We recently connected with Marlie Traver and have shared our conversation below.

Marlie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Truly, my journey has been filled with pivots, risk and change. Gratefully so, as they have all brought me to where I am today – running my dream business and creating in an industry that brings me true joy.

I graduated with a BS in Marketing & Business, minors in Accounting and Psychology. When I graduated from college, I promptly moved to my dream location, NYC, and began a career in Public Relations. So there I was, in what appeared to be a successful career in Public Relations for a company I really believed in. But my heart just wasn’t in it. I absolutely loved the industry I was working in, which was food and travel, but I knew I needed to make a change. True joy, for me, came when I was elbow-deep in flour, not files. My love for baking started when I was just a child and it became my love language.

Soon, dreaming about leaving my PR career became a reality when I made a decision to enroll in the Pastry program at the French Culinary Institute (FCI). That year was wild, putting it mildly. I was still working full time at a PR agency, attending work events on nights and weekends, going to culinary school at night, attempting to sleep and see my partner every now and then. But I did it!

When I graduated from FCI, I had some big decisions to make. I truly felt like the next step I made was going to put me down a path that could change the rest of my life. Leaving my stable salary, at a company I loved, was no cake walk. I wrestled with many doubts, fears and complete lack of confidence. Also, most jobs out of culinary school are unpaid (wild, i know). I was 29 at the time, with my own bills and debt to worry about – how was I supposed to work for free? How did anyone do this?

Luckily, my fears and doubts succumbed to the passion that was building inside me. I knew that if I didn’t leave now and explore this world, then I would regret it for the rest of my life. I landed a paid internship at one of Daniel Boulud’s restaurants in Lincoln Center, working under the amazing Pastry Chef, Ghaya Olivera. And I was right – this experience altered the course of my life. Working in a fast pace kitchen in NYC taught me a lot about myself. I worked every possible position, tested my limits, saw deep under the covers of restaurant operations and my wheels starting spinning about what my new life in the pastry world would look like – 5 or 10 years from now.

After working for a few years in the restaurant industry, I decided to get back to my roots in Baking and landed an Assistant Bakery Manager position for Whole Foods Market. The next 10 years were spent working for this world leader in natural and organic food. I honed my business skills, overseeing bakery departments in NYC and NJ, spending time in operational management as a GM and eventually as a member of their Northeast regional Bakery team.

Even though I truly enjoyed my career I was also burning the candle on both ends. Working in retail during the Covid pandemic changed me. I think those years changed all of us, honestly. My lifelong battle with anxiety and depression took over, causing me to take 3 months away from my career to get the mental health support that I needed. During that time, I started to think about what truly mattered to me and exploring how I could make changes to nurture those aspects of my life.

So, once again, I found the courage to start over, but this time on my own terms. Using my years in PR, my time working in restaurant operations and ten years in grocery retail, there in my tiny kitchen, armed with a mixer and a dream – Marlie Bakes was born.

It actually didn’t feel like starting over at all. It felt like a culmination of my life’s work – I had taken all of the pieces I loved from my former positions and careers and used them to create a new world for myself. I’m 9 months in, and it is still a rollercoaster ride –of highs and lows, but my brain is swimming in ideas and dreams and I wouldn’t change a thing. With each cake I bake and each order I fulfill, I feel more alive, more like me.

Marlie, 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?

I grew up in Albany, NY, the youngest of three girls, in a small apartment, with big dreams. My parents always told me – you’ll own your own business one day. I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but it sure sounded fun! Apparently they knew long before I did that I was headed down this path.

I have always been a baker, ever since I was little. My grandmother lived next door and was a sweets lover. You rarely saw her eating savory food, actually. She was the apple pie baker in the family. When apple pie season rolled in each fall, her tiny apartment was cranking out sweet, cinnamon apple pies for the whole neighborhood. Each one of her grown children received a 10″ pie just for themselves, plus a 10″ pie to share with their family. I loved seeing how this brought her so much joy, and brought her family together in ways we didn’t often see growing up.

My journey in the pastry and baking world has been filled with twists and turns, from working as a food & travel publicist in my 20s, to making the decision to attend culinary school and receive my pastry degree at the age of 29. I’ve worked in restaurants, bakeries and even grocery retail. I’ve worked in marketing, operations and even concept development. The culmination of my career came just last year, at the age of 39, when I started my own business, Marlie Bakes Cakes.

Marlie Bakes Cakes is a licensed, cottage bakery in the state of NJ, which means that everything is made in my home kitchen. I specialized in luxury custom cakes, cupcakes and treats for all occasions, but the heart of my business is in wedding cakes. I love marrying classic French technique with modern flavors and design elements. My signature design style is palette knife painted florals. This style of decorating feels more like art, and its equally therapeutic. Each hand painted cake is completely unique, offering my clients an actual one-of-a-kind centerpiece for their weddings and events. Flavor and community is at the heart of every baked good that crosses my counter.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think its really important to define your brand clearly, and stick to it. It sounds simple, but it can be really challenging when you are first starting your business.

I accomplished this by first writing a business plan. While this isn’t a necessary step for everyone, I found it to be an incredibly tangible way for me to lay it all out and make clear definitions of what I was going to market with, and what I was not.

In the cake world, I initially received a lot of requests for other baked goods. For example – cookies, brownies, muffins, random things people saw online, etc. None of which fell into my business model or brand. There were times when it was tempting to say yes and do anything and everything that was requested, especially during those months when there wasn’t much income coming in.

Once people started to realize that I only did cakes, I received requests for cakes that weren’t my “style” or wheelhouse. I also heard from clients who wanted to negotiate on my pricing, saying that no one would pay that much for a cake. Instead of reacting, and doubting my model, I stuck to it. I realized that if people weren’t seeing the value in what I offered, it was because I wasn’t communicating that value clearly – this is a me problem. The answer is not to lower your prices, but to change the perception of your product and service.

I started to use my social media platforms to showcase the value of purchasing local, small batch goods and services. The reality is, it’s not for everyone. My business model is to not appeal to everyone celebrating a birthday. It’s to appeal to the target market of individuals who value a luxury experience. This realization brought me back to my days of marketing 101.

I also reviewed my website and adapted pieces of it to ensure that I was clearly communicating my offerings and their value. Having so much information, including complete pricing transparency, on my website helps to filter out clients who aren’t a match for me.

Today, I rarely receive inquiries that aren’t a fit. My reputation within my local community, and my online community has changed and it’s working.

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

I have really enjoyed the community of social media as a business owner. It allows me to network and collaborate with like-minded individuals across the globe and that is incredible to me. Being a business owner, and especially a solopreneur, can be incredibly lonely. Social media has helped me find my baking community, and also serves as an incredible marketing tool for attracting new clients.

I spend most of my time on Instagram. I also have Facebook and Tiktok accounts as I see value in both of those as well.

My first step to building my audience on social media was to make sure that profile details were maximized, and accurately reflected my brand pillars. The images you use, the words you use – matter.

Next, I made sure to follow a lot of folks who were doing what I wanted to do. Some of those people were in my industry and many were not. I found that following people across other industries gave me a much broader perspective for idea generation.

Then I made a commitment to daily posting. That has changed overtime, but initially I committed to creating a quality post everyday.

Each week my social media content felt more natural and was easier to accomplish.

My advice to others who are just starting to build their accounts is to:
1) Find the platform that you love and stick with it. You don’t have to be active everywhere, but you need to be active in at least one place. I love Instagram, which is why most of my energy goes there. Wherever you enjoy engaging is where you cultivate the best quality interactions.

2) Make a commitment and stick to it. Do you want to post 3x a weeks? What’s doable for you? Will you be showing your face on camera? Will your posts be static images? Reels?

3) Organize and plan. When will your content creation happen? You may think you will just wake up and do it each day. That might work initially, but as you start posting more frequently you will need to plan your content. You can use scheduling software, you can draft all of your posts in one day for the week or month, it’s up to you and your time commitment.

4) Review your sticking points & get help. How has it been going? What can you improve on? Do you need more support with something? Maybe you are sticking to your commitment, but aren’t engaging with other accounts. Maybe you want to stick to your commitment but you keep hitting a creative block when its time to draft your content. Start researching these sticking points and come up some solutions. For example, I felt really confident in my daily posts, but really struggled with stories. It was the off the cuff stories each day that I was overthinking and talking myself out of. It was such a sticking point for me that I actually creating a guide to daily story creation for others. I offer a variety of social media marketing tools for other business owners on my IG page.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.MarlieBakesCakes.com
• Instagram: MarlieBakes
• Facebook: Marlie Bakes Cakes
• Other: Tik Tok – Marlie Bakes

Image Credits

Charissa Yong Photography, Little but Fierce Photography, George & Claudia Photography, Riley Rose Photography