We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Vernessa Spratley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Vernessa, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

I scaled up by investing in classes. No matter how good I may be, I feel like I can never stop learning from other people in this industry. I invested in classes from other Bakers and Chefs to learn more. I also scaled up by learning how to advertise myself.

One of the first things I learned from Jeromie “Kake King” Jones is to clean up my social media. He often says get a website or platform that is not Cash App. I learned about Shopify from him. When I first started I was only taking Cash App. When I rebranded and relaunched I went to Shopify. I learned how to separate my personal from my business. I learned how to take pictures and stage my food and desserts that appeal to my customers. I learned how to have a clean background. I learned how to make my page look uniformed and not all over the place. I learned how to take all the old flyers and old pictures off my page. I also learned that I needed to charge my worth. I was making cakes for $20. I learned that I was talented and need to charge to make sure that I made a profit.

One of the mistakes I made was jumping into a business fresh out of Culinary School. I wasn’t ready. I needed more practice. I should’ve did more research. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was only charging to make people the product. I wasn’t making any profit. I definitely screwed myself in my first years. I was just so excited to get customers.

I first started only doing food. I did some desserts but nothing upscale. I started to see that there was a need for cakes and treats. So I thought to myself, if I’m already doing the food let me help myself and learn sweets and treats. That way my clients only had to come to me. I learned how to be a one stop shop.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I never wanted to cook or bake professionally. However, after attending a medical college for a while I decided that my heart was no longer in that. I was always in the kitchen cooking with my Mother and Grandmother. So I knew how to cook. However, I really wanted to perfect my craft and learn some more techniques. I decided to attend Culinary school. After my husband got out the Army we moved to Texas. This is when I attended Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Dallas, TX and graduated in May 2017.

Since graduating, I have moved to the Atlanta area. I have learned how to bake and do sweets. I also designed my line of cookware and have launched my first piece, which is custom stainless steel measuring cups and spoons. These are available for purchase on my website. I also began teaching classes and selling recipes on my website. I am currently working on my next class to be released soon which will be a food class. Lastly, I launched my first E-Cookbook. I am still taking classes and learning as much as I can from others in the industry.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The first lesson I had to unlearn is that my family and friends aren’t my target audience. Don’t misconstrue what I am saying, my family and friends absolutely support me. However, I found myself getting mad when they wouldn’t buy my products. I had to take a step back and realize that I needed to check myself.

I also had to unlearn that every customer is for me. I was so busy trying to get orders and “stay booked” that I was burning myself out. I also had to realize that I need to run my business. I was letting customers tell me when they would pick up instead setting a window for pick up. I was letting them just be late and sit up and wait for them. I had no boundaries for myself or my business. When I rebranded, I finally set up boundaries and established late fees.

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

I built my audience on social media by constantly posting, doing real paid promo and giving away free stuff from time to time. In doing paid promo, I found real people who would post my business and I gained followers and customers that way.

The advice that I would give to those just starting to build the social media presence is don’t stress about numbers. Let it just organically happen. I was so worried about likes and followers when I first started. I was feeling like I wasn’t doing anything or reaching anyone. I had to just keep posting and let it happen. Keep posting THEY SEE YOU!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ChefVernessa.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/iamchefvernessa
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vernessa-spratley-7a424696/

Image Credits
All Photos belong to me and were taken by me.