top of page
Search

How to Cast a Vision for Your Sourdough Microbakery | Episode 51

  • Jan 13, 2025
  • 6 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


Somebody on Instagram is baking a hundred loaves a week, posting the pallet of flour that just got delivered, and talking about the commercial space she is about to sign for.


You watch it while your own dough is proofing on the counter for thirty loaves, and something in you decides that thirty is not enough, and that you are behind.


That is exactly the trap this part of the planning series is meant to get you out of. This is the second of three, after looking back and before setting the goals, and it is where you decide what you are actually building.


Vision casting is not about dreaming big for the sake of it. It is about getting a clear picture of the future that serves you, your family and your customers, so you stop borrowing someone else's version of success. If thirty loaves a week is the sweet spot for your household right now, thirty is the right number!


Sit down with a notebook and work through these. Skip any that do not fit, and know that nothing you write is a binding contract with yourself. This is a living document.


Start with the big picture

Imagine it is December a year from now and your bakery has had its best year yet.

  • What does your life look like because of that? What has changed for your family, your customers, your community?

  • What is one milestone that would make you say this was the year everything clicked? It might be a revenue number, paying off student loan debt, or paying for a family cruise in December.

  • If you had to pick three words to define your business this year, what would they be and why?

Those three words are harder than they look, and you may want to come back to them after you have answered everything else. That is fine. Do not sit there overthinking one question until the whole exercise feels like a chore.


Get honest about how the bakery is supposed to support you

Your bakery is not only a job. It is a thing you built that is meant to give something back to your life.

  • How do you want it to support you financially, emotionally and physically? Does it give you flexibility, connection, creativity?

  • If your customers described the heart of your business, what would you want them to say? Not what they currently say, but what you want them to feel when they interact with you.

  • What would a healthy rhythm look like for you as a baker and as a person, and what would need to shift for that?

I use the word balance sparingly, because I do not think any of us ever hit fifty percent life and fifty percent work. A healthy rhythm where both are genuinely supported is a real thing, and it is worth naming what yours looks like.


Describe your dream workday in detail

This is the question that tends to change how people run their week, so give it real time.


How many hours are you baking? What time are you waking up? How much of your day goes to marketing, admin, and talking to customers? Does the day include a thirty minute coffee chat with a friend, or sitting down and drinking your coffee slowly with your husband, or homeschooling in the middle of it all?


Your dream day may not be fully doable right now. Write it out anyway, because it tells you what to protect and what to change.


Then ask what you would let go of if you could, and what you would do instead.

  • Would you hand off the packaging and the label printing so you could spend that time on recipe development or on customers?

  • Would you delegate the laundry to a kid who is old enough now?

  • Would you pay to have your flour delivered instead of driving to Costco every week?

That last one is a real business decision. Compare the extra delivery cost against the hours you get back, and what those hours are worth in your bakery.


Then, the practical one: what is one thing you wish you had more of in your daily bakery life? Time, help, joy, organization, systems. Whatever comes to mind first, write down how you could create more of it. Do not skip this question.


Think about the difference you want to make

Now go wider than your own kitchen.

  • What difference do you want your bakery to make in your customers' lives? How do you want them to feel when they eat your bread?

  • How can your bakery contribute to your community in a way that lines up with your values? Through partnerships, donations, or connections you make.

When you look at these answers together with the rest, you start to see the real potential of the business. It can serve your household better and it can reach further into your community at the same time.


If you are a year or three in, use this to make one decision

For those of you already running real numbers, a vision that stays in the notebook is just a nice afternoon.


Take what you wrote and use it to settle one question you have been avoiding.

  • Is the size you are running right now the right size, or are you growing because you feel like you should be?

  • Which part of your week does not belong to you anymore, and who could take it?

  • What is the one product, market or account you keep saying yes to that does not fit the picture you just described?

I do a check-in like this at the end of every quarter. I take a couple of days, look at whether I am serving my customers well and whether everything still lines up with what I stand for, and then I adjust. Sometimes the adjustment serves my family better, sometimes my customers, sometimes me. That habit is what keeps a business from drifting into something you did not choose.


Final thoughts

Here is the last question, and it is my favorite of the whole exercise. What part of this vision excites you the most, and what part makes you a little nervous?


That nervous feeling is usually a good sign. It means you are reaching past your comfort zone, and that is where the growing happens. It also tells you what you will need on the way there, which is usually a support system and someone to hold you accountable.


Write your vision somewhere you will actually see it. A note in your planner, a card on the fridge, a line at the top of your order spreadsheet. A vision you never look at again cannot guide a single decision.


Next in the series we take all of this and turn it into goals with numbers and dates attached.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If this stirred something up, these three go deeper on planning, goals and building a bakery around real life.


Links to things you might like!


 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page