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

Nikkie, appreciate you joining us today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?

When we first opened up, it was just myself, my partner and our only employee, a part time high school student. The three of us were a dream team, but we all knew (or at least hoped), that eventually we were going to bring in some more help. We opened our cakery in the heart of a thriving community filled with young families, and they welcomed our scratch baking style and decorative artistry with open arms. As word spread and our business grew, it wasn’t long before we needed to build our team up. In hiring, I’ve found that it’s important to seek out individuals who are not only malleable to our training, but visionaries in our craft as well. As the Creative Director here, I still dream up and oversee our big projects, our branding, the overall vision and aesthetic of Sage Cakery. However I have made it a point to hire above myself when building our team. Artisans with vision, with experience, and creative talent that goes above and beyond what I myself am capable of. Some would argue that it is better to hire with no experience, so that you can train them to do things your way without having to unlearn someone else’s way. In my experience I haven’t found that to be a problem. I acknowledge that my way is not always the best way, and I make an effort to not only welcome, but seek out the input of our team members. I value their opinions.

Encourage your team, nourish and support them and their talent, and they will bloom for you.

Nikkie, 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 a small town and worked my first job at a donut shop just a mile or so up the street from my house. I was fourteen. This couple had retired from their careers and were finally getting to live their dream of owning a donut shop together. Valley Donuts was a labor of love, and the Vitchock’s were a major inspiration to me, though I am not sure I even knew it at the time. They ignited an entrepreneurial fire in me that brewed for years before I finally fanned the flames and decided to take the leap and open a business of my own.

I had been baking and decorating for years, alongside my full time job. I wasn’t happy in my career and had been looking for something that would truly fulfill me. After longing and searching, the fire inside showed me that deep down, the only thing that would fulfill me was to bring my own creative vision to life, every day. I wanted something of my own, something that I could build from the ground up, but I was afraid. That kind of leap is a blind one. No matter how hard you plan in business, it’s difficult to truly predict how things will pan out. I knew that I had to stay true to myself and not only open a bakery where I could be creative daily, but where the ingredients and the craftsmanship in the baking process truly mattered.

At Sage Cakery we bake entirely from scratch and use top quality (often organic) ingredients. We never use pre-made mixes or any added preservatives. Believe it or not this is hard to come by in a sweets shop, and I believe it’s what really sets us apart. As an herbalist, I know how important it is to consume quality food, and how much it impacts our health. Here at Sage we want to not only support you in celebrating life’s most amazing events, but to do so in a way that you can feel good about. We use unbleached organic flour, many fresh local ingredients, and offer gluten free, vegan, and nut free options daily. We have lots of fresh, seasonal flavors and offer some really unique options on our menu. Some of our favorite flavors are blackberry sage, honey lavender, rosemary fig, cardamom pear, orange ginger, and many more.

We have a storefront that you can pop into and purchase cakes and a variety of treats right from our case, but we really shine in our custom work. We have a team of artisan bakers and incredibly talented decorators. If you can dream it, we can make it. Pristine wedding cakes, 3D carved works of art, abstract interpretations, you name it. We can get creative in customizing cakes and cupcakes, but also customize other desserts such as brownies, rice crispy treats, cake-cicles, and more. We make scrumptious cookie sandwiches and gooey salted caramel bars, and fill your dining room table with miniature harvest pies this fall. We are here for your life’s sweetest occasions!

I am so honored to say that every day I get to go into work and lead an incredibly talented team in making your dessert dreams come true!

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

Somehow I managed to win the partner jackpot, in both life and in business. My life partner, Kurtis, has always believed in me and encouraged me to follow my wildest dreams. So much so that when I called him one day on my lunch break and said “Hey babe, can we go ahead and open that bakery that I’ve been dreaming up for a decade, now??”… he left his job to support me in following my dreams. A year before I left my own job, Kurtis pulled money from his own savings, and started the buildout of our bakery. Shortly after opening, I tought him how to bake. It turned out he was incredible at it (being as meticulous as he is,) and he now oversees our entire baking team! He’s the best partner anyone could ever ask for, and my head spins daily wondering how on earth I got to be so lucky.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

When I decided to follow this path, the bank was not eager to back me. The failure rate in the food industry is so high, that we were too big of a risk to get a startup business loan. We tried larger banks, and a couple of local banks as well. Even our real estate agent thought that there was no was that we could generate the type of revenue that we would need to stay afloat in the area that we wanted to be in (with really high overhead). Then we looked for investors, but could not find anyone that wasn’t asking for a 50% share of our profits. Thankfully, I had built such a strong reputation in the community for baking and decorating, that our mother’s truly believed we could do this. My mother in love signed over the house that we live in (that was paid for). We took some equity from our home, and then my mother let us borrow some money from her retirement. I wake up every day feeling blessed, and I am eternally grateful to them both for their generosity in the pursuit of my dreams.

Contact Info:

• Website: sagecakery.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/sagecakery
• Facebook: Facebook.com/sagecakery
• Twitter: twitter.com/sagecakery
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@therealsagecakery

Image Credits
Amanda Summers Photography, Sarah Rachel Studios, Serena Arthur Photography