Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hayley Walsh. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Hayley, thanks for joining us today. What’s one of the most important lessons you learned in school?

When I attended The French Pastry School of Chicago I didn’t really know what to expect. I was fresh out of high school and didn’t have any experience in the industry other than baking and cooking at home while growing up. The hours were long and the rules were strict. We did a lot of work in short periods of time to cram a ton of knowledge into a 20 week long course. I started school in February of 2020, so shortly after we had begun classes things started to get crazy due to the outbreak of covid. I eventually moved home after the worst of the pandemic hit, we were able to return and finish classes when it was safe to be in small groups. Although this was not at all what I hoped for or expected for my time in pastry school, I believe I learned more lessons about perseverance, hard work, endurance, and team work than baking. When we returned to finish school, the hours were longer as we tried to pack in what we missed into a shorter period of time. I learned about how a professional kitchen is run, how to work better as a team with my classmates, and little tips and tricks for things that will stick with me forever. I am now classically trained in french pastry, but I feel as if I learned much more than how to laminate croissant dough in my time at pastry school.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have been running a small baking business called Heylulubakes out of my home in Andover since the spring of 2021. I make many different baked goods, my most popular being decorated sugar cookies, macarons, cakes, and other pastries. My most recent step forward has been building a food truck that will be up and running this November, called Lulu’s Crêpes & Croissants! We will be parking around the twin cities at breweries and markets as well as doing private events! I will continue to take orders for my home baking business, but will have the food truck as my main priority. I am so excited for people to try the crêpes, croissants, and other pastries that I’ll be taking on the road in the coming months!

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

While I am apart of Gen Z, social media has not always come easy to me. Trends change fast, different people like to consume different sources of social media, it can be hard to keep up and cater to so many different groups of people. That being said, social media has absolutely been my main source of new customers. Whether they saw a facebook or instagram post of one of my most recent orders, or watched one of my “what I baked this week” tiktoks, I often have people reach out because of what they’ve seen on socials. I am by no means going viral or making amazing content, but the small community of people who share my posts has been really driving my popularity.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

When I had just started Heylulubakes I decided that it would be smart to do some holiday pre-orders. I had done this once before, at valentines day, which turned out to be pretty successful. I had some help from my family and that had been manageable. I decided I would do a Christmas cookie pre-order with two cookie box options. The pre-order would be open for one week and then I would close the form and get planning. The number of order started to increase quickly to a number much higher than I had thought was possible. I ended up calculating that I needed to make 800 cookies and 1000 macarons for the pick up date. It took careful planning, very long hours of work, and lots of help from family and friends to pull it off. In my first year of business I never expected to receive that many orders. It was risky to go through with it since I didn’t know if I was capable of it, but in the end I worked hard and succeeded.

Contact Info:

• Website: Heylulubakes.com
• Instagram: @heylulubakes
• Facebook: @Heylulubakes
• Other: Lulu’s Crêpes & Croissants Socials: Luluscrepesandcroissants.com Instagram and Facebook- @Luluscrepesandcroissants Tiktok- @heylulubakess and @Luluscrepesandcroissants

Image Credits
Lex Eix Photography