We recently connected with Ashley N. and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Ashley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?
Title: A Million by May
In early 2021, things were extremely unpredictable for small businesses. Inflation was on the rise and staple products were no longer on the shelves. This made a lot of businesses absorb the cost or close their doors all together. As an online cookie company, I missed out on some of my highest selling months due to panic buying, a lack of ingredients, and expensive packaging supplies for my cookies. In April, when products started to trickle back unto the shelves, I kicked up my marketing tactics with revenge. I was determined to make up for lost time and kick my cookie sales into high gear.
I stopped recycling old content on my Instagram account that was getting me through my dry spell and started creating new cookies that were not your average flavors. I made cereal based cookies, banana pudding cookies, and red velvet cake and brownie stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I just kept telling my family that I was going to have “a million by May” and I was determined to make it happen.
By the end of May, I was extremely busy, orders were coming in again, and I was creating a lot of traction online. I just knew that I would somehow make something go viral soon and have this crazy number of sales come in due to the new exposure. I even went as far as to watch videos of entrepreneurs and influencers that have had viral moments in the past. I wanted to learn from their success and mistakes. For some reason, at that time I thought that going viral would be the answer to all my problems and I wanted to make sure I leveraged off my 5 minutes of fame as much as possible. The goal was to turn it into long term success.
My business was starting to thrive again, and May was quickly coming to an end. I was happy to have income coming in again, but I wanted “a million by May”. I was obsessed. Surely ONE video of my delicious cookies could get enough traction to take the world by storm. I just needed one video to become a viral sensation or catch the eye of someone important. I was desperate for a moment to scale my business to new heights over night and I was not going to stop until I made it happen.
On May 25th, a news anchor from a local news station ordered cookies. When I reached out to her to confirm her order, she said that she wanted to write a story on Ashley’s Famous Cookies and was trying to figure out a way to tie me into the current news trends. That’s when she asked me if I had been impacted by inflation and the shortages in the store. I said yes. On May 28th, we shot a short story on how inflation and panic buying impacted my business. That night, my story was on the Friday Night news following a big sports game. I was so excited. “Could this be it?”, I asked myself. Will I reach a new customer base and receive a lot of online orders? I was so anxious to see the outcome.
The story aired and halfway through it, my site started to ping. There were 45 people on ashleysfamouscookies.com at one time. I was so excited! I started to watch site visitors maneuver through my website as I prepared for them to make their way to the checkout page with a cart full of my delicious cookies, but nothing happened. An elderly woman called me asking how she could order through the phone because she didn’t know how to use the internet, but she never placed her order. Absolutely nothing happened.
There were officially 3 days left in May and “a million by May” seemed to be a million miles away. I didn’t lose hope though. “There is still 1 day left.”, I said to my mom on the night of May 30th. We stayed up until 5 in the morning discussing everything under the sun and how we felt like something big was on the way. On May 31st, I woke up to a voicemail that changed my life. A producer for one of the biggest morning shows in America wanted to get me on their news platform the next day. I called my mom immediately and she screamed. She told me to call her back immediately and I accepted the offer. At 5 am the next morning, I would be in front of millions of viewers on a national platform. I had officially received “a million by May”.
That afternoon I went shopping for ingredients to prepare for an influx in orders. I felt like everything was moving in slow motion as I put pounds of flour and sugar into my cart. I stayed up all night anxious about what the next morning would bring. 3 am quickly arrived and I got up to prepare for the test call with the producers. When 5 am arrived, I was on live tv talking to some of the biggest news show host in the country. I couldn’t see them, but they could see me. I just smiled and focused as much as I could on the camera in front of me. I answered questions about inflation, panic buying, and supply shortages. When it was over the producer appeared back into my earpiece. “You’re cleared! Thank you so much Ashley!”
And that was it. I got up. Grabbed my phone and it was locked. I couldn’t get it to work. I had officially gone viral. Thousands of orders flooded my phone and calls were coming in from all over America. It was the craziest thing I have ever experienced in my life. When I got home, I sat on the couch stiff as a board. My phone was still ringing and buzzing from the orders, messages, and emails. My mom started to print orders off the printer and the stack was bigger than a phone book. “That’s not even half of the orders.” She said with a look of disbelief on her face.
Reality hit me fast and I couldn’t move. “How am I going to bake all of these cookies?”, I thought to myself. The entire country just ordered cookies at one time. Thousands of people ordered cookies at ONE time. I was stunned.
It took me 6 weeks to fulfill those orders. 6 weeks. My team and I baked non-stop for 6 weeks. 20 hour shifts for 6 weeks. I literally didn’t know what was going on outside of the kitchen. The world could have been ending and I wouldn’t have known. When mid-July came and we finally shipped the last order from June 1st, I couldn’t believe it was over. It was one of the most amazing and traumatizing things that I have ever experienced in my life. After the last box of cookies made it to the shipping store, I immediately made plans to scale my business and invest in bigger equipment to accommodate larger influxes of orders. Ashley’s Famous Cookies has never been the same since and I am extremely grateful for a million in May.
Ashley , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
WHO IS ASHLEY?
“I don’t want store bought cookies, I want Ashley’s Famous Cookies.”
This is the phrase that I constantly heard whenever my mother had cookie cravings. I was going through a rough time in my life where I felt lost and uncertain on a lot of things. So I always took it as a way of my mother trying to make me smile.
My first child was born at the end of 2016 and cookies were the only thing I craved after my pregnancy. I’ve always had a passion for baking and decided to make cookies from scratch since I was eating them so much. What started out as a way to fulfill my cookie cravings, turned into the best thing that ever happened to me.
We often doubt ourselves and become blind to our own greatness. However, when you have enough of whatever it is you are going through, you will change. A little over a year later I decided to create a few flavors, pack them up and take them to my brothers’ basketball game. I asked all of the basketball moms to taste them and they said the cookies were delicious! After that it was history. I posted a picture of the cookies online and before I knew it, I had a couple of orders a week and by the end of the summer I was filling a couple of orders a day!
Four years later, Ashley’s Famous Cookies has grown tremendously. We have shipped to every state in the country, been on national news and many other platforms. Every so often I hit a new bump in the road but I refuse to let anything stop me. Things aren’t always sweet but the cookies are a reminder that the simple things in life can be.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
The most effective way to grow clientele has been through intentionality. Every customer wants to be valued and appreciated and we do our best to make sure that we make our customers feel that way. Our cookies are made with love and we take the experience seriously. It’s important to build a brand that people can trust and feel connected to. Cutting corners may get you somewhere faster but creating a product and brand that people want to come back to is where you build long term success.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Word of mouth continues to be the best source for new customers. With us being a food product based business, it is extremely important to us that people think our cookies are worth telling a friend about. When someone personally recommends a product or service to you, they are freely putting their name behind something that they were not paid to advertise. This means that a person’s perception of the product they are recommending is a reflection of their standards. When someone spreads word about a business, the people that trust them will be more likely to give that brand a chance. Instantly turning a cold consumer into a paying customer.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ashleysfamouscookies.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleysfamouscookies/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AshleysFamousCookies
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-brown-92169a191
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCofq60EmbwociRqEPYT08Dg
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/ashleys-famous-cookies-indian-springs-village
Image Credits
Demetri Bailey