Allyson Grant lives in Baldwin City, Kansas and runs an online academy for food entrepreneurs called The Better Baker Club.

Allyson started her home bakery 25 years ago, well before the term “cottage food” was even a thing. Her home business expanded so quickly that within just a couple of years, she fulfilled her lifelong dream of opening her own brick-and-mortar bakery.

Unforeseen circumstances caused her to sell that bakery, but a year later, she started a cupcake shop that was wildly successful. It was featured in Rachael Ray Magazine and led Allyson to appear on the very first episode of Cupcake Wars on The Food Network.

After a leg injury that left her unable to run a baking business, Allyson shifted to coaching and now helps other entrepreneurs fulfill their bakery dreams. As you might expect, she shared tons of helpful advice and key takeaways in this episode.

What You’ll Learn

• Whether you not you need prior experience in the food industry to start a cottage food business
• The danger in comparing yourself to others
• Why Allyson was living her “best dream and worst nightmare at the same time”
• The value in learning to close businesses, as well as open them
• The hard thing about appearing on reality TV
• When you should trademark your brand and business name
• Your biggest asset in business, and how to leverage it
• Allyson’s #1 social media strategy
• The importance of authenticity when posting on social media
• How to leverage your unique story to market and sell your products
• How to use TikTok effectively for promoting your baking business
• The hidden costs that many bakers miss when pricing their products
• How to find a “Goldilocks” niche
• How to be successful at popups and events
• The two qualities you need to grow your cottage food business quickly

Resources

Better Baker Club website

Instagram | TikTok | Facebook | Pinterest |Youtube

Free Social Media Guide For Bakers

Home Bakery Business Tips (Facebook Group)

Kansas Cottage Food Law

Free Tutorial: Intro To Email Marketing

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Are you building an email list for your business yet? If not, you really should be collecting customers’ email addresses and emailing them on a regular basis. Even these days, email continues to be better than social media for generating consistent sales, and the best part is that you own it. Once you build an email list, nobody can take it away from you.

I created this free tutorial that will walk you through the essentials of using Kit to build an email list and get more followers!

Get full show notes and transcript here: https://forrager.com/podcast/136