We were lucky to catch up with Megan Southern recently and have shared our conversation below.

Megan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
One year at the original downtown location that we had our business I realized “This year will be the last Christmas that we spend at this location”. The reason I say this is because my employees, family, and I were working there for the busiest time of year with absolutely no room to work. My father had a 6″x6″ spot to use on the table. Which wasn’t much at all when you are trying to flip a truckload of cakes for the holiday. We had so many orders we had no where to store the orders. We were putting boxes on top of boxes. We kept elbowing each other. At that moment of pure frustration I had decided that “Nope, we are going to find something bigger”. This was a scary thought, especially for me that likes routine, consistency, and minimal changes. I never thought I would be the person talking about getting blueprints or building my structure to suit my business’ needs. There I was hiring an architect and an electrician. It just felt so unreal. I knew it had to be done for my family, my employees, and my growth for the business. It just felt right. I could not have done it without the support of my employees. They are the ones I lean on for questions. They are the reason our business has grown so much over the almost 6 years that I’ve been over it. They are my people and I could not have done it without their help. At the time of the buildout I chose to keep it on the smaller side of going larger. One year .later the business has exploded that my goodness I’m already complaining about running out of room again. I think we all agree the new location is much better. We get more walk in traffic which helps out a lot from the previous location. We have room and more organization which is great. We get new customers all the time in here now. We don’t bump into each other nearly as much. And I love my landlord, he has got to be the sweetest man I have ever met. He was so willing to work with us and he already knew how good our cakes were. He helped us so much with our transition to bigger things. It was probably the best move we could have made. It has grown our company a lot just by moving to a larger more seen location. Funny enough, the bigger more consistent we get the less I get stressed out knowing “we’ve got this”.

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?
I actually started working at a large name company where I was told I “had the most experience working at a restaurant where I would write names on cakes”. They allowed me to test it out over in the cake decorating section to see if I liked it because I said I had an interest in it. From there I fell in love! I found my passion. I told the manager I wanted to learn more. So I got the position. I learned as much as I could in the five years standing side by side with my teacher. We were a good team. Time passed on and I had my little girl. Unfortunately with big name companies you are expected to work at any time of the day, so daycare hours were not really an option where I was. I decided to find another position. I found a perfect part time position nearby with a “quality” instead of “quantity” business. Here is where I was able to tweak and refine my skills that I already had. I worked here for about 3 years until the business went through a lawsuit and ended up going under. I had seen the good and the bad in this industry. I ended up getting a different job and being so miserable I only did it for 2 weeks and quit. I felt like this was my passion. This is what I knew. This business is what I was great at. I ended up getting a phone call the day quit the random job. Corrine asked if I wanted to come in for an interview. She had called 6 months prior, but at that point I didn’t know I was in a sinking company. So this time I was able to interview with her. I was ready and anxious to get started and back into my world of cakes. Corrine had personal things going on when I first started. Her business was growing very fast, however, her and her husband ended up wanting to move out West which was her original plan with her husband. She ended up selling me the bakery. It was by far one of the scariest things I have ever done. I am so glad I did it. It has changed our lives forever. I feel more proud of myself than I ever thought I could be. I’ve done things that I never had imagined I could do before.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When we moved to the bigger location I felt like all of my expensive equipment (oven, freezers, mixer) everything I needed to be in business to stay in business had broken throughout the move. We just had them fixed one thing after another. The credit card didn’t like it at the time. I kept telling myself it will be ok. It will get better, it has to. After that I also learned that the most important thing is your employees being in a happy work environment. We learned the hard way we had a toxic person working with us. Once this person left, everyone was so much happier. It really was a huge difference on everyone. Your team is everything.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I wish I had taken full control earlier than I did. Because of work politics it was hard for me to see the bakery as mine for the first several years. Now that all of the drama is controlled and I feel like the owner instead of being undermined all the time, it finally feels great to be the business owner. This is what I enjoy doing. I’ve got a knack for it I think. I just wish it didn’t take so long for me to figure it out.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hoosiergirlcakery.com

Image Credits
Fairly Innocent Photography