you've figured out how to consistently book large orders but have trouble pricing your products. Maybe you're brand-new and haven't sold a single thing yet! That's okay! Someone else in this community may have already figured out the very thing you're struggling with. And YOU might have the answer to something that's been keeping another baker stuck. We don't have to be experts at everything to be able to help one another. I'll be adding new things to the Lab daily, including discussions that go along with our new 5-day business planning series, which begins TODAY! But I don't want this to become another section where I post and everyone just reads. I want you to PARTICIPATE! Ask questions. Answer questions. Share your experiences. Tell us what worked AND what didn't.

🌎 Where are you following from? I love seeing how far this little corner of the internet reaches 💛 Tell me: ➡️ Your state or country ➡️ One food your area is known for (or that you swear you do best) I’ll start — I’m in South Carolina, and we don’t play when it comes to comfort food 😌 👇 Drop yours below!