As it so happens, our next live chat (Saturday, April 7 at 4 pm central) is super opportune. Lately, we've been getting a larger than usual number of business questions in our forums. They run the spectrum from cottage food law to pricing to time management to . . . you name it! I'm now many years out of the bakery business, and not very up on the topic, so I'm extra pleased and grateful to announce that Michelle Green of The Business of Baking, and also a past Cookie Connection business contributor, will be sharing her much deeper and more current expertise with us.
For those of you who don't know Michelle, here's a bit of background, extracted nearly word for word from Michelle's blog (with her permission, of course) . . .
Michelle Green is a chef, cake decorator, writer, mentor, business educator, and mom, and like so many of us, wishes there were more hours in the day! She is also the mastermind behind The Business of Baking blog, which was created for people who want to make a living doing what they love – namely baking and decorating sweet art.
Michelle was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, USA, but now lives in Melbourne, Australia. She's been a cake decorator since she was 16 years old, when her sister asked her to make a cake for her wedding shower. Back then, Michelle relied entirely on tubes of gel icing and containers of Betty Crocker frosting purchased from the supermarket. It wasn’t until many years later that she finally took an actual class in cake decorating (a Wilton level one buttercream class, to be exact). She loved that class so much that she decided to go to culinary school, where she got certified as both a chef and pastry chef. During that time, she still made cakes from home (very illegally) for fun and no profit. (She charged $30 per cake and was thrilled to get that kind of cash in her pocket!) Michelle later went on to work in several cafés, catering companies, and bakeries before finally opening the doors to her own custom cake business, which she operated for ten years.
Michelle now focuses on mentoring other cake and cookie business owners (and aspiring owners) through her blog, her book (also entitled The Business of Baking), and her in-person and online classes.
Photo credit: Michelle Green
To learn more about Michelle and the resources she provides to bakers and decorators, please visit her blog and read her past Cookie Connection posts here. Michelle recently opened enrollment in her online course, so I encourage you to check it out too. Though entitled "Build Your Profitable Cake Business," the course covers principles that apply equally well to cookie businesses.
And, of course, please attend our chat on Saturday, April 7 at 4 pm central. (Yes, that's 4 pm central, much later than our usual chat time due to the 16-hour time difference to Melbourne.) If you can't make the chat at the appointed time, no worries. You can always log questions in advance by visiting Michelle's newly opened chat room and following the instructions at the top of the page! Either way, Michelle and I hope to receive many great questions from you! However, please do limit your questions to ones related to starting or building a sweets business. Thank you!
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