We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Briana Johnson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Briana below.

Briana, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

Let’s talk cake. When I started baking, I wasn’t making any money from my cakes. I was being told, “that’s expensive” or “I’ll find someone else who can make it cheaper”. I would panic and lower my prices. I felt like I was always in competition with other bakers. I was trying to grow my business and didn’t want to lose customers. Thanks to popular baking and cake competition shows, the sale of custom cakes is on the rise. My biggest sellers are custom cakes. They are more than dessert; they are part of the decor. However, people have expectations on what a cake should cost based on what they would pay for a grocery store cake.

I think we all grew up celebrating over a sheet cake from the supermarket. We all know that distinct flavor of the whipped icing. We all remember fighting over who gets the flower or the corner piece with the most icing. It wasn’t a party without one of those cakes. Nowadays, bigger is better. The problem that bakers like myself are facing, is that those supermarket cakes are mass produced and cost a fraction of what a custom cake cost. When I make a cake, I want to give my very best and that includes using high quality ingredients. Pricing is hard, especially when the cost of everything continues to go up. I’ve had to learn to value my time and effort and to not take it personally when someone decides not to purchase from me.

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 worked in Social Services for over 10 years and have always baked as a side hobby. When I decided to turn my hobby into a business, I was still very afraid to take the leap and do it full-time. I liked the security of having a job to go to every day.

I started Sweet Bri’s Bakery in 2012 when a co-worker asked me why I didn’t bake for a living. I’ve baked since I was a little girl. I remember watching cooking shows with my grandma and asking my mama for an Easy Bake Oven. I am completely self-taught and I learned to decorate from watching YouTube videos.

Baking has been a journey. It has helped me calm my mind, ease my nerves, and show me what I’m made of and what I can handle. I’ve had my hand in many projects that couldn’t quite come together, but baking comes naturally and it’s a gift that I am trying to share with everyone.

I do everything myself out of a tiny apartment kitchen. Space is a big issue, but I make it work. One of the biggest challenges was convincing the public to give a home baker a shot. I’ve been very fortunate to have customers who give great reviews and share my information to friends and family. I know I have been successful because I produce a great product. I take a lot of pride in my work and that means doing a lot of research to find what works. From recipe testing to learning new techniques, I’m always trying to improve my skills as a baker.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Word of mouth is probably my best source of new clients. I’ve had times where a client would pick up their cake, have the party later that day, and I’d wake up to an inbox full of order requests from party guests. I can, and I do, share pictures of my work daily in hopes of reaching new clients. However, there’s nothing more convincing than hearing from actual clients. Of course, I like my baking and think it tastes good. What do other people think though?

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Building a presence on social media was pretty hard because I was not consistent in the beginning. Social media is a beast because it’s so focused on the number of followers you have and how many likes you can get. I had a couple of other businesses not want to work with me because my followers were so low. One day, a lightbulb went off in my head. My social media wasn’t set up to be at influencer level. I wanted to share my work with people who enjoy desserts, baking, and decorating as much as I do. When I stopped worrying about numbers, I began to really see growth. Clients love to see their orders posted. They will tag their friends, start a conversation and that’s how the ball gets rolling. The main thing that helped was creating business accounts. When I set them to business accounts, I was able to schedule my posts for future dates and not worry about getting on each and every day. Being consistent is key and a day can easily pass without me ever opening my social media pages. Scheduled posts really make life much easier.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sweetbrisbakery.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweet_bris_bakery
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SweetBrisBakery

Image Credits
Briana Johnson