We recently connected with Jocelyn Crane-Tizabgar and have shared our conversation below.
Jocelyn, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?
Training, passion, ambition, advertising, and knowing when to ask for help. These five things seem simple and necessary to success, however, not everyone uses these concepts in their business. I was once told a story of a failed restaurant, the owner thought it would be a guaranteed success for a sandwich shop in an office building. Sadly he had no training on how to run a restaurant which resulted in a lack of costumer service and not the best quality in product. No passion for the food he served which translated to no innovation in his menu. No ambition to work on raising the quality and costumer service he provided. When he asked me why would I want to open my own bakery and tried to explain to me that food businesses fail all the time and most likely I will fail as well. My answer was simple, Yes not everything is a guarantee for success, but I put in the work. Training, I have had the honor of working under and beside many award winning chefs from all around the world for 10 years before opening my own company. I was able to learn new techniques, looks and flavors. Passion, I love what I do. The kitchen is my happy place I play music and turn my mind off and dance while I decorate. It doesn’t matter how hectic my life is at that moment I am in a state of calm doing what I love.
Ambition, I am always working on improving my work from trying new decorating techniques to new flavor combinations. Because of my ambition my costumers are always coming back and spreading the word of my company J’s Sweet Affairs.
Advertising, this one is simple how will any one know who you are and that you are there unless you tell them.
Knowing when to ask for help, there is always something new you can learn to improve yourself or your company. the smartest thing you can say is I don’t know and ask someone who does. Faking it till you make it is a catchy phrase, but is not productive.
J’s Sweet Affairs is proudly successful by adhering to these simple 5 ideas and we are continuing to grow.
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?
J’s Sweet Affairs is there to offer custom desserts, cakes, and pastries tailored to personal requests, dietary restrictions, and desires. No request is out of the question. Everything we do is custom from flavor to design. From working for a 10 person party to a 500 person event there is nothing we can’t handle. One of the biggest problems I have to over come for a customer is bringing their creation to life. They know what they want, but either can’t describe what exactly they have in mind or they have an idea, but can’t exactly picture it. When a costumer and I speak I asked many questions to get a feel of the flavor and look that they are going for. I just had a situation occur recently where a costumer’s 4 year old son wanted a dinosaur cake, but also wanted the Mario Bros and Sonic on the cake. She didn’t want 2 separate looking tiers and wanted it to flow. I came up with an idea to make a 2 tiered cake that had the Mario Bros and Sonic entering a dinosaur level of a game I had the characters positioned to look like they were jumping over trees, running down a hill, leaping over dinosaurs and to complete the look I went with rings and jewels for them to collect. It was a huge hit not only was there movement to bring the cake to life with a real scene, but it tasted delicious too. I have a saying LAYA THE FLAVA I pride myself on complete flavors basically meaning well round.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I actually have a very funny story that not only illustrates my resilience, but proves that no matter what my costumers will get what they ask for on time and with a smile no matter what. A couple months ago I accidently gave myself a concussion. I was prepping for a cake demonstration party and when I reach up to get a sheet pan 5 industrial half sheet pans snagged on something and when I pulled harder they all came down on my head. Luckily I didn’t loose conciseness just a little blurry eyed, nausea, and a pounding head ache so I kept going. I still had to bake 10 4″ cakes, fill and base ice them. On top of that order I also had a 12″ cake for the day after the demonstration that was supposed to have hand made PJ Mask character faces on the side of the cake. The following day I showed up at the cake demonstration with a smile on my face demoed the ocean cake design and helped others create their own. Then headed back and began sculpting the PJ Mask faces. Everyone that week loved everything. The demo party had an amazing time and the PJ Mask party loved my sculpting and design. Finally once everything was done and clients where satisfied I took a long nap.
How’d you meet your business partner?
My business partner is not only my best friend, but also my husband. We have known each other for 16 years now. We were married 6 1/2 years ago and where best friends before that. We also have 3 beautiful children together a 5 year old daughter, a 3 year old daughter, and a 10 month baby boy. I couldn’t ask for a more perfect partner in our business. He has extensive training in banking and business management and I have extensive training in the kitchen. Its a heavenly made partnership.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @js.sweet.affairs
- Facebook: @js.sweet.affairs
Image Credits
TaShanna Newland – for powder sugar picture of me