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

Laura & Brian, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

Our first client! We remember her very well as she’s still a customer, and friend, 4 years later! We had the idea for our gluten free bakery, we had the recipes, we had food people would love, but we had no idea how to bring it to the public. Our first try was at a local flea market. We set up a small table with a small assortment of only gluten free baked goods. Our first client was Penny. She was young, maybe 4 or 5, and also had to eat gluten free. She was SO EXCITED to see our table and to know she could eat anything she wanted from it. It brought us to tears, and she made off with some extra free goodies! We still remember the peanut butter cup cookies she loved, mostly because she still gets them every time we see her!

Laura & Brian, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Laura has Celiac Disease and has to be gluten free. We found that almost everywhere we went there were very few gluten free options for her. Her biggest complaint was “I can never have dessert with everyone”. The idea was launched! She started working on gluten free baked good recipes, while Brian adapted some of his recipes to become gluten free.

Together we built a complete gluten free bakery, with vegan and sugar free options, as well as cannabis wellness baked goods. We named it Connor’s Goody Bag because we lost our son Connor 2 weeks after a premature birth, most likely caused by the Celiac Disease. In our business we honor him, and we bake the world a better place every day in his name.

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

We started small, with just an Instagram handle and Facebook page. We spent hours and hours following similar baking accounts, interacting with them, learning more and more about our business, but also what others were doing with social media. Our following started taking off when we started interacting with other accounts. We started sharing other’s posts without being asked, helping others market for free, just small shout outs or shares of their promotions. This brought them our audience and in turn, most started doing the same for us. Before we knew it we had blown up on social media in our area. Just by being nice.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

When we first started we were sales focused. We knew we had great goodies and we knew people would love them! Our history has always been in sales, and yes, this helped grow our business. However, maybe not as quickly as we’d have liked, we learned that it’s not about the money, it’s about the people. Cliche, but true. We took the time to learn exactly what people wanted and how we could help. We created the first Gluten Free & Vegan Jelly Doughnut in our area, because people wanted it. When we started our cannabis wellness baked goods we studied like crazy. We learned the health benefits, reasons people eat them, and exactly how we can best help people with our baked goods. We’re now a complete wellness bakery, with a great reputation, because we listened to what people wanted and we put our passion into our products.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.connorsgoodybag.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/connorsgoodybag/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ConnorsGoodyBag
• Other: https://www.findmeglutenfree.com/biz/connors-goody-bag