We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Esther Asante a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Esther, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

I think in order to be successful you must be teachable. You must be willing to allow yourself to continuous learn. You must learn what works and what doesn’t. At times it will require you to change the way that you once did things. It’s the times when we make mistakes that allow us to learn and grow and I feel like this is key if we want to be successful.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Esther Asante and I am a self-taught baker. My sweets business is called Esthers Sweet Treats. I can’t really say that I always had a desire or dream to be in the baking industry. It just happened. I’ve been in the baking industry going on 5 years. When I had my son back in 2018 I ordered desserts for his baby dedication. At that moment I felt like this is something I could possibly do myself and I was determined to make all his treats for his first birthday. I started off by watching a lot of YouTube videos on how to make different treats. I then started to look up different recipes on Pinterest. I went on amazon and purchased the necessary tools I would need to start practicing. I practiced making treats and I would bring them to my son’s daycare and send them to school with my nieces. I practiced making treats all the way up until my son’s 1st birthday where I was able to make his whole safari themed dessert table. It was a success. From then my friends and family encouraged me to take my treats to social media and start a business with it. I was hesitant about it. The thought of what if It’s not good enough or what if I am not successful started to creep in. Nonetheless with much encouragement I started to put myself out there. I slowly started to get orders and as I did I learned so many new skills. I first began, I started to make different recipes and each week would allow people to taste test and share their thoughts on the recipes I would present. I kept what worked and removed what didn’t. I learned different pipping skills and decorating techniques and I am still learning. I’ve made mistakes as I grew my business, but I learned from them and continue to do so. I think what makes my business special is the passion I have behind it. I put so much time into the details on my treats because I genuinely want to create delicious but beautiful treats for people to have at their special events. From the details on the treats to the way I package it, I am very much intentional about putting my best work out there for my clients.

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

Let your work speak for itself. I built my audience by putting my best work out there. I am still building my audience but some advice I can give is present your work in a way that draws your customers. The way you photograph your treats makes a huge difference. It’s not just making your treats but set aside time to make sure you photograph them well. It’s the photo’s you present of your work that will attract your customers. If there is a new and upcoming technique that draws your audience, try it out. For example, when reels on Instagram first came out, I did not want to do it. I just felt like it was extra work for me to do but then I realize if I want to grow, I need to be open to new ways of doing things. Another advice is from time to time do giveaways! It promotes your business and increases followers. Although these are not all the ways you can build your audience, one last thing I can share which I just started doing is open yourself up to having different social media platforms in which you can present your work.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

At one point I found myself feeling like I needed to do certain desserts because that’s what all bakers do/were doing. It wasn’t working for me. I didn’t enjoy doing certain treats and it did not work well with me. If I wanted to deliver my best possible work, I had to shifts gears. It involved me continuously changing my dessert menu, adding and eliminating items. I was able to grow more by doing so.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Esthers_Sweet_Treats
• Facebook: Esthers Sweet Treats
• Other: Tik Tok: Esthers_Sweet_Treats

Image Credits
I have all rights to images as I have taken all pictures presented.