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

Grace, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea to start Stidham Sweets and Treats came from a passion of mine to have a hobby that I could turn into a small business. When I was in high school, I had a friend who had 3 small businesses that were doing very well and I wanted to do the same. I would not consider myself the most artistic person, but cookies take a different type of creativity. I decided to a cookie class to learn the basics and came home to try and teach my mother-in-law. In teaching her, I realized I did not know as much as I thought and this hobby was going to take a lot more practice. Everything that could go wrong did, but we decided to continue to try. Through lots of trials and errors we finally made cookies that we were proud of. I decided that I would sell my first batch of cookies for a fundraiser to raise money for the Kyle Pease Foundation, an organization near and dear to my heart. From then on I realized that people enjoyed our cookies and I needed to turn this fundraiser into a business, specifically the business I had been desiring since I was in high school.

Grace, 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?

My name is Grace Stidham and I am the owner of Stidham Sweets and Treats. I got into the cookie industry specifically after taking a cookie decorating class. I came home and applied what I learned and each batch I took on, I got better and better. My mother-in-law can also be found in the kitchen at times because she herself decorated cakes. When I am not in the kitchen making cookies, you can find me at school teaching 5th graders math. I have been teaching for 3 years now and absolutely love the older elementary age. Between teaching and baking I train for Ironman races. Yes, the race is 140.6 miles swimming, biking, and running. It has been a dream of mine to complete these races and head to the world championships and I am doing just that in October in Kona, Hawaii.
Through this business I am able to use my creative side and passion to help others through creating tasty cookies and desserts. I believe that people deserve to be celebrated in all areas of life and I am intentional with customers to help their dreams come true.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

I have found the best way to build clientele specifically with cookies is social media. The more you post, the more that people see your page and your work. I have also found that posting my sales on Facebook Groups, specifically directed towards my clientele has been useful.

Beyond the world of technology though, word of mouth is EVERYTHING. At parties where my cookies and desserts are being served, it is crucial to provide an experience for the customer that causes them to have a desire to share with others.

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

The social media game for me at the beginning of my business was the hardest. I found myself forgetting to take pictures of orders, not finding good lighting to showcase my talent, and not using hashtags. I started researching some tips about social media and learned the time of day has so much to do with the amount of people that see your post and the engagement that happens. Facebook for me has been the easiest in terms of collecting data. They provide a breakdown on business pages that allows you to see what time of day is most active for your customers and what posts have received the most views. S

Regarding the lighting of a photo, instead of using filters on my photos, I turn the brightness up and down. This allows for me to have photos that look as if they have natural lighting. I also have been known to go outside of my deck and set up a little photo booth to take pictures as well.

Lastly, the use of the hashtag has allowed me the opportunity to be followed by other cookiers. Someone once told me that social media doesn’t matter, but in today’s day in age, it is everything. My next obstacle will be Instagram Reels. Wish me luck!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/stidhamsweetsandtreats
• Instagram: @stidhamsweetsandtreats
• Facebook: Stidham Sweets and Treats

Image Credits
Pictures all taken by me.