HELLO, I’D LIKE MY CAKE FOR FREE

Hello,

I’D LIKE MY CAKE FOR FREE

BY BRETTE HAWKS

“I came across your cake page and I love your cakes! I was wondering...”

This is a typical intro message from someone about to request a free cake. If you haven’t received a message like this yet, be prepared! Chances are you will. These requests can be well crafted with just the right placement of flattery to make you feel valued, important, and lucky to be included. Then, they hit you with the payment deets: exposure. Think of all the likes you’ll get! All the new followers!

Don’t let the sweet talk fool you. Whether it’s an influencer wanting a wedding cake, a photographer needing a cake for a photo shoot, or a request from a company or brand, what they’re asking for is free cake and free labor without any promise of profit to you.

I fell into the trap one too many times myself. I’ve learned the hard way that even if the photo shoot ends up in a big wedding magazine, even if that influencer has 100,000 followers, exposure alone doesn’t pay the bills. You don’t get a paycheck from Instagram for likes and follows. HOW TO EVALUATE OPPORTUNITIES Not all collaboration opportunities are useless! Some may be beneficial to you, and there’s strategic ways you can make things work in your favor. Here are my top tips on how to evaluate a proposed collaboration, how to increase the possibility of a profitable return from your participation, and how to politely decline the opportunities that don’t meet your criteria.

Brette Hawks owns Hobble Creek Cake Co., a licensed home bakery based in Utah. She creates beautiful artistic buttercream-cake designs for all occasions and has a special love for wedding cakes. Brette especially enjoys creating beautiful floral-cake designs, working with palette knives and piping tips to create stunning buttercream flowers. Along with sharing inspiring artistic cakes, Brette also works to coach other bakers in their businesses. She shares everything she has learned and mentors other bakers on their own journeys.

hobblecreekcake.com facebook.com/hobblecreekcake instagram.com/hobblecreekcakeco/ instagram.com/the.outofhome.baker/

1. EVALUATE THE AUDIENCE

AND ENGAGEMENT STATS

Your target customer is typically tied to a very specific local area that you are capable of servicing. For you, it’s not about getting your cake business in front of a large number of people. It’s about getting your name in front of a very specific local niche of people who can actually purchase from you. Knowing who your work will be placed in front of is the first thing you’ll want to evaluate about the opportunity. Request information regarding the audience from whomever is asking for a cake collaboration. Who do their posts reach? What’s their age, gender, location? Does their audience actually engage with their content in meaningful ways? Know who your own target customer is and make sure the collaboration audience aligns with that. 2. PROPOSE A DIFFERENT

COLLABORATION AGREEMENT

Even with the right audience, you still want to ensure a return on your investment. It’s essential to gain new paying customers as a result in order to truly profit from it. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get new orders from a simple tagged post or a social media shout-out. Propose an arrangement with the influencer or brand that’s more likely to result in profit for you. Maybe they don’t get the cake for free right up front, but you can set up a referral agreement or promo code and they receive some compensation for each of their referral customers who book with you in the future. This creates a much higher incentive for the influencer or brand to spread the word about you and to do it well! 3. HAVE A CONTRACT! Whatever the arrangement, make sure you have a written, signed contract with the person or company that defines exactly what is expected from both parties. Do not leave the terms open-ended! You need to know exactly what to expect from them and they should know exactly what to expect from you. How do they intend to market your participation in the collaboration? How many times are they required to post about it and where will they post about it? What size of cake will you be providing? Do you get total creative freedom or do they get to have a say in the design? What kind of pictures will you get back from the collaboration? Leaving things undefined is just asking to get burned, so make it official and be sure to get all the details in writing and signed!

4. HOW TO DECLINE AN OPPORTUNITY Some opportunities just won’t align with your goals or come with a promised return—and it’s okay to politely decline and offer them your pricing options. If you have a message already typed up for these situations, it’s a lot easier to say no. All you have to do is copy and paste! Here’s an example of a professional, polite message that you could send in order to decline a free cake request: “Hello! Thank you for reaching out to me. At this time, I am only able to participate in paid collaboration opportunities. I’ve attached a copy of my collaboration rates below. If one of those options fits within the budget of your event, then I would love to work with you and further discuss the cake collaboration details! Please let me know what works best for you.”

Remember, my baker friend, you are playing a game for profit, not for a vanity number of likes and follows. Your time is valuable and precious— and you should be picky about how you spend it! ACD