We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tanya Howard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tanya below.
Tanya , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
I believe the biggest challenge to profitability in the baking/home baking industry is not knowing your numbers. I have struggled in that area and sometimes I still do. There are many reasons it can be a challenge. From the constant day to day inflation, not tracking every expense, not valuing your worth and product. And these challenges can make or break your business. If you do not take time to calculate ALL of your expenses, your time, your education, your value, you will lose profit and possibly cause your business to shut down.
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 background and context?
I am Tanya Howard, the owner and operator of The Dessert Craze (TDC). but also a wife and mother to a beautiful 4 year old daughter. The Dessert Craze is a home based bakery located in Fresno (Houston), Tx. Baking and cooking for me started over 35 years ago in the kitchen with my mother. I loved cooking and baking with my mother so much that she painted “Tanya’s Kitchen” on the kitchen door when I was about 8 years old. That memory will always remain with me.
A little over 6 years ago, I was pondering on a business idea as a back up plan because of the uncertainty at my corporate job. I love body scrubs and considered that as a business concept. But I just didn’t find passion in making the scrubs. Well one day a great friend of mine (Courtney), was helping me brainstorm. She asked me “What is the one thing you would do if you knew you wouldn’t fail” and my immediate response was “Baking”. She told me, then that is your passion and that is what you go after. And that’s exactly what I did. And here we are over 6 years in business.
Initially The Dessert Craze was created and built with my sister Charnelle Ruben. We started out as a dessert company which provided all types of desserts from banana pudding, cookies, brownies, dipped treats to dessert cakes and so much more. Over the years we scaled down our menu. Charnelle always had a passion for dipped treats and had her own business as well. But once we got The Dessert Craze brand out there, we grew quickly. We both work corporate full time jobs and struggled to maintain it all. But over the years with trial and error, taking classes, support and mentor advice, we managed to make it all come together and grow the business.
After about 4 years in business I realized that I wanted to pivot and move on to custom cakes. So I started taking classes, watching videos, stalking baker pages on social media and practicing. Custom orders brought out our creative side and I fell in love with it.
As TDC continued to grow last year, Charnelle and I decided to devote our time and attention to our individual passions. So she is now the sole owner and operator of her treat business Inclusive Treat Boutique and I am the sole owner and operator of TDC.
TDC now focus on custom cakes and custom desserts, while still providing delicious dessert cakes and those every day desserts for the daily sweet tooth cravings.
Although the focus has shifted, it did not change one of my main goals and qualities I pride myself on which is customer service. I do my best to provide every customer with what I call “white glove” customer service. And if I ever fail at it, I will make sure I make it right. Once you become a customer, you are a part of my dessert family aka Craze Crew! So not only will your taste buds be pleased with mouth watering, delcious desserts, but your experience will be enjoyable. My ultimate goal is to elevate your dessert experience and bake your life sweeter one bite at a time!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I had to learn during this journey is that every customer is not my customer. In the beginning stage of business my feelings would be hurt if a customer inquired about an order, but did not follow through. It used to make me hesitant about increasing prices although it was necessary. But I learned that every business has a target market/customer. So the goal is to focus on attracting your target customer base. If your price is out of their budget, that is not my problem. It’s not that my prices were too expensive, it was just out of the budget for that person. And that is ok. We all have a budget or price point we can afford or desire to spend. So I had to unlearn the way of thinking every customer is my customer.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
The key element that helped build my reputation is me and the customer service I provide. My customers always compliment my professionalism and kindness on top of them loving their desserts. I go above and beyond for my customers. Of course being in business you can not always please everyone. But I always do my best to make it right on my end.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thedessertcraze.com
- Instagram: @dessertcraze1
- Facebook: The Dessert Craze