Hey Besties! 2024 is upon us and if you have a home bakery, it’s ALL about planning! I’m here to help you have a wildly successful year, which includes planning for the baking holidays AND leveraging downtimes as well! Let me help you make it easier to get the most out of your time throughout the year. I’m kind of an organization queen, it’s my jam, so planning is what I live for. Let’s do this!
Planning for Success
Do you feel like you’re always trying to play catchup? Rushing your designs, order what you need, make samples, get photos and start sharing with the world? You’re not alone, this is VERY common in our industry, so don’t beat yourself up. Instead, let’s take a new approach for 2024, proactively plan and level-set your work throughout the year. If you do the planning work upfront, you will know exactly when you need to be doing everything to stay ahead of the game. Trust me, this goes a LONG way in lowering your stress level and actually enjoying your business. And honestly, this is a huge part of being a business owner. If you want to enjoy a thriving business, you’ve got to put the planning work in upfront. It’s A LOT less work in the long-run and will help you achieve your goals and grow!
We all know there are certain times of the year that are busier for bakers than others. But guess what? Those lulls in between big holidays can be extremely valuable time for you to achieve other parts of your business! In THIS post, I share all about growing a successful home bakery business, including timelines on how to plan for different types of marketing strategies. Today, I’m providing an updated list of our key baking holidays and life celebrations for 2024. This is a CRITICAL tool to help you make your annual plan and also make sure you’re making the most out of all these opportunities!
The Best Way To Use This
Most people are going to look at this or print it off as a helpful resource for upcoming holidays. Sure, you can take that approach and take it one holiday at a time; plan, execute and repeat. But what I’m challenging you to do is take these dates, plug them into your calendar; online or paper, whatever you prefer. But then take it a step further by working backwards from each date, adding the steps you need to successfully execute for each of those events.
For example, if you want to offer pre-sale goods for Easter, you’ll want to mark your calendar for March 31. But then also mark the following dates on your calendar:
- Feb 16: Plan Designs and order supplies and packaging
- Feb 26: Have Samples Complete
- Feb 29: Have Photos Complete
- March 1: Start promoting!
- March 2-23: Receive Orders & Continue to Promote
- March 24-27: Bake, Decorate, Package
- March 28-30: Fulfillment of Orders (Pickup/Delivery)
Using this example, you can see that in order to successfully execute for your Easter goods, you need to start taking action 6 weeks before. Some bakers may even want to start further in advance! Could you do it in less? Sure! Would I recommend it? No. And it is a surefire way to get burnt out in your business, if you’re always behind and stressed. Having all of these days marked on your calendar for every holiday you plan to offer goods, sell at a market or support your other marketing strategies will ensure you are always ahead of the game.
Why This Method Makes You More Money
Okay, so we’ve already illustrated why planning is important to manage stress. But using this method will actually help your business be far more successful; let me tell you why. If you preplan your year for baking holidays, you can support more events and sustain more work than if you planned one holiday at a time. Let’s build on the Easter example. If you have all these dates on your calendar, you’ll see that in order to sell pre-sale goods for Teacher’s Appreciation Week, starting May 6, you’ll need to have your designs planned and supplies ordered by March 25. This lands perfectly during the time when you’re promoting and receiving orders for Easter, so you absolutely have time to do this planning and ordering!
However, if you didn’t plan ahead and waited until your Easter orders were out the door, now it’s March 31. You’re pooped, you haven’t planned designs or ordered anything so now you’re in panic mode to come up with something, make samples, take pictures and start promoting with less than 4 weeks to go. And since you were so rushed, you may not even love your designs or be as successful with orders. Which scenario would you rather have? The latter is a stressful hamster wheel that you do not want to get stuck in.
Is Planning A Lot Of Work?
If you’re not a planner by nature, you may be cringing at all of this. Honestly, you probably haven’t made it this far. And I fully understand that not everyone likes this aspect of business like I do. But when you decided to turn your love of baking into a business, this is the stuff that helps you crush your goals. Taking the time to plan can be the difference between a really successful year and a really bleak one. It can also be the difference between LOVING your business and hating it. Bestie, please set yourself up for success!
And listen, if it feels like torture, try planning the first 6 months or even the first quarter. But then promise you’re going to do the rest far enough ahead of time, so you don’t get yourself in a bind. And of course, nothing is ever set in stone, you can always make changes.
One reason you started this business is to have freedom and control over your time and schedule. This approach fully supports that lifestyle! This allows you to be able to see your year at a glance! Maybe you really want to dedicate a chunk of time to take some classes, learn a new technique or remodel your kitchen. Or how about take a fabulous vacation?! Well, if you preplan, you can easily see, “Oh, I’m going to have downtime in September! I’m going to schedule my kitchen remodel for then!”
The bottom line is that by taking the time to plan your year now, you will be less stressed, feel in control, make more money, enjoy your craft along with all the other reasons you started this business. THAT is exactly what I want for you. Oh, and one more tidbit of advice? You don’t have to sell goods for EVERY holiday or event! Look at this list and decide what the most important ones are to you and plan them out! You will know which holidays are important for you and your community. Don’t worry about what other bakers are doing. Kentucky Derby Day may be a BIG deal for some bakers, but maybe no one in your area pays attention to it. YOU are calling the shots, don’t feel pressured to do ALL the things.
WHERE CAN I FIND THIS FABULOUS BAKing HOLIDAYS RESOURCE?!
Right here! Download and start planning! You can thank me later when your life is all organized and you have low stress!
I also included a few extra lines if you want to add additional holidays, events or traditions you want to plan for too.
I hope you find this resource and this strategy all about planning for 2024 baking holidays to be helpful! Contact me anytime if you have questions or need help…that’s what besties are for!
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