Episode 39: Shoot your shot, step outside of the cake world

Speaker A: Welcome to the Adventures in Cakeland podcast. I'm, um, your host, Yvonne, and this is the podcast where we talk about the ups and downs of cake life, running a business, exploring the latest cake trends, and hearing authentic stories from other cake business owners. I really hope you enjoy today's episode. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Adventures in Cakeland podcast. So how are you? And how is business? So I'm a few days late with this month's episode because I was meant to record last weekend, and the weekend just became really busy. Then I thought, I'll do it Monday night. And then I had. Was feeling a bit. Little bit under the weather, a bit of a sore throat going on. So I thought, let me just give myself three days, Three days, a few days just to sort of get over it and try to conquer it. And so if I'm. My voice is sounding a bit like N. If I'm sounding a bit nasally or horse. Um, that's why. But anyway is the month of March, but this podcast obviously is based around February. So the subject of today's podcast is basically shooting your shot, seeking out opportunities and stepping outside of your comfort zone. And the reason why I'm having this subject today is because a couple of weeks ago, I was an event called Small Business Sunday, which is hosted by Theo Paphitas. And I'm gonna come on to that in the main portion of the show and more about the subject. But before we do any of that, let's do as we always do. Rewind the month of February to see what I was up to in the business and also what I saw trending in February. Okay, so let's start with the relaunch of my treat box, which was called. Which is called Sit Back Kickback, if you want to know what that stands for. The long title is Sit Back Kickback Cupcake or Cupcake Friday. Um, but I just call it Sit Back Kickback Hashtag SBKB for short. So that's the reason why. Um, so I relaunched the box and I was really pleased with what I did for February. So if you go back and listen to. If you're not familiar, if you go back to listen to the last episode, I go into more detail about the box and the relaunch and how I wanted to it to have sort of a different feel to it and the target market that was aimed it towards. But basically, I saw some boxes. I was over the moon. I didn't sell tons, but I saw some boxes. And the theme was spice. And it went really really well, there was a bit of a bl. Um, the link to the playlist and I didn't realize that with Spotify you have to. This playlist will only last for seven days, which is perfect for what I'm doing. But I think I just posted it on the website a bit too soon for that. But yeah, I was really, really pleased and ah, one of my customers that ordered a box, she did the most lovely reel and tagged me to collab on it and it was really, really nice. It was really well put together and it's the kind of real and the kind of promotion that you want your customers to do. She did a box unveiling, she cut the cake. It was just lovely. She shared a little bit of the website part as well. It was really nice. I loved it so much that I've just pinned it to, um, my Instagram page as well. So if you want to go back and have a look, it's cake and cupcakery. You can have a nose. But overall I was over the moon. So I'm gonna only be doing six boxes a year. So the next box will be April and the theme for that box is going to be citrus because obviously it's springtime. And I've literally planned out the themes for the next four boxes after the April one. Um, the subject to change obviously, but I'm sticking with the theme of making them flavor LED ingredient led, um, cake boxes. So I can really get experimental with the theme around it. But yeah, overall, really, really pleased with how that went. Regarding orders, they're starting to filter back through and I need to get back into the habit of my admin days now. My admin days were always on a Monday and because business has been a bit slow, especially starting off with the new year, uh, I haven't really got back into that routine properly. But the other night it was just like, oh my God, how many emails and just going through quotes and stuff. So one of the things I think I want to try and do is use AI to automate some of this work that I do. There's got to be an automated flow to be able, able to do things a little bit quicker. And so that's something I'm going to try and explore over the next, I don't know, few weeks, months or so just to see how that goes. But yeah, the orders are coming in. Got a nice corporate order coming up as well in, um, mid April, so I can't complain about that. But like I said before, I'm in my soft girl cake Here and now. So, you know, if I get orders, I get orders. If I don't, I don't. But I really like playing around with doing the treat boxes. And the next treat box that comes out in April, it's not coming around at Vista, but I'm thinking just to do something for Easter anyway that people can just buy. But I don't know. So we'll see about that. But yeah, orders are starting to, to come back in, which I'm, um, over the moon about. And the tax return has gone in, obviously, the 3rd 31st of January, it's gone in. And even from that I could see that last year my stars were considerably lower, but obviously they were going to be because I closed the business for about, what was it, three months. I closed it because of the, the knee injury that I had. So, um, that was no surprise really. And I think for the next financial year, I don't know whether that's going to be pushing millionaire status anytime soon. But, um, the funny thing is, is that with hmrc, I pay in advance for my tax return, so I set up a direct debit. So when you've paid your tax, if you've got any money sitting in the account, you can either keep it there or refund it. And I refund it and put it back into the cake account. So it's almost like the little mini saving schemes, unintentionally, but yeah, sales was to be expected, that they were going to be much lower when I submitted the tax return. But that's life, isn't it? You know, I wasn't gonna push myself when I'd done an injury. And talking of injury, let me just update you on this. So I hurt my knee and I hurt the left knee and then the right knee ended up being worse. I recently had an MRI on my knee. Turns out that possibly I, um, might have tore my meniscus or some ACL damage. So that's why I was struggling so much. And it all begins to make sense. So you've got to listen to your body advocate for yourself and take the time out if you need it, don't, don't force it, because you could possibly just make things a lot worse than they are. So also in February, I was contacted by a gentleman called Vineet, who his organization is called A Million Podcast. So for what I can tell, it's like a PR database for podcasts and it has lots of different lists and Cakery, Yours truly was listed in the top 35 cake podcast. I think it was. I think that's the title that he gave us alongside the business of cake making. And there's some other cakey podcast in there as well. So, um, it was nice to be listed. Not really sure what to do with this information, but I thought I'd just share and it's nice that I've been doing this podcast for a few years and it's listed amongst some other really, um, good listens regarding cake themed podcast. And so that was really lovely. That was a nice surprise. So I'll probably share the link in the Instagram stories on the Instagram page for the podcast so you can have a nose and scroll through the list yourself. Also in February I did go to the SBS event which we're going to talk to after we go through what I saw trending in the month of February. But the SE event, the SBS event is such a fabulous day. But before we do that, let's talk about what I've seen trending across social media in the month of Feb. So it's kind of award season and obviously we've had some awards happen and people through in preparation for the awards to come at the back end of the year. Uh, so let's start off with Cake and Bake International. They've launched their competition schedule that's been all over their social media and a lot in my um, for you page on Tick Tock and on um, Instagram. And this year, uh, they're saying it's one of the biggest. Ah, is it one of the biggest competitions? I think they're, they're stating and um, they've got some new competitions. So what stood out for me, the new categories are chocolate, um, showpiece, floor, floral, collaboration, short notice commercial challenge, Battenberg Technical Challenge. Now the short notice commercial challenge, I haven't really looked at the schedule for that. I've just gone with the title and I need to have a look because I'm very, very curious. Personally, for me, short notice cakes, uh, are, uh, a. No. Well, no, that's a lie. I try. I don't do them anymore. But I used to do a cake called a 911 cake. This 911 cake was a, uh, two layer vanilla funfetti Crete. Oh my God. Vanilla Funfetti cake. Okay, I'm in a, uh, the presentation box was a clear lid and it had minimal decoration. Split white buttercream on the outside with sprinkles 6 inch. This cake was, it comes as it comes. This cake was designed for those short notice moments where you forgot to order a cake because that seemed to Be happening. Had a lot of people trying to like, oh, I forgot it's my Auntie Margaret's birthday and she needs a cake. Those kind of situations. That was really, really popular. So I need to have a look at the commercial challenge. Actually I'm going to probably have a quick Google. I've had a little search but I can't find anything. But I know Christina from the Arcade Coach podcast who's going to be interviewing David Close again. So I might ask her to ask him that question. What is that category? But yeah, they, those have stood out. The Battenberg Technical Challenge is a bit interesting. It's giving Great British Bake off and obviously for the junior category there seems to be a bit of an expansion. So there seems to be a dedicated category for ages up to 18 years old. I'm not sure what the category usually is for children for that one. So that's interesting. Now I said last year that I wasn't going to go to Cake International this year, um, because I got a bit tired of it. Now, unless it's going to be absolutely amazing, I'm getting some feel for it, then I might just show up. But otherwise I don't at this stage I don't plan to attend. But those new categories do sound quite nice. The chocolate showpiece one and the commercial challenge one. So watch this space. Why not watch this space. Well, let's see how that pans out. And I, if I get any more information about that, I'll share it in the the next month's episode. The other thing that I saw was trending was the Delicious Awards. So the Delicious Awards is an, uh, international magazine. Um, it's features cakes, cookies, sugar, art and I saw a lot of the winners for that. And it is properly international because a lot of the artists I'm not really that familiar with. Um, Christina was nominated, uh, with some other cake coaches, some other cake artists, but a lot of them I'm not that familiar with. But it is a proper international magazine and that was held down south, I think in a really lovely looking castle. Um, and I know that Delicious magazine. It's been around a few, a good few years now, isn't it? So it's a digital print magazine. I have been featured in there actually, um, for about my podcast, but I wasn't really happy with it. So I was really looking forward to getting featured and I bought a copy of the magazine or got sent a copy of the magazine and I was just looking at my page and then all of a sudden I clapped in a Way night. Where's my picture? This picture of people that I've interviewed because I forwarded the man, but there wasn't a picture of the actual host of the podcast. Me contacted them. I'm like, wow, where's my picture? And they were like, well you didn't send us one. And I'm sure you know what, I thought I did. I'm sure I did. But regardless, if you, if you're, if you're talking about a podcast, you want to show the host of the podcast. So that I was really put out with that because the main picture on the page was one of the guests that I had on. And if there's one thing that I know is that representation matters, doesn't it? And if you're the host of a podcast, you want to be the face of that podcast, not somebody else. So I wasn't best pleased with that. We, I could say we've moved, um, on. But yeah, that, that was something that, it just didn't sit very comfortably with me. And because it's a digital, a digital magazine, I feel that that could have been amended. I don't know whether it did. I haven't really looked at it since. I haven't really promoted it since. But yeah, the Delicious awards, they seem to have gone really well. They were really popular. And um, wait to see what the category categories are next year. But congratulations to all the winners and some of these sculpture artwork is absolutely amazing. It's top notch. So yeah, so I saw that trending heavily across mainly Instagram as opposed to Tick Tock. So lastly something that I saw kind of semi trending on Instagram and Tick Tock, there was a couple posing with a cake. It was a two tier cake and the caption reads, um, uh, the couple who said they wanted, what was it? A birthday cake and saved 700 pound. That's why the bakery remained untagged. So what they're trying to imply is they ordered a cake and if they'd mentioned the word wedding then they would have been paying an extra £700. Now I don't know why we still have this kind of rhetoric around anything related to weddings and the price escalating. Because you mentioned the word wedding. If you're a cake maker, if you're a wedding cake maker, you make cakes for what the customer wants. If the customer comes to me and says they want a two tier cake with dried flowers on it and they're going to collect it and that is it, I'm going to price accordingly and that's A cake you're going to get. If you come to me and say, I want a four tier cake, I want sugar flowers, I want lace work, I want these champagne flavors and uh, can you deliver to the venue that's two hours away and you know, and I want some cutting cakes alongside with it. You're gonna pay for the whole service. You're gonna pay for me making the cake, the ingredients, the delivery, the setup, everything. Therefore the price is going to be a bit more premium. I don't understand why we still have this kind of narrative that wedding cakes or if you mention the word when it goes up, it was really wrong. And I looked at some of the comments and some of the comments are just sharing this similar opinion to what I have is that if you ask for a cake, you get the cake that you've asked for. You know, if you want all bells and whistles and delivering setup, you're going to pay for that accordingly. So I don't know whether, whether you know, the, the cake wasn't super fancy. It was a lovely looking cake but it wasn't super fancy. But I don't know much more about it. But I think give, pushing that message out mess, it's just gonna rub people up the wrong way and there's no need. We've moved on from that. That's very like 2018 about oh, uh, anytime you mention the word wedding, the price goes up. No, we've moved on from that. We don't do that. We don't do that at all. So that's what I saw trending and across Instagram and Tick tock. And the one more thing that I saw again talking about cake competition is Britain's best cake. I don't know if anybody's ever heard of it or seen it, but I, I saw that coming through on um, my Instagram and it's hosted by British Baker magazine and basically it's more geared towards, I wouldn't say foodies, but it's, it takes place at the nec, like Cake International, but it's a, at the food and drink show. So I got a bit curious and I thought I might enter one of these categories. I can't remember which one I was gonna. It could have been classic cake or fruit cake. And I started to fill in the form and I just decided I wasn't going to do it because I think the date clashed with something else. Um, so I thought I'll just leave it. And lo and behold I get a phone call, um, not long before the closing date from somebody from ah, Britain's best cake asking me about my entry. So it must have just stayed in like the shopping cart and they must have contacted to see if I still wanted to enter and I was like, you know, thank you for calling, really appreciate that. But no, I can't enter because the dates clash with something else. But I thought that was kind of unique that they were going to sort of chase up your entry. But I don't know if anybody else has ever heard of it or going to enter it. But it, it's giving um, ah, Cake International. No, sorry, Bake International that kind of more focused on baking uh, of cakes because the, the categories they have is like blondies and brownies, classic cake, fruit cake, mutton cake tray bake and vegan bakes. And so yeah, if you want to enter something. Well, I think the clothes, the closing date's gone but always for next year. If you want to enter something more bake related, that could be a good one to enter. But that was like on my Instagram heavy, heavy, heavy, um, from British Baker magazine. So yeah, so that's what I've seen trending for the month of February. Not overly exciting, but still fun to see. I'm briefly interrupting this episode to bring to your attention three books I think will help you in your business. Created by me, they, ah, are the Cake Business Order form book to record all your cake orders, a weekly baking planner to plan out your baking schedule, and lastly a food management book to assist you with the food safety in your business. These books are tools to assist you with the process of managing the admin side of your business. You can find out more by visiting the link in the show notes. Now back to the episode. So the subject of today's episode is shooting a shot and it's stepping outside of your comfort zone and dipping your toe into other areas or doing things that you probably wouldn't normally do, but just doing it. Anyway, so I tend to, for me my peak business era was from 2014 till about, I don't know, 2018, 2019. Super, super busy, just challenging myself and pushing myself and doing all sorts of different things. And a few weeks ago I was at the Small Business Sunday event, hashtag sbs. And literally what that is, it's a Twitter initiative or it was a Twitter initiative and I'm assuming that it's still on there because I'm not an ex anymore. But it was um, it's also on instagram now and LinkedIn and it's Theo Paphitis and basically you need to tweet him your business and his favorite, pitch him your business with a tweet. Basically his favorites. He will retweet four on the Monday. And once he retweets you, uh, retweets your business, you become part of this SBS community. Now. I saw this initiative on Twitter all the way back in 2016. I used to enter every Sunday because I saw the competition. I knew who Theopafitas is. He was a, ah, former Dragon on Dragon's Den and he has many other businesses. He has um, BO Avenue, he has Ryman's, the Stationaries. He has. What else does he have? Um, oh goodness, I can't even see um, Robert Dyess that does hardware. See he's got his toes in a few different businesses and I quite like that about him. And the thing is even that, like I said, even though we do, we do cake, we are running small businesses and I liked the fact that we can get so many ideas, influences, perspectives from people that are, uh, outside of our niche. So I thought this would probably be a really great opportunity. So 2016, I was entering nearly every Sunday, 5 o', clock, the entrant open, they would close at 7. I would have my hoot suite, I would um, draft my, my Twitter, my tweet for it to go out as soon as the, the competition opened and I would just share what I was doing in my business. And I did that literally for a year every Sunday without fail because I was determined I wanted to win. One of the reasons why as well, I wanted to have my picture with therapy because I thought that was going to give me some kudos if I was going to be able to put that on my website to say, look, I'm with a Dragon from Dragon's Den. Anyway. So, um, I kept doing that, I kept doing that, kept doing that and I wasn't, I wasn' anywhere, I wasn't winning. So I took a break from entering and then I came back in 2017 and on the 19th of March 2017 I thought, I'm going to enter this again. And what I did, I took some time to think about what it is that I do now. I know that I make cake, but that's not, but that's not all that I do. We create memories, don't we? We, we save people time, that kind of thing. So I really sat down and thought about what is it you do with on that makes, that's going to differentiate, that's going to give you that differentation to make you stand out in this busy marketplace of the sbs. So the tweet that I sent to um, Theo, ah, to pitch my business was my business, my bees. I think I said, saves people time. Choose your artisan cupcakes slash cakes online and get them delivered. And what I did, I put a visual up of about nine of my cakes, um, with the bold font, brightly colored font, and I posted it and I said to myself, I'm going to win this week. I've got a feeling I'm going to win. That was a, uh, lovely tweet. Short and sweet, says exactly what it says, exactly what I do. I'm gonna win. And lo and behold, no word of a lie. The Monday M, I went into Twitter. My retweets were blowing up. I'd won. I was absolutely over the moon with the perseverance of it. I won alongside obviously four other people. And when I won, the event that he has every year, uh, had just taken place. So I had to wait a whole year to go to the ICC and meet Theo Paphitis and be part of the SBS crew, as they call themselves now. The SBS event is a really, I really like being part of this community. It's so incredibly diverse. There are some other cape people in there as well. And these cape people have also been on the podcast that we've had, um, Lou Finn from Baked the Future. We've had, uh, Divine Cakes, um, Doyin. So we've had her on the podcast. There is another lady. I've never met her, but I know she does cakes as well. I think her business is called Short and Sweet Bakery. I think it is. So there are some Kate business people, but there is so many other, uh, people. And so you become part of this network, you get invited to this event. This event is held once a year at the ICC in Birmingham, right on, uh, my doorstep. This year I went, I didn't even drive. I caught an Uber. I thought it. I wanted to be a bit bougie and treat myself. And so I went to the ICC in style. So basically the day runs from approximately 9 o' clock till about 4, no, sorry, about 4:35 o'. Clock. And it is a combination of different businesses and business type events. They have breakout rooms, they have seminars, we have lunch provided for us, they have a guest speaker. And I really enjoyed the show this year, uh, because it was a bit different from what I'd been to before. I didn't manage to go last year, but this year, uh, there was a combination of things that were happening that I just want to share with you. So the theme for this year was Resilience rocks. And, um, it opens up with the CEO of Theo's businesses. And then Theo Paphitis comes on himself and he, and he gives us a pep talk. He shares a lot of stats about the percentage of people that are in SPS. And 80% of the SPS winners are, uh, women, which always, like, it's a really proud moment to know that so many women are part of the SBS crew, the SBS community. But it's kind of, I feel it's kind of, we need to ask the question as to why that is. And I think a lot of women, when they work in general, if they're in the corporate world, they might have children, they might struggle with childcare, they might get pushed out, they might find it hard to go back to work, to work to the same hours. So a lot of the times women have to step away to go to form their own businesses. And I think I saw this in a post somewhere where, you know, it would be good if we could talk about this particular subject because that is a very big thing that women sometimes have to step out of, um, of corporate world, the work world, to be either the main caregiver or, um, child care issues. And I think it's something that we really m. Need to discuss. And even in the cake world, the majority of the, the highest gender, I would say probably is women that run businesses. And how many times have you heard people say, oh, uh, I started my business because I made a cake for my child or I was on maternity leave or while I was off or I wasn't working. There's always sort of like we're dipping, but not, not always, but the majority of times we've having to come out of, um, the regular 9 to 5, the corporate world, and then we form something else. So I thought that was a really, really interesting stat when he did that. But yeah, he gives us lots of information, hypes it up. And then we had a lovely, um, talk with a host that was interviewing three women who again, all had different businesses and we're talking about how they managed their business, how they came back from, from, you know, struggling and how resilience is important in business. And they were. There was one lady, she is a stylist, but she's, she's a stylist with sustainability. So if you're a person that says, ok, I believe in, uh, the environment and I want to do this, but then your wardrobe is full of plastic or, you know, you don't really think about, you Know, fast fashion, things like that, you don't really align. So she was a stylist that wanted to make sure that you did a line. I thought that was so interesting. And that's why I like going to these business events because you learn so much and you get access to other people's stories that are very, very inspirational. There was another lady that did something called Fine Tune Wardrobe as well and I'm sure hers was regarding um, clothing for people with disabilities. I think that's what it was. I'm not 100 sure but yeah, very inspiring. So this was a little conversation with these three ladies and then we had another speaker that huh, was from Tick Tock and this person from Tick Tock was talking about um, giving us a crash course on Tick Tock. So a lot of people there hadn't been on it or not on the platform but a lot of us were. And what you don't realize is that social commerce as they call it is the next big powerhouse. It's the cross between entertainment and E commerce, which is absolutely true because every time you go onto Tick Tock you will scroll and you will see somebody either doing a paid partnership, an advert, promoting something of Tick Tock Shop or doing content obviously to, to promote to you as well. It's quite a unique platform really if you think about it in that it sells stuff but it's an entertainment platform at the same time. So we had this really probably good 30 minute presentation of man Up. It might be shorter than that from somebody from Tick Tock talking about Tick Tock Shop. And I think if you're a product based business, um, that could really work for you. But I have heard, I have seen some people that have been on Tick Tock that have doubled with Tick Tock Shop that haven't had a very good experience. So I think it's 50 50. So if you are thinking about it, because I certainly was at one stage, if you listen to some episodes back from, I think probably last year, I was contemplating maybe doing cake jars and doing Tick Tock Shop. But once I started to hear some issues that people were having, I thought, let me, let me just, just pause there a little bit. It might not, that might not be for me. But yeah, that was really interesting that little talk that we had uh, about Tick Tock. So my two favorite parts of the day was the live pitch, um, to a panel of judges and also the fireside chat. So the live pitch is NatWest Bank. They do an accelerator with business owners and they were giving away 7,000 pound for businesses. Four businesses to put in their business. Their first price was 5,000. The second price was 2,000 pound. And then the third prize was mentoring. And they had three businesses that had to do a live pitch to a panel of judges. There was the CEO of, uh, Theo's Group. There was Katie Piper. There was, um, Dr. I can't recall his name. I'm not sure. I looked it up really. Who is the founder of the Black Business Business Show. And then there was another lady. I should have really looked that up. And the three businesses, this was such fun. Part of the, of the day they were pitching. So the first lady, her business was called Evenly. And basically what she does, she makes bras, supporting women with breast asymmetry. So basically, um, women, we have breasts that are different sizes or you might have had to have, um, an operation best, uh, removal, anything like that, where you're not quite aligned. And she makes bras for women like that. I thought, what an amazing idea for a business. How niche is that? That is fantastic. I really, really liked that idea. The second person was Brownie and the Bean Cake Lady. Postal Brownies. Really good pitch. Really passionate about her business. And I'm having her run the podcast in a future episode, so that'd be really fun to talk to her. So she gave an amazing pitch. That was Brownie and the Bean Postal Brownies. And then the next one was a company called A Noble Gift. Now this one I couldn't really get my head around. It's based around, um, charities and gifting. And charities are always getting the donations that people give the 4 percentage. But I couldn't really get to groups with that, so they had to do the live pitch. And then the panel went away, we all went, we had lunch. And then after lunch they decided on who the winner was going to be. The winner was Evenly the lady with the bra. The second place was Browning the Bean. And then the third place was A Noble Gift to Gets mentoring. I loved that aspect of the show and I loved hearing how people spoke about their businesses and how passionate they were. And then they were asked questions at the end. So I really. It was like doing the tweet on a Sunday, but in real life, I thought that was just an excellent, excellent idea. So we ended the day with a fireside chat. And this is something that Theo does at the end of every SBS event. Um, we've had the last one. The last event that I went to, we had Stacy Solomon, we've had Sara Davies, we've had Tuka Solomon. From Dragons Den, we've had the CEO of AO.com and we had a philanthropist. That was the first one I ever went to, Tom. I can't recall his surname. But anyway, he always has excellent fireside chats. This year he had Katie Piper. Now, if you don't know who Katie Piper is, she's a presenter, she's an author and an activist, but she is widely known for advocacy for survivors of burns and facial disfigurement. Because she had a, uh, life changing, literally life changing acid attack in, I think it was 2008. And ever since then she's just been raising awareness. What this woman has been through is absolutely. I. I don't know. I don't know. It was just listen to her speak number one about how her attack, her recovery in hospital, the surgeon that she worked with, how many operations she's had, the work that she does now, um, with women, especially in prisons who have been victims of domestic violence. Um, the sacrifices she makes to do what she does and that takes away from her children and family. It was a truly inspirational talk. And I mean, I've seen her on the TV and we know a little bit about her story, but to listen to her talk, it was truly inspirational. And that really just topped the day off for me. And so I suppose what I'm trying to say is with entering these different kind of competitions, you get access to different stories, different people, different experiences. And I just want to give you a few more examples of things that I've done over the years that have just literally taken me out of my comfort zone. Seriously. So let me just add the reason why I've entered and done all these little bits and pieces. It wasn't necessarily for growth of the business, it was for growth of me. It was to validate me to know that I can do this, I can enter these things and I can be seen. And. And that's what it was all about for me, because my business isn't massive, my following isn't massive, but a lot of this was about my own personal growth. So let me just share some of the things that I've dipped my toe into. One of the first things I did was get, um, business advice from Sir Alan Sugar. Yes, Alan Sugar from the Apprentice. And you're thinking, how did that happen? The Daily Mirror. You know the paper. The Daily Mirror. I. He used to do a business column in that paper. And I was making rum cake. And at the time I had aspirations that I wanted to have my rum cake in Harvey Nichols and in Premium Department stores. I'd figured it out in my head it was going to be presented in a lovely tin and I wrote into the paper, not expecting to ever get a response back. I just did it, I just did it. I thought, just do it. Even what you got to lose. Not expected to hear nothing. The next thing I know, I get a phone call. They're coming to take some pictures. They're going to feature me. I was living in Bourneville in Birmingham at the time, in this little flat, and they came up there and they took my picture and they asked me loads of questions and then they put the reply in the paper and the advice was really good. I will share it on, um, my Instagram, in my stories. But, yeah, the advice was really relevant. Again, at that time I thought, yeah, I want to do this. But I was in, no, I was in no position at the time to be even thinking about scaling up massively with the advice that. So Alan gave me regarding getting my cakes in stores like that. I was nowhere near, but I just wanted to do it just to see what happened. And that's my little claim to fame. The other thing is, I've been on the radio. I've been on BBC Radio, local radio. One of my friends who had a business, again, not related to Cake, um, she knew somebody that was looking for somebody to go and talk about small business with three other people. She said, why don't you try Yvonne from Cake and Cook Cakery. I went there, I was on radio, BBC Radio wn, just local radio. I've been in the Guardian, I was on Twitter and I saw a. Somebody was asking for small businesses to share about their marketing. And at that time I think I just literally launched it back kickback. And so, um, and I, I don't think I was. I was running the businesses separately then as well, that around 2014. So I, I contacted the Guardian and they featured me in there. So I'll share that in the Instagram as well. Um, uh, Baker, British Baker magazine. I wrote a couple of articles for them. Uh, again, Twitter, back in the day, if you used to put in journal requests, you could get so many opportunities, um, to submit work and do writing. So I wrote for British Baker magazine. I've been in Cupcake Heaven magazine, um, I've been in Enterprise Nation, uh, talking about, um, Enterprise, about small business again. So there's quite a few things. But I think the difference between then and now is that was a lot of. It was digital media, but there was a lot of physical media as well. I think now it's harder to stand out. It's harder to. Unless you go viral, it's harder to stand out. So for me, these are, uh, little snippets of things, clips that I've kept and been able to look back because these were all things that, uh, I thought, let's just do it, Yvonne. Let's just do the opportunity. And I've just kept just doing it and just getting featured in these different things. But I think now it's so much harder because you've got to show up online and you've gotta show your face and you've got to do this. And it just seems much more, it seems much harder now to stand out. But I just wanted to share that sometimes just stepping out of your comfort zone, uh, can have an impact. And with the Theo Perfetus thing, I have done some cakes for customers and on my website, when you've, when you submit the form at the bottom, it will say, how did you hear about me? And they'll tick it. And sometimes people say, oh, I saw your picture with Theopa Fetus. And it was a bit of a talking point. So I think just sometimes, you know, it's good to enter these Cake, International Bake, International Great British Cake. But sometimes look outside of your comfort zone, look outside of the cake world, look at different niches, to be able to mix with other people and just get different experiences because I think it's a really valuable resource. And I, I thought to myself the other day, I think I've got another business in me. I don't know what it is, I don't know whether I'll ever do it, but I feel like I've got another idea in me outside of cake. Possibly because I get so sort of motivated and inspired when I see people that launch businesses, skin care brands, um, clothing brands and even, um, I saw on Instagram today these, these cakes. Is it these basements? I can't even remember I shared her page because I've noticed she did some work with, um, Rachelle Humes from. Who was in the Saturdays is it? And she's on Good Morning. Not Good Morning. Is it Good Morning? Is that what it's called? And so I wanted to share, uh, yeah, these Basement, who's also been a guest on, um, uh, this podcast. She did a fun project working with Rachelle Humes. So sometimes you just got to put yourself out there, haven't you? And just, just seek out these opportunities. But like I said, it doesn't always have to be cake related. So don't be scared to step outside your comfort zone because even though you might not, you know, for whatever reason you're doing it for, like I said, for me it was just like, it was just growth for me. It was, it was just personal. Just having some different experiences and I really, really found benefit from it. And, and I nearly forgot. One of the biggest experiences is hosting this podcast. I would never, if you had said to me 10 years ago if I'm gonna be hosting a podcast about cake, I would have been like, get out of town. No, absolutely not. But again, I've pushed myself outside of my comfort zone. Avid podcastness listener, used to love podcasts. Started listening to podcasts around the serial podcast, if anybody can remember that, and was listening to the business of cake making podcasts and other cake related ones. And I thought, you know what, I've got, uh, I've got a voice, I've got things to say. So let's just do it, let's just get some stuff, let's give it a go. And that is a massively stepping outside of my comfort zone. So, yeah, so my, like I said, just give these things a try because you just never know. And look, I've been in a list of like the top 35 podcast. It's not huge, but, you know, it's still nice, isn't it? So, yeah, just do it. What you got to lose? Shoot your shots. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. And if you're inspired to enter the SBS event, just do it is on Instagram, it's on LinkedIn. I'm assuming it's still on X. I'm not on X anymore. I closed my account a while ago. But if you, after any advice, um, happy to ask, you know, happy to ask, feel free to ask, just send me a dm. But I wish you the very best of luck if you do decide to enter and hopefully you win. And hopefully I'll see you at the next SBS event because we need more cakey folk there. I think it'd be amazing. But anyway, that's all for this week. Thank you for listening. I hope you have a great cake baker week. Take care and see you next time. Bye.