We were lucky to catch up with Camille Kesler recently and have shared our conversation below.
Camille, appreciate you joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?
The most unexpected problems that I have experienced in owning my cupcake shop has been the supply pipeline issues and hiring. Ever since the start of the pandemic, when we reopened after being closed for two months, we have had repeated issues getting our supplies that we need. Across-the-board all of the costs have gone up exponentially. It’s been very difficult but we’ve maintained most of our pricing levels so that we have not had to pass most of those increases on to customers. I really want people to still be able to enjoy our yummy cupcakes and sweet treats without feeling the pinch of inflation. But it’s getting increasingly difficult to maintain that stand when our suppliers continually raise their rates. For example, I used to buy a container of soybean oil that cost $25 before the pandemic and that same exact size of soybean oil now costs nearly $60. That’s more than double the prior price. In addition to the prices going up, there are some needed items that we just can’t find anymore because suppliers are having production issues. So we have scramble to find commensurate products so that we are not sacrificing taste or quality. That has been difficult. But the biggest, unexpected issue has been finding good, quality staff persons to join our team and stick with us. I’ve been blessed to have a really great team working at my store. I like to joke and say we’re selling little pink boxes of happiness. So it’s important that we hire staff that are joyful and kind and welcoming who happen to also love cupcakes! And we’ve got some terrific folks. But we’ve had difficulty filling positions when they come available. All of the traditional routes to recruiting don’t seem to work anymore. I know it’s not just us. Everyone is short staffed and competing for the same employees. Raising wages is not necessarily the answer. We have done that and honestly it has not helped. I don’t know how to fix this issue or what has caused it. But I’m doing everything I can to show our staff members how much I appreciate them. I provide schedules that pretty much stay the same so the people aren’t having to wonder when they’re going to be working. It’s very difficult to plan your life when you don’t know what your schedule is going to be so our schedules are standing schedules that don’t change. But between staffing and supply issues it has been a very interesting time for us.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I got into the bakery business because I used to bake at home with my three daughters. My oldest daughter, Morgan, who is 16 years old has a severe peanut and tree nut allergy. So at her school growing up whenever there were special occasions in which treats were provided to the students she always had to have something different than everyone else. And I did not want her to feel different or excluded so I would volunteer to bake treats for the entire class knowing that what I would provide was safe for her to consume. That way she was having what everyone else was having. It would take over my entire kitchen sometimes making cupcakes or cookies for her class. And when my younger two daughters started going to school I ended up doing it for their classes as well. So there would be occasions in which my entire kitchen was covered in cookie sheet pans and muffin pans from all of my baking. And my husband said, ‘gosh Camille this isn’t a bakery!’ And that got me to thinking, maybe I need a bakery! At the time I was Executive Director of a nonprofit organization that raised funds to help low income homeowners make needed repairs in their homes for free. It was really wonderful work helping people who genuinely needed it. But when I found out that the cupcake shop near my home was for sale I decided to take a chance and I purchased it from the original owner. He had only owned it for about a year and a half before I bought it from him. And for four years I ran both businesses: SmallCakes North Druid Hills and the nonprofit Rebuilding Together Atlanta. I am a self-taught baker. I had to train myself on how to frost the cupcakes and to bake in large quantities. It’s very different baking in a commercial setting then baking in your home environment. My favorite time to be in the store is in the mornings when I’m there baking and frosting and I’ve got music blasting and the store is not open to the public yet. But that’s my Zen. That’s just the perfect time for me to focus on baking while also contemplating everything else going on in my life. It’s like yoga but not at all like yoga! One of the things I’m most proud of is that we bake fresh every single day! That’s why our cupcakes are so squishy and moist and wonderful. And I’m also proud that both my mom and my oldest daughter work at the store. It’s really wonderful being able to have family be a part of your dream and your success. And I look forward to when my younger two daughters are old enough to work with us as well. And, what I would want our wonderful customers to know is how much we appreciate their business. I know every business says that but when we closed for two months at the start of the Covid pandemic, I really didn’t know if people would come back. We had gotten a few negative comments on Facebook and Instagram asking why we had closed. I get that some people felt Covid wasn’t as serious and other people felt it was very serious. But at that time, March 2020, so little was known about coronavirus that I felt we needed to shut down and assess. Find out from the experts what we can do to keep staff safe and employees safe and how could we come back and re-open as quickly as possible while still maintaining safety precautions. But when we reopened two months later, it was so heartening to see the line of people waiting to buy cupcakes! I think people just needed to treat themselves to something sweet and happy with all of the craziness going on around us. But as someone who had to pay rent and other expenses when we had no money coming in for those two months I am beyond grateful to those customers who supported us and who continue to support a mom owned, small business!
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
When I first purchased the bakery, I had a full-time position as executive director of a nonprofit. And I relied on having a really strong head Baker to manage operations at the store. But I had to learn over time that just because someone is really good at baking and decorating cakes and cupcakes, it does not necessarily mean they are good at or even want to manage staff. So as time progressed I had to take a more active role within the organization. But running two businesses and being a mom to three active girls involved in lots of extracurricular activities and being involved in other nonprofit organizations and serving on various boards of directors myself, I finally had to realize that I am not superwoman. I was being pulled in so many different directions and something had to give. So I finally made the very difficult decision after four years of maintaining both businesses to resign from my executive director position. I helped them find a new leader because I believe in that organization want it to succeed and achieve its mission. But I felt I could no longer do both. Nearly six years later I still feel I made the right decision to focus exclusively on SmallCakes but at times I do miss the direct service work of being intimately involved in a nonprofit organization. I am internally programmed to help others so it’s been sad to not be as involved as I used to be. But considering all of the hiring challenges that we’ve been experiencing with my small business, I’ve been so incredibly busy filling in at the store and working there that I know I made the right decision. I could never do both at the same time as things stand today. I am hopeful that the labor market will settle out and get back to the way things used to be so that we can keep a strong and motivated staff again. And who knows? Maybe I will add another nonprofit position to my repertoire or expand my business. The future is wide open!
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
As we were planning to re-open after being closed for two months at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the smartest decisions I ever made was to add e-commerce to our business offerings. We were trying to come up with ways to offer contact free transactions so we set up an online store on our website so that people could place orders for their cupcakes and pay online and then at the time we were bringing cupcakes out to customers’ cars. Or some would come right to the door and we would hand over the cupcakes there. It has been wonderful! I don’t know what took us so long or why it took a pandemic to realize we need to add e-commerce sales. We also deliver our cupcakes through partners Uber Eats, Postmates, GrubHub and DoorDash. And while we know there have been lots of restaurant complaints about the fees involved with those types of delivery partners, we feel it’s been an added benefit because we are reaching customers that we may not have had access to previously. So the commission percentage that we pay I view as somewhat of a marketing expense. We also partner with a few catering services and that is how we are able to provide cupcakes for universities, businesses and other large scale corporate environments. That has been very helpful from a profit perspective. It slowed down considerably due to Covid but is now picking back up. And interestingly, our largest recurrent large order client is a local hospital. I think they want to use our Cupcakes as a way of thinking their staff for all of the Herculean efforts they have made during these crazy times. And you know what? We thank them, too!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.smallcakesdruidhills.com
- Instagram: @SmallCakesDruidHills
- Facebook: @SmallCakesDruidHills
- Twitter: @SmallCakesNDH