We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicki Guild a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Nicki , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
It was Spring 2020 when the pandemic was going on. I was working as a para at a local school. We stopped working because of the pandemic. One night I had a dream about making cheesecake. I woke up and said to my husband “I’m going to start making cheesecake” he started laughing because I was so serious and he said to me “ you have to make one first” I have never made a cheesecake in my life so this was all new to me but I was determined to figure it out.
So here it goes! I made my first cheesecake it turned out perfect! I had my husband try it first. He said “this is the best cheesecake I’ve ever had. I then had my friends and family try it just to get their opinion. They all loved it! I then decided to make a facebook page to try to sell it.
I was learning as I was going. Making sure I was following at the rules and regulations for food licensing. Creating an LLC.
I started to make a lot of cheesecake and starting taking pictures and posting it on my Facebook page. I quickly sold out every week and gained so many followers on Facebook.
We were going so fast that I had to find a brick and mortar. I found a building and we bought it. It needed a lot of work. It took two years to renovate it.
We finally got the building done March 2023! Now we are fully moved in. We are now making over 170 cheesecakes a week. We also sell to restaurants and now to Hy-Vee grocery store!
We all have put our heart and soul into this business, and it all happened because of dream!
Nicki , 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 explained a lot this in the previous question but I will expand on more!
Having a business is a lot of work! You don’t really take in consideration of all the back side work you have to do. Payroll, payroll tax, insurance, property tax, quarterly taxes and so much more! Thankfully I have an accountant that takes care of some of this!
My customers are the BEST! I have so many returning customers and also new customers!
You can find us on
Facebook Sweet Cheesecake
Instagram SweetCheesecake1216
www.sweetcheesecake.com
Store front
1360 7th Ave Marion
319-213-1398
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I’ve learned that customers want to see your product you are selling. They don’t want to see pictures of you. So I only post picture of what I am selling!
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
I feel like posting a lot of pictures on Facebook or instagram really helps my business. Customers love to see the product that I’m selling. I also feel when I do this I also gain more followers because a lot of people share my product. So new customers see my products then they like my social media pages. I have almost 12,000 followers!
Also giving away free product is always fun! When we do this they come in and sign up! They don’t even need to buy anything to sign up!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sweetcheesecake.com
- Instagram: Sweetcheesecake1216
- Facebook: Sweet Cheesecake
