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

Alright, Danya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Some of the most interesting parts of our journey emerge from areas where we believe something that most people in our industry do not – do you have something like that?

Something that I’ve heard from multiple sources in business that I disagree with is that support from family and friends means they’ll be booking your services. I believe it is setting a business owner up for disappointment when the expectation is that family and friends should assist in funding your business. The business is ours; the mission is ours; the vision is ours; the product is ours, and it is our duty to find our clientele.
Now I am not saying that family and friends cannot help but it is the expectation that causes frustration and conflict. There are multiple reasons why a friend or family member may not be a client of yours. It can be simply that they don’t want to mix business with personal relationships or friendship. If you’re a designer, maybe your clothes don’t match their personal style. Your services could also possibly be out of their budget.

With social media marketing being the best way to connect with your potential customers today, a share, like or comment (which are free actions) are just as great support as financial.

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’m Danya Lopez, the owner and operator of Sweet Daily Bread LLC. At the height of the pandemic, when the world began to shut down, I took the bold decision to merge my two passions – baking and the Word of God. To be transparent, I have absolutely no formal training in baking or pastry arts. However, after posting a cake on social media and receiving an immense response, I decided to cultivate this gift. Soon after, I realized that baking was not just a hobby, but something I could grow into a business.

I offer custom cakes that come in just about any flavor for every event imaginable.

The name, “Sweet Daily Bread”, was derived from two Bible verses: Matthew 6:11 and Luke 4:4. Sweet Daily Bread delivers Good Cake and Good News. Although the product being sold is cake, I love to share encouraging words from the Bible to my cake community I call my Sweeties.

After posting for only one year, I quickly grew to almost 20k followers. Today, three years into my baking journey, I have 75k followers.

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

The best source of new clients has been through word of mouth (also known as Buzz Marketing). Since I still work in the corporate world while running Sweet Daily Bread, I do not primarily advertise for new clientele. Of course, I post my cakes on social media, but I do not run ads stating, “book with me today.” The reason for that is I can only take a limited number of orders weekly. I rather get one or two new clients weekly from word of mouth than to be in a position where I have demand above what I am able to supply.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When I began posting on Instagram, it was strictly dedicated to photos only. I was a novice baker and posted pictures throughout the week of my progress. With the rise of Tik Tok, I noticed the shift to videos and reels, so I hopped on the trend early. I used trending audios not just because they were trending but audio that would appeal to my audience.
It’s very important to know who your target audience. Additionally, it’s important that you be yourself as you present your brand online. It can be easy to do every single trend, but you never want to do something just because its popular. By being consistently you through the ups and downs of social media trends, you will attract a long-lasting audience.

Lastly, I would advise someone who is just starting on social media to post everything, and it does not have to be perfect. I have multiple reels with over a million views and none of them were the videos I thought would go “viral”. Do not post videos because you want them to go “viral”. Instead, post them because you want to provide value and relevant content to your audience according to your mission and vision.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sweetdailybread.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/sweetdailybread
• Facebook: Facebook.com/SweetDailyBread

Image Credits
Taken by ourselves.