David Crabill: Welcome to the Forrager podcast, where we talk with cottage food entrepreneurs about their strategies for running a food business from home. I’m David Crabill, and today we are finishing up my conversation with the Miracle Twins, Heather and Corrie Miracle, who run Sugar Cookie Marketing.
[00:00:15] But real quick, I wanted to check, have you created a website for your business yet? And if you have, do you pay for it? A lot of entrepreneurs still think they need to spend money to get a good website, and that is simply not true. I’m a really big fan of Square Online. That’s what I use for my Fudge Businesses website, and I created a free tutorial that will walk you through how to set up a totally free website in less than an hour.
[00:00:41] And in case you think free also means cheap. It’s actually quite the opposite. I think Square Online is hands down the very best website tool for most cottage food businesses, and it’s even better than any of the paid services out there. So if you wanna learn more, you can check out my free tutorial by going to forrager.com/website.
[00:01:00] All right, so once again, I have Heather and Corrie Miracle on the show today. They really need no introduction, but you can hear their introduction on the last episode, which was the first half of our conversation. There’s just way too much good stuff here to limit it only to one episode.
[00:01:15] So let’s jump into part two as we finish up the conversation with Heather and Corrie.
[00:01:22] So, you know, you guys, when you decided to start this cookie college right before Cookie Con, I imagine your plates were already pretty full, right? Like you were pretty busy with you know, sugar cookie marketing group and marketing agency and all that stuff. Like where’d you think you’d have the time to actually start a whole college?
[00:01:39] Corrie Miracle: we didn’t think we had a time. Well, because it was our first year doing the cookie college as well. It was something new that we hadn’t experienced. But we said, Hey, let’s start with about 25 courses, 25 nitty gritty courses that if you took them today, you will benefit tomorrow and see if anyone thinks that’s a good idea. And when we sold out the first day, we said, Wow,
[00:01:59] Heather Miracle: this, I had to meet her for dinner. I said, Can we like, they have stress and then they have, eustress where you’re like, an upper stress. I said, I am so exhausted. Can we meet for dinner? I know we’re driving down to Orlando tomorrow, but like, whoa, I didn’t expect that. So when you’re asking for flying blind, that was a flying blind day.
[00:02:15] Corrie Miracle: And then that just told us like, Hey, there is something here. There’s people that believe in what this content is, what the cookie college is, and what it stands for. So if we wouldn’t have sold out, if we would’ve barely sold, we would’ve probably just stuck at those 25 courses. But now today we have over 90 courses, and that’s because it’s those people who believe that there was something there.
[00:02:36] Heather Miracle: And then people in the community. That’s one crazy thing, right? So we were like, we’re gonna just set up this Facebook group as like kind of a q and a support type system. Like, you know, I have a problem logging in. Okay, cool, I can help you. Or like, I don’t know how to create a Google business profile.
[00:02:49] Cool, here’s the, you know, workflow. But instead it almost became the featured product. People are like, I haven’t even logged in to take a class. I just like the community. Like, oh. So after the first two months, bless those first two month people who took a risk, we were like, Hey, let’s really dig into building a community here and then let the community decide what the college becomes.
[00:03:10] So the community voted for the private podcast cuz they were like, Hey. And the community says, Heather, make the, classes longer. Stop making each step so short and the community says, Heather, I wanna learn how to make a transfer sheet. So based off of what the community votes, then even we go as far as having polls.
[00:03:26] That’s what you’re gonna see in the cookie college the next month. But it’s been wild.
[00:03:31] David Crabill: And did you start the college at the current price of like, what is it, $68 a month?
[00:03:37] Corrie Miracle: It is 68 and we, it’s always been 68 until we’re having our first price increase at the end of this year. So it’ll be the first week in January. It’ll just go up just a few bucks and that’s just to um, compensate for the time, but also what’s 25 courses? And now we’re at 90 courses.
[00:03:55] Heather Miracle: So I was thinking like, so I was making a transfer sheet. I didn’t know what transfer sheets were, honestly, until Corrie was like, Hey, do you, like, I still obviously don’t understand what they are. We make tiny little graphics repeated over and over. So I’m like, taking illustrator crash courses on how to make squiggly lines cuz you know, I gotta have to, I gotta hold the copyright so I gotta invent the thing.
[00:04:14] So I’m drawing a pie slice this morning, replicating it 52 times on this PDF that people can download. But I said, Corrie, if we get enough transfer sheets, essentially the college pays for itself at the first month. And that’s our goal really, is that
[00:04:27] Corrie Miracle: You have so much value in.
[00:04:29] Heather Miracle: that you make the money back in a buck. Like we wanna make sure that you make your money back in the things that you learn here and it pays for itself and then you make more money. I don’t wanna be a cost impact to people and I understand that the college price point is a bit high compared to what you typically see in the market here. But so my job is to make it worth it.
[00:04:46] So is Corrie’s and she’s off baking constantly and spending cookie cutter money and I’m spending digital download and like, you know, subscription money, but it’s working.
[00:04:55] David Crabill: Well, I, I have to tell you, like when I saw you came out with $68 a month, I didn’t think it was a bit high. I thought it was way high. it, was like, but clearly it wasn’t. Clearly, you filled those slots real quick and there was demand for it, but was there a part of you that like felt bad or hesitated to put out that
[00:05:14] Corrie Miracle: Well, I will say we niched down. I said the person that needs to be in the college is someone who can afford to be there. You need to be charging the prices that speak to the cookie college. So my custom dozens are between, you know, they start at 65 to $70. So I would only need to sell one custom dozen to pay for the college.
[00:05:31] And those are the people, you know, you have made the right steps in your business, you’re ready for it. And when people are like, you know, a little too high for me that time. Yeah, there’s so much free content in the main group that will get you to the point where the cookie college will be, you know, a no brainer.
[00:05:46] So we always say, Hey, take that free information. That’s what it’s there for. But we did price it a little bit higher because we wanted the right audience that’s going to join in and dive into the content versus join and say, you know,
[00:05:59] Heather Miracle: What I couldn’t imagine is if we priced it, let’s say 10 bucks a month, Okay, yeah. We could get a ton more numbers, right? But then we have a ton more support. And that’s what I want cookie people and bakery home, business bakery people to realize is when you price high, you get a different type of person who’s like, I mean, they’re asking extremely complex questions. Some questions they’re asking me and I’m asking somebody else. I’ll be like, you know, you’re in this industry, can you gimme some tidbits to pass on? And that’s what they’re paying for. So it is a high price point. I don’t think people should join the college if they haven’t been in the group for, you know, at least three months.
[00:06:34] Uh, So we actually had an answer to that question. We’re gonna launch another membership. That is just the basics. It is almost like if you are just getting started, don’t pay us, don’t join the cookie college. Like, keep your money. Take these basics and make sure that you take these and they wanna talk about basics.
[00:06:50] I’m talking about how to set up like Facebook page, like it’s really basic stuff. And make sure that that stuff’s dialed in before you, you know, throw your money in our direction.
[00:06:57] David Crabill: So how many active members do you have in the cookie college now?
[00:07:03] Heather Miracle: We had a big boost because of the hocus bogus kits, which I think led to the whole free photo Nightmare Saga. before that it was around 600 and then we got a boost of the 700, and the retention rate is pretty awesome. that I think proves there’s quality content. The average retention is about three months for people to sign up.
[00:07:21] Even if they say, I’m only signing up for a month. Sometimes they’re like, Darn it, I’m sticking around .Cool. Let me, let me teach you something. Sit down.
[00:07:29] David Crabill: Well, 700 if you know, if they all bought for like the yearly discount, Right? And you got a little bit less, like that’s half a million dollars right there.
[00:07:40] Heather Miracle: the discount yearly, even though I do think it is, it’s a discount. Not too many people buy into that cuz it is a yearly commitment. Like, I’m gonna sit here and listen to these two for an entire year. But the three months is kind of what we’re looking at. You know, a lot of people just join for a month and I say, join for the month, grab every digital download, get every transfer sheet, squeeze the juice out of this one month membership.
[00:08:03] We even have like a Facebook Live every other Monday to tell you how to like rip us off. Like get everything you can get out of this. People are like, Can I download the videos? You can screen record ’em and then you don’t have to pay us ever again. But I think that, yeah, it’s been wildly successful, but it’s keeping us, like we said, we gotta keep these people impressed.
[00:08:21] I wanna make sure that they’re continuing to learn, they’re continuing to grow their business. The stuff that we’re putting out, maybe even getting a little bit more advanced, because that’s where this group has kind of grown over the last year
[00:08:32] Corrie Miracle: And what’s great with it, you know, we worked, we both worked full-time on this for over a year and didn’t, pull a dime, mostly gave more dimes to,
[00:08:41] Heather Miracle: It was a net loss. It wasn’t a good
[00:08:43] Corrie Miracle: good year. This, because now we’re having the opportunity to get compensated for it. It’s allowing us to create even better content than we did before, which is, you know, just I, that people trust us is, one mindboggling, but two, it’s very humbling and we don’t take that for granted at all.
[00:09:00] I know, like I will go to bed thinking about someone’s business issue and I’m like, wake up in the morning. I’m like running to type an answer like, I figured it out.
[00:09:08] Heather Miracle: Right, Right. Yeah. So we have to be stewards of the money that’s given us, because I understand that 68, even more like two months of 68 bucks, like I gotta make sure you guys are making money. Mm-hmm. . And if you aren’t, let me know. Let’s figure out something, let’s roll you back down in the 35.
[00:09:24] Let’s get the foundations done. Let’s roll you back into the group and get that free content. But I would like to, I would like to stress to people, you do not need to pay for the cookie college to learn the content there. It is all accessible in YouTube videos, which have floated me my whole life.
[00:09:37] Goodness. YouTube should be illegal. It’s so awesome. Uh, And then you can, you can read forums, you can read this and you can gather all this information for absolutely $0. But if you like hearing it come from these two annoying voices, and if you want that support network, that’s really what the college is.
[00:09:52] But you can learn all of this stuff online and a lot of it in the main group.
[00:09:56] David Crabill: Well, I have to give you credit, Heather. You’re the first person that I know that has founded and built up a college before finishing college.
[00:10:07] Heather Miracle: I was going, a lot of those posts came from my textbooks. Uh, But yeah, I decided at the beginning of Covid when they stopped the uh, interest rate. I was like, Well, you don’t really get a interest free loan very often, so let me do an interest free loan and finish up school and then just wrap up the business management degree.
[00:10:24] So again, I got all these textbooks, which I’m like, Okay, good. You can learn all that stuff in college, but I honestly think you can learn most of that stuff online. Still, even having finished college, just do it online.
[00:10:35] David Crabill: Alright, so obviously, I mean, you maintain positivity. I feel like, it seems like you maintain positivity in your life. You maintain positivity in the group. And not only is like the group culture positive and helpful, I’d also say it’s fun, right? Like, you have a lot of fun in the group.
[00:10:55] There’s jokes flying all over the place. So Susan Reed,
[00:10:59] Heather Miracle: Susie, susie,
[00:11:01] David Crabill: Diet Coke, Cats, like what, what, what have you created?
[00:11:05] Corrie Miracle: I think the solopreneur, it’s a very lonely path. And you know, I have a built in bud with Heather, you know, so it’s, while it’s lonely, it’s not as lonely as some other people might experience. So we know what it’s like to not be able to crack a smile for a whole day because, you know, you had so many emails in your inbox, you know, stress levels 3000 customer forgot to order, you gotta squeeze ’em in.
[00:11:28] So we said, Hey, you know, me and Heather love a good meme. We love to laugh. So if we could bring that to the community and these people who are working, you know, working, so much and they’re so passionate, but that goal can turn into this ugly monster if you don’t, you know, have a smile every once in a while.
[00:11:45] Um, So we’ve been able to kind of bring a little laugh and a little joke
[00:11:50] Heather Miracle: I’m sure it’s long in the tooth, but it’s stuff, honestly, I’ll like call Corrie and be like, This is so funny.
[00:11:56] And I’ll be like, Can we do this? Cuz it would be so funny Cause what are you gonna do? You can work. You know, that was another big thing Corrie and I talked about is like, you know, I granted work a lot but there’s gotta be a joy about it.
[00:12:09] I mean cuz then what are you working for like we, we work to live, not live to work. So let’s have fun and you can make a joke. And I hate beads, I love beads. I love seeing people argue about the beads and then these target crates are crazy. And then, you know, just kind of weird stuff that I think is super funny.
[00:12:25] Like Corrie got banned for so sugar cookie marketing group warrants a lot of bots trying to find sugar babies. It’s just nature of the game I guess. So this guy gets in accidentally, you know, comes past the AI and he says, Hey I’m looking for a sugar baby’s feed photos. So it’s so funny because you see in a sugar cookie marketing and you know, Corrie screenshots it and then Meta instantly bans her for 30 days.
[00:12:49] And I thought it was so funny. stop selling your feed photos .So yeah, so that kind of inside joke stuff it’s just, I find it so funny. I gotta laugh otherwise I’m out.
[00:13:01] David Crabill: Well, it feels like not only do you make the group fun, but you guys are having fun as well, right? Like is this like the most fun ever.
[00:13:11] Corrie Miracle: I mean, we have the same kind of fun in our marketing agency, but just like the cookie humor, you know, it’s just, I don’t know, like Heather will send me a meme and I’ll have to give her a phone call right away with just mean cackling on the other side.
[00:13:26] Heather Miracle: It’s also like, I’ll be like, Corrie, this meme, there’s something here. We can retool it for the cookie people. And she’ll be like, I’m feeling this. And I’m like, No, we’re close. Keep going. And then we’ll be like, Let’s try this. And then we post it. And honestly, I hope people realize, and I’m just refreshing to see if they like
[00:13:40] Corrie Miracle: but I think me and Heather have inside jokes together. We’ve always been jokey. Jokey.
[00:13:46] Heather Miracle: we used to uh, laugh in class, but I, you know, like when somebody says something and you’re like, That landed funny, but I’m not gonna laugh unless somebody else laughs. And I look at Corrie from across the room and she’d be like, And then I just couldn’t stop. I, and the teacher would be like, Do you have something you wanna share? And
[00:14:02] Corrie Miracle: Well, don’t worry. We’ve also gotten like a one star podcast review for our laughter , so it has come bite us in the behind.
[00:14:11] David Crabill: when you’re in like an influencer type business, right, which you now are, right? You’re in any kind of media business, you’re putting stuff out there, getting followers, getting attention. The number one principle is like, don’t be boring, right? Don’t be boring with what you post. and do you feel like that’s something that you try to do? Like you always try to be as creative and funny and energetic and enthusiastic as possible. Is that like something you’re really trying to do or is that just who you are as a person a person,
[00:14:38] Corrie Miracle: I think who we are is chill, laid back, we can have a conversation. I know when Heather makes like a technical post, she does really good about breaking it down. Like to my like level of like,
[00:14:50] Heather Miracle: sometimes Corrie will be like, No, that’s not gonna land. And I’ll be like, But it makes so much sense. She’s like, Yeah, but it’s not entertaining. So then we’ll be like, Okay, I’m gonna change this out. Or then she’ll call and say, There’s a typo in your meme. My goodness.
[00:15:01] Corrie Miracle: but it’s almost like making something fun to read. You know? There is so much boring content to read out there. So if we can’t, one, make it educational and then two, fun to read, so you actually read to the whole thing and learn. Then I feel like it’s two birds, one stone.
[00:15:15] Heather Miracle: Also feel like we have nicely built up this group of 36,000. The amount of knowledge that 36,000 people contain puts us as a steward of that knowledge. So that’s why you see a lot of the prompts like, Hey guys, what’s one thing that you wish you started earlier? And I just read through that. That is so much information that people are handing out like Candy
[00:15:36] Corrie Miracle: Or the free Facebook Lives people teaching what they know for absolutely free is mind boggling.
[00:15:43] Heather Miracle: Facebook Lives, it would take you over, well over 150 hours cuz they all run at a minimum of an hour from anything marketing related. There’s some baking ones, there’s some business optimization ones and all that is absolutely free. And I think Corrie and I have to kind of be stewards of like, Hey, we are able to access a lot of information in people.
[00:16:00] Let’s make sure that information is dispersed. The way people get information dispersed is by making it entertaining.
[00:16:07] David Crabill: Is it ever hard to like think of new posts You’re constantly posting things all over the place. Various social media pages counts. Like do you ever feel strapped for like ideas?
[00:16:20] Corrie Miracle: Well, I will say it’s nice that, you know, with the world of like online marketing, everything’s always changing, so there’s always an update that you can talk about that you haven’t talked about yet.
[00:16:30] Heather Miracle: But also what I try to preach to the cookie people is like, okay, like I posted a meme yesterday, it was shared over 200 times, but it only reached a max of 6,000 people just on Instagram in the group. Maybe 1500, that’s 35,000 people that I did not reach. I can repurpose this content, I can copy and paste this content.
[00:16:48] I’m gonna reach a whole new avenue of this. You know, people that just didn’t get it. So I, you know, people are like, I’m exhausting my audience. Boo bear, they’re not saying it. Just keep putting it out there. Just keep retooling it. You can use the same concept. But Corrie on that note, did come to me and she’s like, I’m running outta TikTok ideas. I said, Cuz you’re talking to the wrong audience. You need to talk to me. I don’t know anything.
[00:17:07] Corrie Miracle: Yeah, and then, then the floodgates open, like
[00:17:10] Heather Miracle: I don’t know how to find natural light and I don’t know what a scribe can do.
[00:17:17] David Crabill: So Corrie, you’re obviously a very skilled cookie decorator but like you have a group of over 36,000 people, I can only imagine that there are people in the group that are far better decorators
[00:17:30] Corrie Miracle: that would be about 36,000
[00:17:34] David Crabill: So like when you’re teaching something, is there ever like any kind of self doubt in your head, like knowing that you’re not necessarily the best person in the group to be teaching a skill?
[00:17:43] Corrie Miracle: You know what? I used to be like, I can’t put that kind of content out. Someone’s gonna be like, You idiot. That’s not how you do it. But I then realized, you know, a lot of people don’t know even the few things that I do know. So if I can just help, one person learn something, there’s this cookier, she’s so much better than me, but she said, I watched the sugar cookie marketing reels on Instagram and I learned this, this, and this.
[00:18:07] And I was like, You made my day . Printed it out, put it on the fridge, took my son’s artwork down, trashed it. But I feel like there’s something that people, you know, even the most talented people who have been in the industry for so long, there’s always new techniques that are coming out, you know, even in the cookie world. Like, so if I can just shed some light, and a lot of times I say, Hey, do you have a better technique? A lot of people who
[00:18:30] Heather Miracle: Well, I’ve been learning from the comment section of Corrie’s videos. Yeah. Somebody’s like, Listen, you need to put water to activate something, something
[00:18:37] Corrie Miracle: So I, I used to get, up on it, but now I truly don’t. Everyone’s been so wildly accepting of my dumb reels in my content that it makes me happy to
[00:18:46] Heather Miracle: But keep in mind the niche if somebody wants to take a cookie decorating class, I wouldn’t, I mean like, like a cookie, like skill set class. Like not these two. No, no offense to you, but definitely offense to me. Like no, there’s so many great instructors out there that do these very unique, nice classes.
[00:19:03] Corrie Miracle: Mind blowingly talented.
[00:19:06] Heather Miracle: go find them and take that like Timbo Sullivan, whatever his stuff looks like. It could walk off your plate and go back into the ocean. I think he made a crab or a lobster, like that’s who you need to take those classes from. But if you wanna talk about basic, like, Hey, here’s something I learned to stop butter bleed. I was reading your witch finger nail
[00:19:21] Corrie Miracle: yes, And I think the mindset behind that kind of content is we want people who are just entering, the industry who don’t know about the sugar cookie marketing name. So if I can reach those people and just spark a little bit of an interest, you know, they click to the bio or they see my name that’s who I’m going for.
[00:19:38] Usually people who have been in the industry for some time now who are really good already have heard about us and they either decided if they liked us or didn’t. So it’s those new people who are thinking about getting into the
[00:19:48] Heather Miracle: Kind of the funnel build, like so practice what we preach. There’s the top of funnel uh, at the end of the day, Sugar cookie marketing group is kind of training wheels. A lot of stuff. Once you learn it, you can take it off on your own and go do your own thing
[00:19:59] David Crabill: so I mean, Corrie, you have this cookie business that you still run right on the side. You’re still taking orders.
[00:20:08] Corrie Miracle: I am, I have an order going out today and tomorrow.
[00:20:12] David Crabill: But your business is so focused on marketing, do you feel like you could have started a group like this if you weren’t one of them Like, you could have shared the same marketing knowledge and knowhow without necessarily having all the cookie decorating skill sets, but like do you feel like you had to have your own business in order to even be allowed to start a group like this?
[00:20:38] Corrie Miracle: I think it helps immensely with, giving, you know, where the credit is that I can relate to someone who was like, My order just bled last night. It’s due today. What is something that I need to tell the customers? while I do, I think you have to know cookies to do this. Absolutely not. Do I think it helps lay a good foundation?
[00:20:57] Absolutely. I like when Heather’s like someone just said uh, put the gold on there and it didn’t set right. What do, what,
[00:21:04] Heather Miracle: The luster dust is flaking off. How should they fix it?
[00:21:08] Corrie Miracle: so it’s good that I can like, bypass Heather and give like the tips and tricks just because I know what it means.
[00:21:13] David Crabill: Well, you guys really arrived, I think you said right before you started this membership, you were speakers at CookieCon
[00:21:23] Heather Miracle: to speakers at CookieCon. Nobody realized we begged them. We sent them an email. Okay. We sat down and brainstormed copy. Right? And we were like, Corrie’s, like I would die if we were allowed to speak at CookieCon. Of course he never knocked on our door. And we were like, That’s smart ,
[00:21:37] but what if we asked if we could speak? So we sent them this email, like we honestly brainstormed the copy, the AIDA Formula and said like, let’s try to make this as funny as possible cuz these people are busy. And we sent them an email and we’re like, you know, like, you know, no is fine. No is a good answer. No is a
[00:21:54] Corrie Miracle: One, we never thought would respond.
[00:21:57] Heather Miracle: No. But then they had one of their core instructors is backed out and they were like, we were gonna add a keynote, but no, you know, we, we, you know, they were like, it’s something we thought about, but if you guys want to like, we’ll let you be the keynote closer, this would be the first year we’re supposed to launch it next year.
[00:22:11] And they were like, and then, you know, would you mind stepping in as a core instructor? It’s like a big thing. And
[00:22:16] Corrie Miracle: yeah cuz. we had never been to CookieCon before in our lives. This is our
[00:22:19] Heather Miracle: Yeah, so we were like, whatever you say, the answer is yes. And you know, Mike and Karen are, I can’t believe they run that thing. It is. So 1 million moving parts. I it’s just watching em cuz you know, we got to see a little bit of the back end.
[00:22:34] I’m like, Wow that is so stressful. And it’s so much they never stop entertaining people. Like the whole system, the whole CookieCon structure is four days of nonstop entertainment. Good luck trying to find a seat at the bar. It’s full of cookie people and good luck trying to use this room. It’s full of cookie people playing games and it’s just like, whoa, I can’t, believe they put that together and then they went as far as to do it twice in a year. Yeah.
[00:23:01] David Crabill: So how did Cookie Con affect your business?
[00:23:03] Corrie Miracle: well we thought we were gonna sell the cookie college at Cookie Con, but we had sold out before we went there, so we said this is just gonna be about building people’s businesses cuz we talked about marketing, why we were there and photography. So it was definitely focused on making sure everyone got enough information that if they left Cookie Con they could have a successful photo the next day.
[00:23:24] So, we had a blast, getting, you know, meeting people who have been in the group since we had started. It was just so much fun. And even though we didn’t use it as like a selling avenue, it was so great to like put faces to names. No, none of these little floating profile pictures like that, that person has a voice
[00:23:40] Heather Miracle: Yeah.
[00:23:41] David Crabill: So when you’re trying to help somebody who’s just getting started selling cookies, what are the things that you would share that they really have to know before getting.
[00:23:53] Heather Miracle: Get the fundamentals down. I hate to say it starts with the name. Make sure that it’s not used. Make sure that it’s not trademark. Just get the name dialed in. Don’t make it complicated. try to stay away from misspellings. You know, with the SEO in mind. Consider how you’d say it verbally to your grandmother if she types it differently than what you intended.
[00:24:11] That’s a good fail safe. Say, maybe that’s not the best name. If there’s some competitor within the same state, maybe not the best name. Really just kind of spend a little bit of time on that. Don’t be afraid of rebranding if it doesn’t land the way you wanted it to. And then get your fundamentals down. So, okay, you got your name.
[00:24:26] Let’s get on Facebook. It’s free to start. It’s free to start an Instagram. It’s free to connect them. Let’s get them connected. And then I, you know, from an SEO standpoint, even from a social media SEO standpoint, fill out absolutely everything. If it says you have a 750 character limit, sit your butt down and write 750 characters.
[00:24:42] If it has a 3000 character limit. There’s a reason that a lot of people are filling it out, but I don’t wanna see just a single sentence. If you’re not passionate about your business, if you don’t know how to communicate what you do effectively, your audience will also reflect that same thing. So I wanna see You can see that Corrie and I waste a lot of exclamation points and emojis because we wanna instill in people an upbeat vibe, cuz that’s what you’re gonna get. So I wanna see like, hey, make sure and then we can talk about branding. Again, don’t fall too hard in love with branding. Just come up with something that works.
[00:25:12] Let’s get out. Rather something than nothing to wait for perfection means you’ll never launch. Uh, And I know that Corrie and people look at us and be like, You had some major typos. Yeah, but did it get posted? I can go back and fix it. I can’t go back in time and post it again. So I’ve gotta get it out. You know, just get something up there and then we wanna take payment.
[00:25:30] I’m real big on taking payment at time of order. So you’re not chasing payment. Ask me how I know. Again, learn trial by fire. So let’s get something simple up. Jotform. Pretty, you can do 10 free transactions before it becomes a paid plan. That’s something to get up. Now you can take payment now and then let’s start strategizing.
[00:25:47] Then it comes into more of that marketing theory. But you can set up a Facebook page, an Instagram page, fill out the bios. Heck, LinkedIn obviously, I think is a big thing. So let’s set up a LinkedIn company page, Set up a LinkedIn personal profile. Start building out these free resources so that you can start generating income long before you’re having to spend it.
[00:26:05] David Crabill: So obviously someone focuses on social media cuz they’re trying to get the word out right and that’s like the hardest thing when you’re trying to start a business, get people to pay attention to you. Do you recommend people try to fast forward that process by spending money on Facebook ads?
[00:26:23] Corrie Miracle: You know what I would say no. The reason why is there’s so many opportunities to do this free and organically before you put money behind it. let’s make sure we have all those avenues um, filled in before we just jump and spend money. Do me and Heather run ads all the time? Absolutely. But there was a lot of learning that went behind that.
[00:26:42] And there’s a lot of opportunity to lose your money and say, Ooh, Facebook ads don’t work. Instagram ads don’t work Google.
[00:26:47] Heather Miracle: We don’t wanna operate at a net loss. We don’t wanna start in the negative and have to build back into the positive. When we can start at zero and build into the positive, then we can start investing. Cuz now it takes a different word. We can start investing in these you know, ad spend campaigns. So email marketing, MailChimp, under 2000 subscribers. That’s free. Let’s, let’s use all the free aspects before we need to start really putting money back into this, in which case you’ll have that money if you know your numbers to invest back in that business
[00:27:13] Corrie Miracle: and what we always tell people to do, you know, just like how Sugar Cookie Marketing group is so vivacious and their reach seems to be like uncapped, join your local community groups. Um, and that’s where you can tout your own business. Or if someone’s looking for a baker, you can run to the comment section and tag yours and optimize your comment to, get the most views on it. So there’s a lot of you can do before you ever need to go with a paid route.
[00:27:37] David Crabill: If somebody’s like, Okay, they’ve, picked a name that seems good enough. They have filled out everything. They’ve set up all the accounts, but they’re just not. seeing people pay attention to them or care, maybe they think their cookies aren’t good enough to sell cuz they’re just starting out. Like what are some of the steps you recommend people go through to like try to, get over that hurdle or get over that self doubt.
[00:28:03] Heather Miracle: I love to say the problem that you have is not unique. You’re not unique. None of us are unicorns. The issue you have has been had by thousands of people, and they’ve also jumped on YouTube and made a very specific video about it. Like you are not alone and your problem is not unique, and that’s the safest place you can be.
[00:28:20] So take that issue to these sugar cookie marketing groups and say, Here’s my issue. Where is it going wrong? What I can guarantee you is you’re, because your problem is not unique, there is an issue that we can find. Usually it comes down to, Hey, we need to, you know, fill out the copy better.
[00:28:33] Hey, we need a call to action. Hey, we need to put the link here. We need to make the funnel a little shorter. If somebody else can sell out 1500 in a month, like $1,500, you can too. Just bridging the gap between where they are and where you’re at is just a, it’s a math problem, it’s an audit. Let’s see where they’re at and where you’re not, and how we can firm up those gaps.
[00:28:53] Corrie Miracle: And about when people think like, I’m not good enough I always say good enough compared to who you’re in your business. You, you’re the only cookier in your business. Who are you not as good? Uh, you know, a lot of people like to look around and our self-doubt is so loud, especially when you’re a solopreneur and you don’t have someone like saying great job or a pat on the back all the time.
[00:29:13] And that’s what we try to give people in the sugar cookie marketing group. Like, you are good enough
[00:29:18] Heather Miracle: If someone is buying for you,
[00:29:20] Corrie Miracle: someone’s buying you’re good. enough. You know, people bought for me they shouldn’t means I’m good enough. Um, So a lot of times it’s about building their self confidence, you know, and then when they get a showcase, their wins or you know, someone had an order just to see, you can just see them blossoming as, you know, a baker and as a business owner.
[00:29:37] And it’s just, I mean, I stand in awe when I just see someone who was like a lurker and they were so down on themselves to just turn into this like powerhouse of like a baker and business owner. It’s just addicting to watch
[00:29:50] Heather Miracle: you can see that when the brain shifts, you can see the mental shift from the, I’m not good enough to the marketing mindset and that it’s not, even if you’re not good enough, you can outsell anybody. You can if you have enough marketing strategy, enough marketing prowess. If you have enough diversification in your marketing plan, you could sell anything.
[00:30:07] David Crabill: Well, definitely if somebody has an issue, they can go to your group, find an answer. There’s tons of knowledge there, but what is something that you’ve learned from a group member that has helped you build sugar cookie marketing?
[00:30:24] Corrie Miracle: I think a big one that I learned is that the silent people do have a voice too. There’s a lot of people who don’t feel comfortable commenting or joining in on the fun jokes, but they’re there and they appreciate the community so much. So a lot of times when you feel discouraged, like my post didn’t reach anybody are no one like my thing.
[00:30:41] People are still reading it. They might not be acknowledging it with a like or a comment, but they’re there and, and they’re learning and it, you’re being seen regardless if you think you’re being seen or.
[00:30:52] Heather Miracle: I’ll be like specific, like Janelle was like, Hey, Heather, did you know that on Google Calendar you can set the, five day preview to be six or seven days? And I’m like, Oh my goodness. And then someone you know, says, Heather, the Munbyn, you’re wasting two stickers. You don’t have to do that.
[00:31:05] Here’s how to fix that Munbyn sticker problem. Like, these people are seeing these gaps in my brain and just sending an email like the Vendy Blendy is coming up. And some lady’s like, Hey, you know, why don’t you just ask people to leave the group after they’re done? Why didn’t I think of that? Like, these people are constantly emailing these tips and tricks, like, Hey, there’s a typo on the website.
[00:31:24] Thank you, thank you. Because I cannot see it. And just constantly, you know, these people are just so interested in keeping this community a safe space that they’re actually giving back a ton. That helps guide kind of where we’re headed, from the admin saying, Hey guys, you know, you guys are doing this. Why don’t you try it this way?
[00:31:41] David Crabill: Let’s talk about the Vendy Blendy a little bit. You’ve got four. Permanent Facebook groups and this really unique one.
[00:31:49] Corrie Miracle: for someone just tuning in on November 25th for 24 hours, we have vendors come in and they offer a discount of 20% or more to the people in this very unique group. And he says it’s unique because it only lasts for 24 hours and then it disappears.
[00:32:05] Heather Miracle: Thank goodness.
[00:32:06] Corrie Miracle: Um, we asked last year and a bunch of vendors came and then a bunch of people asked for it again this year. So it’s our second annual time.
[00:32:13] Heather Miracle: Right. again. The group voices were like, Hey, we wanna spend our money. Uh, Girls like, you know, cuz you, okay, you control a group of, I think then it was 16,000 people. can you force some vendors’ arms to give us discounts? we were like, we’ll ask, we’ll ask, but a lot of people tell us no.
[00:32:29] But when we said, Okay, hey, anybody wanna do a Vendy Blendy? 35 people signed up last year And the magic of it is it takes all the marketing stuff we talk about heavy fomo, you know, limited quantities. One day only everything goes away and people are like, Oh my goodness. And then the vendors, you know, the vendors last year were like, This is my best sales day I’ve had to date. And I’m like, great.
[00:32:52] And these other people were like, I got all this stuff that I really wanted at a discounted rate so everybody wins except for me and Corrie. Cause we don’t sleep. But what a fun thing.
[00:33:02] David Crabill: Are there some of the marketing concepts that you use to create this Vendy Blendy that people can use in their own businesses?
[00:33:08] Corrie Miracle: Oh, absolutely. And
[00:33:10] Heather Miracle: Don’t be afraid of. No, just ask the worst if you don’t ask. It was already. No, you do ask. There is going to be no’s, but just, Okay, cool. That just means there’s another door open somewhere else. You got a knock on
[00:33:21] Corrie Miracle: Yeah. And Heather coaches the vendors uh, before they let the group open on, here’s what you need. You need to have a call to action. You need your website listed. You need your discount code to the top of the copy of your text so it doesn’t have truncation.
[00:33:35] Heather Miracle: I wanna see you replying to each comment. I wanna see your posts constantly getting bumped to the top and uh, kind of helping people navigate what’s going to boost their sales. Again, it’s on the main group. It’s all sugar cookie marketing, it’s all topics you can find on the internet, but like on this one day, like this do or die this
[00:33:51] Corrie Miracle: we love to see, see, it’s almost like we’re like standing back, but we love to see when the vendors are like, And I’m sold out. And then we love to see one down. Yeah.
[00:34:00] Heather Miracle: But this year, thanks to the vendies, obviously Corrie and I really like that edible food printer, Eddie. But we thought like if you know, our job is just to get people pending for the Vendy Blendy and then to get vendies ready to sell. So we said let’s make the vendies pay into an Eddie giveaway.
[00:34:15] So we finally reached the threshold of an Eddie Vendy Blendy giveaway and uh, that should have more people wanting to buy and more vendors wanting to sell. And beautiful Black Friday magic music. Yeah.
[00:34:27] Corrie Miracle: We did just give away an Eddie that was sponsored by Primera, which is the company that owns the Edible Printer, and they gave one away for our two year anniversary. And we loved the hype so much, we said, let’s make the vendors buy one for the vendor blender and give away one there too. So if you missed out on the two year anniversary, this is your next best bet.
[00:34:47] Heather Miracle: Yeah, Primera’s a really great company. It’s so funny, again with like, hey, the answer to every unasked question is no, Okay? Again, the group had 5,000 people, 7,000, 10,000. And Mark was like, Hey, can we sponsor your cover photo? And I said, Corrie, what is, What is an Eddie? And she was like, Oh, it’s this really new technology that’s just come out.
[00:35:04] She’s like, What if we ask him to send this one and that will be the sponsorship and then we’ll unveil it. So I, you know, you’re like, you know, writing this great email with amazing copy and it ends with like, Would you just send us one and that will be the sponsorship for six months? And he was like, Yeah. Uh, where do I send it? Like what? Yeah,
[00:35:23] Corrie Miracle: know it was insane. So they’ve been a podcast sponsor since, but they make a great product so they kind of sell themselves. I don’t even know if
[00:35:30] Heather Miracle: I don’t know. They need us, but I like that they like us.
[00:35:34] David Crabill: What are some of the other sponsors that you have or some of the other stories that have come out of that?
[00:35:39] Corrie Miracle: One of our first sponsors, and this is when we first started the podcast, never thought we’d get a sponsor, you know, a day in our lives, but Royal Batch is this meringue powder.
[00:35:47] And she said, Hey, I have this brand new meringue powder. I just wanted to see if maybe I could sponsor something.
[00:35:53] Heather Miracle: I know you were like super spotty on communication and she was like, Hello,
[00:35:56] Corrie Miracle: Hello? I
[00:35:57] Heather Miracle: And
[00:35:57] Corrie Miracle: was like, Oh my bad. I’m sorry I was baking. But then, so I said, Well, let me get, let me order some and I’ll see if I like it. And I said, Oh my goodness, I love it.
[00:36:06] And she was the first one to actually take a gamble on us and become a sponsor. But she said, Oh my goodness, it really put my name on the map. Um, So it’s worked for both of us, cuz now I’m hooked on that meringue powder
[00:36:17] Heather Miracle: And uh, like aeCore Backers. It’s so funny cuz like Corrie started posting about him and she was like, What if I sponsored just Corrie uh, kind of these posts on Instagram Okay. As like kind an influencer relationship. And then she realized that she’s sitting on this magical cookie world and she was like, Well let’s let me just sponsor the sugar cookie marketing group.
[00:36:36] And that’s how aeCore Backers got involved. And then Sugar Dot uh, she actually used to live up the street and invite us to speak at one of her events at a brewery up in Leesburg and now she’s since moved to Tennessee and we hate her, but she was like, Yeah, I’d like to get involved as well. So they’re all unique aspects of how they’re coming in.
[00:36:53] But really like the people really awesome folk,
[00:36:57] David Crabill: So let’s talk about SEO a little bit. search engine optimization You guys are SEO experts.
[00:37:04] Heather Miracle: Ummmm I know how to talk about it. Experts? Is I’ve seen these guys that are experts and I’m nowhere.
[00:37:11] David Crabill: Well, you’re a lot more expert than most people. But isn’t SEO dead?
[00:37:16] Heather Miracle: SEO is much more strategic. It’s much, I know SEOs hate these updates that have come out. And what I say it’s opened the market for more people to enter.
[00:37:27] It’s more websites to call. It’s forcing the hand at quality content. So as much as even I hate it, it’s harder to cut corners. Like the last update is like, the Google guy, whatever the one on Twitter, I forget his name. He was like, Stop using AI to write your copy. Like, we’re gonna figure it out, you know?
[00:37:43] And it’s just like, ooh. Do I think SEO is dead. I think what it used to be is very long since dead. There’s back links are much more strategic. the hyperlink text has gotta be a variation. Nothing can be abnormal. You’ve gotta stick within your industry standards and anything that looks weird, you may climb for a day, you may climb for a year and then it all comes crashing down.
[00:38:05] So I think it’s an aspect of marketing in industries that are very untapped, like the sugar cookie classes, website ranks first. For our area it’s because there’s no competition. But as competition comes in, why we all hate and love competition at the same time. It keeps us on our toes. It forces us to be better at the product we’re offering.
[00:38:21] And in the world of SEO, that’s a more informative website, that’s more quality content that’s actionable. This little fluffy stuff that we used to be able to write. It’s gotta be like David Crabill, like you’re from Virginia, here’s your cottage law. Here’s it broken down on the list form, here’s where you need to talk.
[00:38:36] Like that kind of content. It’s what it’s forcing. And you can obviously see from your website that it’s paid off time and again, that you have a really quality content base versus superfluous. Like, I’m just gonna throw something up. Let’s hope it ranks. Let me throw some back links at it. Really lazy approach that lazy approach is.
[00:38:53] David Crabill: Yeah, so SEO is much more complicated than it used to be. So is this something that you actually recommend to people who are starting a cottage food business? Like should they actually create a website and actually try to focus on SEO to rank in their local area?
[00:39:08] Heather Miracle: Uh, My Yeah. Answer is yes, absolutely. You’re gonna want a website. It’s gonna help with conversions, it helps with just that safety factor. It helps with shortening the funnel. Is SEO an aspect that the cookie world hasn’t tasted of yet? Yeah, I don’t think so. Once they taste of it, the game changes.
[00:39:24] Like once you get cold leads, I don’t think a lot, a lot of these people are growing their lead base into very warm audience and then converting ’em, that’s a longer funnel. It’s a longer amount of time when you taste of somebody knocking on your door that you didn’t solicit.
[00:39:38] Corrie Miracle: it’s, it’s
[00:39:38] it’s different cool, clear water.
[00:39:41] Heather Miracle: Uh, So I think that, yeah, what I wanna grow, especially in the college, we do have an SEO series, but again, it’s gotta start with the fundamentals. You gotta have that website, which is the best website to choose. Why do you choose it? you know, say let’s go to WordPress. WordPress is great, but there’s so much vulnerability.
[00:39:57] There’s so many technical things that can go wrong. Would I say go to WordPress at the expense of sales? No. At the end of the day, for a lot of us, maybe Square is just where it is right now, and it’s fine. But I want that gear in the background to constantly turn to say, Hey, SEO is gonna be an aspect.
[00:40:11] I will work on a blog post. I will hyperlink back. I will understand SSL certificates and how they not only affect the way our clients buy from us, they also affect the way the search engines look at us.
[00:40:23] David Crabill: Well, I feel like, most people start a website and they, you know, just cuz it’s good to have an online presence. Know a way, for people to find your information there. There’s nothing really wrong with creating a website. It’s very easy to do these days, but haven’t really seen people that are at least, especially in the last two years, who have started a website and they’re boom seeing traffic coming from Google Cold Leads. Right? Like, do you have a story to counter.
[00:40:52] Heather Miracle: Only when the industry is in low comp, like if you have very few industry competitors, your ability to rank higher is much more accelerated. Uh, You know, a lot of the day job people we work with are working in very, very saturated markets. And while your cookie market may feel saturated on Facebook, I can almost guarantee it is not saturated in the search engine results.
[00:41:14] for that reason, I would say, Hey guys, there’s a little bit of a gap in the market here where you can be first to this market, first to the SERPs, and you can get these cold leads. Now what people are seeing is they’re seeing it through the Google My Business or the Google Business profile setups, and that’s only one aspect of it.
[00:41:31] Not everyone shops from maps people are like, How do you get people to come into your cookie class? Because we rank first for that keyword in our area, they’re knocking down our doors. I’m constantly saying, Hey, no, we’re booked. We’re not doing private classes.
[00:41:42] Somebody said, I work with a big commercial company. Like, can you guys teach 180 people a cookie class? I’m not even sure the scale to approach that kind of baking but that’s what sits there behind the glass door of, being a search result first place.
[00:41:58] David Crabill: So let’s say someone stirred their business a year ago. They set up a website, you know, they, they did Google my business, right? And they happened to live in an area that just doesn’t have a lot of other custom cookie decorators. So there’s not a lot of competition. They’re still not ranking. What are they likely doing?
[00:42:18] Heather Miracle: I think that the thin content update, meaning that you don’t have a lot of information, you gotta, take off your consumer mindset. Take off your pretty picture mindset and you gotta put on your robot mindset. That robot is who you’re communicating with now what is the robot?
[00:42:32] The robot can’t see you smiling with your kids in a beautiful photo. The robot was like, I need alt text. That’s all I can understand about this photo. Until AI catches up, you need to create a thick website. And, and if David Crabill, I would say like, sit on his website and look at just how valuable each page’s content is.
[00:42:51] It’s not about like David saying like, Hey guys, Hi, you know, thank you so much for coming. It’s like, Hey, you’re from Virginia. Here’s everything you gotta know and everything for on that page just continues to add value all the way to the very bottom. Now adapt that mindset to your cookie business.
[00:43:06] What is this one page? What do I want it to do? I wanna teach people how they can make royal icing at home. Well, guess what? It’s really hard. So they’re gonna end up in your cookie class trying to learn it anyways. So make this one page of content really great for your audience. Really go out of your way to teach them something they did not know.
[00:43:22] and wash, rinse, repeat continually over and over again and reach out to other businesses. Can I write a blog post? And then in those blogs link back to your, Of course you’ll have to tell them that, but you wanna create this backlink profile as well.
[00:43:34] David Crabill: As you think back on the last two years of your journey, , what’s a moment or maybe some moments that really stand out to you that either helped catapult your business forward or just resonate with you?
[00:43:51] Corrie Miracle: There was a lady and um, she went to law school and if, you know, cause your wife, you know, went to law school too. That’s a big, thing, it’s a big thing and there’s a lot of money involved with that. But she said that because of what she learned in sugar cookie marketing in the cookie college, she was able to pay off her student loans.
[00:44:10] And I mean, that to me is just,
[00:44:13] Heather Miracle: that’s
[00:44:13] Corrie Miracle: that’s it.
[00:44:14] Heather Miracle: That’s.
[00:44:14] Corrie Miracle: the whole goal from it. So when I see these people, we have a Wednesday win that we, we post on Wednesdays. It’s my favorite thing to read through in the evenings just to see, people’s wins. And it’s a small comment, but it’s a life-changing moment for them.
[00:44:29] So having those every Wednesday, and we’ve had that for a long time. The Wednesday win things, but you just get like this, like warm
[00:44:36] Heather Miracle: They’re doing it. They’re, this is happening. It, yeah. So every Monday on our meeting, we say like, what’s one like headline that you end be like, Oh, like, hey, she went to Disney World all on cookie money. And like, Oh, that person just bought a Tesla And uh, it’s making a big difference in people’s lives and they’re making more and they’re working less. And that that last part is key. That you can have the business, the life that you want, if you’re willing to put in that upfront work to understand how these mechanisms work together.
[00:45:03] Corrie Miracle: Yeah, and I stand in awe that we have that opportunity to, reach so many people that, so many people have changed our lives, but allowed us into their lives. It’s, it’s just mind blowing to me.
[00:45:15] David Crabill: Was there an achievement or something you posted or something that hit the social feeds or somebody who contacted you? Really pushed sugar cookie marketing forward, or do you feel like it’s just been totally organic
[00:45:30] Corrie Miracle: It’s word of mouth based. It’s people who are like, I’ve taken this tip, I’ve run with it, and I want you to share it with you. So they’ll go to other groups. our entry questions for the group, says, How’d you hear about us? I love when someone’s like, someone walked up to me at a farmer’s market and said I should join your group
[00:45:45] Heather Miracle: Yeah. Someone’s like, my daughter said I need to join. I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, so those lead sources said that people are asking, I’ve gotta make money. I’ve gotta make money from this. My husband, my wife, is looking at the pile of crap I have on the table and saying, This is only costing us, and I have got to prove to them I can make this pay for itself. Come on in, friend. We’re gonna do it. We done did it. So we can do it
[00:46:08] Corrie Miracle: Yeah. So while there is no one thing that really, you know, it’s, all those people that, you know, believed in us enough to go tell somebody else. Like they
[00:46:16] Heather Miracle: Word of mouth marketing is the strongest lead source. Ask us how we know.
[00:46:22] David Crabill: as you look back? If you could start this business over again, what’s one thing you would change?
[00:46:29] Heather Miracle: We would’ve launched the cookie college a little bit sooner. Again, that imposter syndrome, who’s gonna pay for this? They can learn it all on the internet for free.
[00:46:37] Corrie Miracle: it’s not
[00:46:38] Heather Miracle: We gotta do this. Yeah. I wanted to have intros and I wanna have outros and I want to have better quality and all this stuff.
[00:46:45] So we did put it off for about three months longer than we probably should have. And then when people signed up, I was like, Darn it. Well, you just don’t know, do you ? So that would probably be something I’d change. Otherwise I would’ve adapted to the group rules on Facebook a little bit more sooner, more soonest earlier, but yeah, we’ve, we since kind of tweaked it and I think that little bit of growing pains when you change the structure of the approach of policy a little bit. And I think people were like, Yeah, it’s fine. It’s cool.
[00:47:14] David Crabill: I mean, obviously with the growth of the cookie college, you become very successful with this business, and yet you still seem to hold on to everything that you’ve created, like aren’t you still running Target rocket, your digital agency?
[00:47:32] Heather Miracle: I have to say, like I said to Corrie, Corrie hates it. I’ve never seen someone so violently like Ill when we lose a client. I said like, you know, the average client retention for an SEO agency is only a year. that is the numerical value of the average life span. Anything over a year is just plus. Like they like us, but that doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to like us for the rest of our lives. So I said, Corrie, like if we’re going to, obviously there’s only so many hours in the day and Covid did buy a few of those hours back, I said, If we’re going to kind of migrate to two different businesses, you have got to be okay with Target Rocket losing some clients that maybe are time sucks or maybe are just too much for what we can accompany in exchange for this migration.
[00:48:13] But I can’t have you upset, I can’t do an Olive Garden emergency run to pick you up off the floor. We’ve gotta appreciate that the clients that we were a part of their journey. Same when the cookie college, when someone’s like, Hey, I’m gonna drop out. Like, thank you for letting me be a part of your journey. I really appreciate, I’m so glad we got a chance to have one little aspect of your very complicated.
[00:48:33] David Crabill: Have you thought of just saying, You know what? Sugar cookie marketing is so big. There’s so much potential there. The cookie college, tons of potential. Let’s just drop target rocket. Let’s just drop the in person cookie decorating classes. Let’s just drop this, cookie business, right? Like, have you thought about dropping things so you can focus more of your time towards sugar
[00:48:57] Heather Miracle: I’m not an egg. I can’t put all the eggs in a single basket. What we have learned is that some of the things that we’re offering for sugar cookie marketing may be a better translation over to Target Rocket and say, So what we’ve done is we kept some really easy clients in Target Rocket, some just peachy clients that we really enjoy working with.
[00:49:15] They’re very easy to work with, they trust us. And then we cut out some of the more complex clients focused on sugar marketing. And then when we said, you know, later 2023, kind of migrate some of this knowledge base back into that company and just keep them feeding from each other. What I would hate, like if Meta disappeared tomorrow, I think that it would remove a lot of our reach and it would be quite the uh, strategy session in Olive Garden. But what we can do is kind of really keep our diversification. And I always tell Corrie, you know, I say Corrie, like, what, in five years, what are you gonna be doing like this? You know, if this is gone tomorrow, what are you gonna be doing? Like, where should we head? Where should we start planting seeds today That may sprout a year or two from
[00:49:55] Corrie Miracle: Yeah. And I will say the cookie decorating classes, that to us is fun to interface with people. And then a lot of times we use that to market like, Hey, you own a business. We happen to own a marketing
[00:50:05] Heather Miracle: Like one time we had a class and I said, I’m gonna be recording this class. We’re gonna be teaching other people how to teach this class, so don’t turn around if you don’t wanna be on it. And they were like, Yeah, okay.
[00:50:14] Corrie Miracle: And then when I go home at the end of the night, I do enjoy decorating cookies at the end of the day. And I have some, It’s because we have so many sources that we have to reach clients. I can pick and choose um, who I wanna work with, just like we can in Target Rocket, which has made me love my business even more because I can do the sets that I really enjoy. I can work with the clients I really enjoy. So it’s been good across the board, but no, I don’t think we could
[00:50:37] Heather Miracle: I I think we have a Venn diagram where the two twins are in the middle, but the circles constantly are morphing and that’s fine. Our fallback, fallback plan is like we go work at targets, like not the same target, but like targets,
[00:50:51] David Crabill: So obviously you’ve focused on the Facebook group and just relied on that platform, right? Instead of trying to use your own community, like do you ever feel stressed that you have put the fate of sugar cookie marketing kind of in the hands of a company you
[00:51:07] Heather Miracle: Wait, I won’t be able sleep tonight. Thanks for bringing up my nightmare again. Yeah. In a way, you know, Corrie and I are constantly talking. Podia is the platform that we use to host the college, and it has a, it has a community aspect. It just doesn’t adapt to our target audience like Facebook does. I have money that Facebook won’t be around forever,
[00:51:25] Corrie Miracle: That’s why I think with the baking group, I said, Heather, if we open another group against my will, I have to get an email list from it. So anyone who’s joined the baking group, they’ve given their email address to join
[00:51:37] Heather Miracle: I’ve never emailed ’em one time, but we had, that’s 11,000 emails. The actual opted in newsletter, 4,000 to 5,000 emails. The podcast has been a huge boon with 5,000 to 6,000 downloads a week. And then we have kind of the cookie College has its own community, so we can connect with that at the end of the day.
[00:51:54] I will say that a little bit of sweat on the back of my neck, a lot of our eggs are in the Facebook group basket, and I would hate to have to pivot. So please, somebody buy meta stock quickly. It’s on sale right now.
[00:52:07] David Crabill: Well, as you guys look ahead, where do you see this going in, in the future, or where would you like it to go in the future?
[00:52:14] Heather Miracle: In the immediate future, some people are like, Hey, like when I outgrow the college, like is there a master’s program? Like I would really like to sit down and come up with some actual, profit and loss statement spreadsheets. Let’s take, this business and really scrape the numbers.
[00:52:28] Let’s understand, you know, your business cycles when you’re growing, What’s your bestseller? Who’s your best client? What, what your gaps are. That’s something that somebody’s talked about. That’s gotta be at least a year or two away.
[00:52:38] David Crabill: So you created this massive community of people who truly love you and care about you and pay attention to what you say. And you’ve done something that a lot of people would like to do and many haven’t succeeded. But what is it really like to be in your shoes? What does it really feel like to have this thing that you created and that people love?
[00:53:03] Heather Miracle: I am floored every time I go to Olive Garden, which is way too often. To be like, Corrie, like sometimes I’ll be like, No, no way. No way. You have
[00:53:12] Corrie Miracle: me.
[00:53:12] and Heather are no namers, so we don’t, we barely look like we shower every day. But when we went to Cookie Con and people were like, had the these faces and I’m like, I’m meeting the twins. Someone said, Can I get your autograph? Like the
[00:53:25] Heather Miracle: I couldn’t have signed it any bigger.
[00:53:27] Corrie Miracle: But it’s just, we’re, we’re no namers, we’re just the bakers that are baking right next to everybody. So it’s not any, I’m more in awe of the people in the group, like there’s some people in there I’m like, Oh my God, they commented in our group.
[00:53:40] Heather Miracle: Yeah. Like are they in there? No. Okay. Well, maybe one day we could get their attention, but I would say flabbergasted, probably my mom and my little sister would say, I’m flabbed. I would say I’m flabbed. I’m flabbed that we get to be in this position for however long we get to be here. And that we get to help not control an industry, but migrate an industry to get an Eddie giveaway.
[00:54:00] Like I was telling Corrie, like to give away an Eddie that’s $3,000. Like this could not change somebody’s life, but this could change the trajectory of their next three years. And we have now the ability to really kind of do it and it’s like, Wow, fun. This is crazy. Let’s be a good steward of it for as long as we this train
[00:54:17] Corrie Miracle: is blowing . We’ve never had a normal day where we haven’t been like meme did good.
[00:54:24] Heather Miracle: Sometimes I say stuff and I think it’s so dumb and people are like, Oh my goodness, what did you say? And I’m like, Wow. If I had said this in my other job, they would’ve been like, you idiot . Cause in your day job, you’ve got people, these are business owners, they’ve been, you know, they’re processing millions of dollars. I’m just a cog in a wheel. For a small business, like a bakery business, This is the biggest cog in their wheel.
[00:54:42] So they’re like, Oh my goodness, I can’t believe my emails automatically label themselves and file themselves and archive system. Oh my goodness. So it’s just really fun that we get to kind of take stuff that we’ve known and give it to people who are so thirsty. And I don’t get to see like that thirst for marketing very often. the thankfulness.
[00:55:02] Corrie Miracle: They’re so thankful.
[00:55:03] Heather Miracle: I have not had this much fun working ever.
[00:55:06] David Crabill: Well, it has been quite the ride with you two. It’s been fun to see what you’ve done over a pretty short period of time, and it’s gonna be fun to see where you’re headed in the future. So if people want to learn more, where can they find you? If they want to contact you, how can they reach out?
[00:55:25] Heather Miracle: Sugar cookie marking on most social platforms, obviously as Crabill told you that we are too many places at once. Uh, You can kind of find us there. The Facebook group is kind of the primary source to really get this free knowledge. So just search Sugar Cookie marketing group on Facebook.
[00:55:39] Corrie Miracle: the website too. Sugar cookie marketing.com. It is brand spanking new.
[00:55:44] Heather Miracle: I’m working on it. We, we said not perfect. Go live. Yeah,
[00:55:47] David Crabill: Well, thank you guys so much for coming on the show and sharing with us
[00:55:51] Heather Miracle: Thank
[00:55:51] Corrie Miracle: Thank you
[00:55:52] Heather Miracle: Thank you so much,
[00:55:52] Corrie Miracle: David.
[00:55:54] David Crabill: All right, that wraps up part two of my conversation with Heather and Corrie. I really appreciate them dedicating so much time to this interview. Very generous, as always.
[00:56:06] For more information about this episode, go to forrager.com/podcast/76
[00:56:13] And if you’re enjoying this podcast, please take a quick moment right now and leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. it doesn’t have to be a long review, but it’s truly the best way to support this show, and I’ll help others find it as well.
[00:56:25] And finally, if you’re thinking about selling your own homemade food, check out my free mini course where I walk you through the steps you need to take to get a cottage food business off the ground to get the course. Got a cottagefoodcourse.com.
[00:56:37] Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
