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

Leah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

When I was growing up, both of my parents and many other relatives had small businesses. I knew at a young age that I wanted to be my own boss, it always seemed to make the work-home life balance easier. Now that I’m 3 years deep in my business, I’ve realized that being a business owner is not exactly what I imagined as a little girl with big dreams. Although it’s true that I can make my own schedule, decide for myself when my work load is full, choose which products to sell and how to sell them, I was not prepared for how demanding it would be to run a business from top to bottom.

The hardest thing to realize is that I’m not just a girl who makes cakes and sells them. Since I run my business by myself, I’m the only person who answers messages/takes orders, figures out what ingredients I need and goes to the store to buy them, bakes the cakes, spends the time figuring out how to execute a design and decorates the cakes, packages the cakes, handles the orders/takes payment at pickup, posts content/manages social media platforms, delivers and sets up wedding cakes, and my personal least favorite-cleans the kitchen after it’s all done. Owning this business doesn’t just mean I get to do what I love and get paid for it, it also means there’s a heck of a lot more to it that I’d really rather not do but would otherwise not I have a business if I didn’t.

There have been plenty of times where I’ve questioned whether or not I should have just played it safe and got a “regular” job. Ive pulled many all-nighters in order to get Saturday morning cakes finished, and had many difficult customers that have nearly brought me to tears. Working with the public can be very hard sometimes. Then its times like that where I see so many of my peers who took the path opposite of me and they have these amazing houses, new cars, and are going on fancy vacations. So I’d wonder, is this worth it, did I make a wrong decision?

At the end of the day, my demons only get the best of me when I compare myself to others. Although it’s a lot of behind the scenes work, that doesn’t change the fact that I get to do what I love everyday. I have a job that brings me so much joy, a job I can be proud of and a job that brings joy to other people. My business not only allows me to be creative and have fun while working but it also allows me to make my own schedule incase I wake up and decide to push that day’s work to the next in order to have a full free day to do something just for myself. The saying “I didn’t want to work a 9-5 so I became a small business owner and now I work 24/7” is REAL but I really wouldn’t change it for a thing. Pipetown Pastries has given me everything I need and I know it will continue to provide for me and my family in each stage of life and for that I am truly grateful.

Leah, 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?

When I was younger, I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur but I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do. At one point I wanted to own a hair salon, another time I wanted to own a book shop. My mom was always doing different crafts with me and my sister and I got pretty good at crafting so another idea was just to sell whatever artwork or creations I could make. It wasn’t untill my sophmore year of college that I realized I could monetize my passion for baking. For as long as I can remember I’ve always loved to bake. I can barely cook real food but dessert? It’s always been my favorite thing.

My sister’s wedding cake was the first big time cake decorating job I had. Sure I had made family and friends cakes for their birthdays but those were so embarrassingly bad that I try to forget them. But my sister’s wedding cake? I stayed up till probably 2am decorating her 4 tiered cake and had to be up at 6am to start getting ready for her big day. I was so excited it was my sister’s wedding day but making her cake was something I’ll always remember as the cake that started it all. I was half cross-eyed by the time I finished it and I still think about the things I would have done differently but it will always be one of my favorite cakes.

After graduating from college (I went to St. Vincent for business management with minors in marketing and entrepreneurship) I got a job in an actual bakery. I will always give some credit to that job for me being where I am today. Not because it was a great job and a wonderful work environment, because it was not, it was awful, but because I learned a lot about what not to do and my direct boss was actually really awesome, he was a cake wizard who taught me a lot. It was at this job that I realized that a bakery was the real dream because even though I hated it and I contemplated quitting every morning, it never took away my passion for baking or cake decorating.

January of 2020 I quit the two jobs I had and started Pipetown Pastries (and also started working as a nail tech at Juniper Beauty Bar). Since then I’ve been able to refine my menu and learn ways to best run my bakery efficiently and effectively. I still have some hiccups here and there but I am human so I’ve learned to accept that it will never be perfect. Like I said, I run this business by myself and I also have a second job so I only do orders through Instagram and Facebook messages in order to keep everything in one place. Sundays are my only day off from both jobs so I don’t do pickups on Sundays. I offer custom cakes for all occasions-weddings, birthdays, showers, baptisms, you name it and I’ll make it. I also do cupcakes and “drop” cookies (meaning traditional cookie scoop cookies, not decorated sugar cookies). I work with buttercream and fondant and will work with you on how to modify designs if you want buttercream when your reference picture is fondant. I’m happy to work off of reference photos or come up with something on my own, we’re only limited to our imaginations!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Working with the public creates way too many opportunities for stories. I’ve had some bizarre asks for cake themes- body parts, bodily functions, marijuana, sware words, the list goes on. I had a woman go back and forth with me on whether or not to cancel her cake because she was taking care of her grandchild who was having explosive diarrhea. I had another lady cancel her cake on me hours before she was supposed to pick it up because her dog was sick but assured me she would pick it up a few days later and pay for it regardless. I never heard from her again. I’ve had many people open a cake order but never finalize the order/didn’t get back to me with important details like cake size, flavor or design, therefore I assumed they didn’t want the cake anymore, then they message a couple days before “when can I pick my cake up” and then give me attitude when I tell them I no longer have the availability to do their cake. I had a girl messaging me the night before she was supposed to pick up her cake, repeatedly asking if I was working on it and wanted progress pictures, but because she couldn’t fathom the fact that I had other orders to do before I started hers and stated that she needed a picture of the cake before she paid for it, she decided to cancel the cake instead. But above all that, I had 1 bride who almost made me just give up the whole business and move to another country.

In the beginning, this girl seemed very easy-going and far from high maintenance. All she wanted was a single tier cutting cake and cupcakes with buttercream flowers to match her wedding colors. Her mother was going to pick everything up the day before the wedding so she didn’t need it delivered. She said she wanted burgundy and rust colored buttercream for the cupcakes because those were the colors of her bridesmaid dresses. Since she didn’t send photos of the fabric, I wanted to clarify that by “rust” she meant redish orange and she said yes “dark redish orange burnt orange type color” and then burgundy and blush. She sent a picture of cupcakes and the way she worded her message made me think she sent the picture as a reference for how she wanted the flowers piped on the cupcakes and also a reference for the blush color. So basically I’m the dumbest person in the whole world. When the mother picked up the cake and cupcakes, everything was great but the morning of this girls wedding she sent me a message saying how disappointed she was in the cupcakes because the colors were completely wrong, not what she expected, she probably wasn’t going to be able to use them because they didn’t match her decor and that she was disappointed because my work on my Facebook was so good and that I even finalized the colors with her. Apparently she wanted me to match the 2 colors that were in her reference photo which to me were maroon and blush. Since she asked for burgundy (which is more purple) and also by the way she worded her directions on color, I thought she didn’t want the MAROON icing that was in the photo. I thought she wanted “dark redish orange burnt orange type color, burgundy, and the blush that was in the picture. So since I gave her the worst cupcakes in the whole world and her wedding was ruined, I of course offered to drive to her venue, scrape off all the icing and redo them. She said ” yes that will work we’re getting married at 3″. Imagine it’s your wedding day, you’re about to walk down the aisle in like 2 hours, and your main concern is that the colors of your cupcakes are just not quite right and don’t match the decor in your dimly lit wedding venue. So before I started making the new icing I asked if it was only the burgundy she wasn’t happy with to which she said the rust was red. So then I said can you send me pictures of the dresses or whatever you want me to match? She then sends me a picture of 2 dresses. At this point I am DUMBFOUNDED because her “burgundy” dress is in fact MAROON and the “rust” is like a salmon/terracotta. I then have these haunting flashback thoughts about how she was so chill in the beginning and if she was going to be this particular, why didn’t she send me pictures of these dresses to begin with. Why did she say words like “burgundy, rust/dark redish orange burnt orange” and just assume that I knew exactly what she was talking about. So. I make the new icing which now matches the dresses and rush to the venue. I get there and find BURGUNDY fabric draped over the table. The original burgundy icing looks perfect with the fabric and now the new maroon icing that I matched to the dress, looks very maroon next to this burgundy fabric. I’m like well, I have to change this even tho this looks perfectly nice. There are 2 older ladies setting up her cookie table which is also where the cake and cupcakes are (which are already set up on her display so apparently she was planning on still using them even tho the colors were completely wrong?). As I started to take the cupcakes down from the tiered display, one of the older ladies asked me what I was doing and was in shock at the sight of me scraping the icing off the beautiful cupcakes. I say “I guess the bride was unhappy with the colors so I’m changing them” and this sweet old lady rolled her eyes and was like “I think they look nice!” I was like well it is what it is. I start “fixing” the cupcakes and the other old lady comes over and starts like critiquing everything I’m doing. Telling me I missed some cupcakes in the back, trying to make small talk about fixing them, I’m thinking lady please get away from me. It is at this point that I realize the cake that is sitting next to the cupcakes. A cake that was once iced really pretty and simple and was supposed to just get a few flowers, was now absolutely covered in flowers and sucked of every ounce of life. I’m looking at this cake wondering who gave who permission to completely disgrace the cake like that and I hope people don’t think I did that. Then I was like Leah you are here to do cupcakes, stay focused. I finish the cupcakes, I clean everything up, I go home and I never heard from the girl again. To this day I have no clue if I saved the day or made it worse. I have no clue if the girl still has nightmares about her wedding cupcakes that apparently belonged in the dumpster.

I went home that day and was absolutely teetering on the edge of insanity. Wondering if I could ever deal with another person like that. Wondering if I should just close shop and never look back. God was like oh honey calm down because the next day I got an amazing message from another customer saying how much her granddaughter loved her cake and everyone said how beautiful and delicious it was. I could have cried. But anyways that bride is the reason I now insist on reference photos for icing colors so I guess I should thank her for teaching me a lesson.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Word. Of. Mouth. It will always be the tried and true method for any business. If you do good work, word will spread and before you know it you’ll have all the customers you need. I get messages quite frequently that start with something like “so-and-so reccomended you” or “I had your cake at so-and-so’s birthday party and want to place an order”

Posting my work on social media is also a close second in strategy for growing my customer base. People want to see what you can do and decide for themselves if your work is what they’re looking for. I’ve remade multiple cakes because when I post pictures of them and potential customers scroll through my page, they see something they like and just reorder the exact same thing.

Combined these two methods and you have the Facebook page “Across Westmoreland”. People go on there looking for reccomendations for bakeries/where to order a specific cake and people I know or past customers reccomend and tag my page to which that person then clicks on and can then view all the work I’ve done and go from there.

The best thing is these are free methods. It doesn’t cost me anything but it has helped me tremendously to grow my business.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Pipetown.Pastries
• Facebook: Pipetown Pastries

Image Credits
I said this in my last email but my personal picture was taken by Lizz Ritenour of Daydream Photography but it’s only a screenshot because she’s so busy and she hasn’t had a chance to send me the original. If it’s too blury I can ask her again for the original just let me know!