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

Hi Mari , thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Intro & how it started

My name is Mari Baker. I’m a proud mother of 2 amazing Sons, Berto and Devon.
Also, married to my wonderful Husband Brock of 17 years. I’m a mother, Wife, Creator and Entrepreneur.
How it all started! It was Berto’s 12th birthday month back in 2014. He had told us he really wanted a dinosaur cake
and had this whole vision of how he wanted it to look. So, we started our search to find a store or someone who
could make this cake. After days of running and calling, we couldn’t find anywhere to get this cake made. After some
discussion with my husband and mother-in-law, the idea was planted for myself to try and make Berts vision a reality.
I was a little reluctant at first but after the encouragement from my family, I decided to give it a shot. After a couple of
attempts, the cake came out exactly as envisioned. We had his birthday party that weekend. After the party was over,
I received multiple texts and calls asking about the cake and where we bought it from. There were a couple parents
asking if I could make their child’s cakes and that’s when it hit me, this could become something great! That’s when
the journey of YB Cake Designs began, and 9 years later, he we are!

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?

We are a locally owned custom designed cake business. We make all sorts of baked goods ranging from cookies, treats, candy to cakes and more! If you have an idea, reach out to us and we’ll see what we can do to bring that idea to creation. I believe what sets us apart from other companies within the industry are a multitude of reasons. Our products are unique to each order and customer preference. We take the time to cover every detail the customer is looking for and execute that to the best of my ability. Our pricing is another reason we believe we’re different from traditional companies. We have very low overhead and that allows us to pass those savings onto our customers and supporters. All of my orders are made with love and the pure satisfaction of the person the order is for!

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

The story that always comes to mind about this topic, has to be about fake reviews and social media detriments. I was about 2 years into my journey, gaining a lot of traction in local platforms, customer base and word of mouth. When all of a sudden, I was blindsided with multiple fake reviews, negative comments and actions. It was a constant issue for what seemed like months (really just a few weeks). It was getting so bad, that I almost gave up and closed the business because every day, my page and business was being targeted. I could only speculate these attacks were from other companies or bakers, but nonetheless, it was mentally and emotionally draining. I had worked so hard to get where I was at that point. I sat down with my husband to discuss closing and giving up on this dream. It was at that moment he realized how much this meant and impacted me. He wasn’t going to let me be defeated by this. We decided to not back down but to take action. We began by appealing, confronting and overcoming the constant barrage of negativity. My awesome customers, friends and family came to my defense and showed their love, encouragement and support as well. After a few more days, we were able to find resolution with everything. Slowly the attacks stopped, and I was right back on track with my journey! The point of this is, no matter how hard, how upsetting, how bleak the situation may seem. If you truly believe in yourself, your value, your abilities and are willing to stand on those, you can be tremendously resilient and overcome any situation, not just in business but in life as a whole!

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

How I’ve learned and grown my social media presence over the years. At first, I was hesitant to build out any social media presence over the fear of failure. It took me about a year after I opened YB Cake Designs to start any online presence at all. It wasn’t until multiple customers and friends kept asking about a portfolio, I realized this was growing and I needed to get over the fear and create a presence. That’s when I created my Facebook page YB Cake Designs. In the beginning, I was just using it to post my cake pictures and use it as a gallery so to speak. Eventually, after business started to pick up, I made my page my main form of contact with customers. I started to realize I had to get my name and page out to as many outlets as possible. That’s when I started really pushing and posting daily in multiple local groups on Facebook and forums. Using multiple hashtags and being consistent was the key! After growing my page, we decided to take the next step and create a website and business cards. Doing that gave YB Cake Designs another boost in traction and traffic. Again, consistent posting of my cakes and information were a huge factor in my social media growth. When we realized the growth, we started branching out to online directories, contests, events and other local platforms to increase the reach. Since the fore mentioned journey began, we’ve expanded even further by creating a Tik Tok account. Over the years, my social media has grown by leaps and bounds by staying consistent, putting out good content and getting all of it out to as many platforms as possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ybcakedesigns.com
• Instagram: www.facebook.com/ybcakedesigns
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ybcakedesigns
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ybcakedesigns?_t=8raAcHgPbUE&_r=1

Image Credits

Photo Credits : Mari Baker