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How to Talk About Your Home Bakery Like a Real Business | Episode 11

  • Nov 12, 2024
  • 6 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts


Someone at a party asks what you do, and you hear yourself say it. "Oh, I have a little bakery out of my house."


I am part of a women's business community here in San Antonio, and I started noticing this years ago. Woman after woman would stand up to introduce herself and say "I own a little" something. It happens so often that most of us do not hear ourselves doing it.


Here is why it matters for your business, not just your feelings. When you call your business little, you give everyone else permission to see it as little too. Your well meaning aunt asking how the little bread thing is going. The customer deciding whether your prices are fair. The bank officer looking at your application. They take the frame you hand them.


Whether you sell four loaves a week or a hundred and forty, you own an in-home bakery, and it deserves to be talked about that way.


Your business is not small potatoes

Let me put some numbers around this, because I think we forget the size of what we are part of.


According to the National Association of Women Business Owners, there are more than 11 million women owned businesses in the United States. They employ nearly 9 million people and generate 1.7 trillion dollars in sales. Women running businesses out of their homes are a real part of that.


And there is the smaller math that matters even more. When a mother owns a working in-home business, the payoff is not only the money. It is the flexibility that a traditional job does not give her, the school events she gets to attend, the household she gets to run on her own schedule.


It is also what your kids see. They watch you do hard work you are proud of, work that serves your community while it serves your family. Bring them into it. Let them see that the thing happening in your kitchen counts.


The value of your business is not set by its size. It is set by the impact it has on your life and on the people around you. If a microbakery selling a few loaves a week fits your life and brings you joy, that is the right size business for you. You might be covering dance lessons, or soccer uniforms, or therapy, or debt. You might be building toward a full time salary. Either way, do not minimize it.


Change the words first

Language is where this starts, and it is the easiest thing to fix.


Drop the word little when you talk about your business. Say my business, my bakery, my company. I usually say ours, because even though I do almost all the work myself, I see it as something that exists for our whole family and our community. My kids will be more and more part of it as they get older.


So the next time someone asks what you do, skip "I own a little bakery out of my home" and say "I own an in-home bakery." Read those two out loud. The second one sounds like a business, because it is one.


If confident language does not come naturally yet, treat it like a muscle. You practice, it gets stronger. That is all.


You can take this further by writing a mission statement for your business. Get clear on why it exists and what it actually does for your family and your community. Once that is written down, dropping the word little gets a lot easier, because you can see what you would be shrinking.


Stop comparing, and stay in your own lane

We are so good at comparison. You open Instagram and within about ninety seconds you feel behind.


Here is what I remind myself. Do not compare your beginning to someone else's middle, or your middle to someone else's end. It is not the same picture.


Everyone's circumstances are different. You might be working full time, caring for toddlers, homeschooling, running a household with almost no help. The woman who looks like she is doing it all is either prioritizing hard and letting other things slide, or she has help you cannot see. Childcare, household help, business help. Social media does not show that part.


The practical move is to stay in your lane. Go back to your mission statement and your long term vision, and commit to what moves your goals forward. Do not let strangers on the internet, and that includes me, make you feel like you need to be anything other than what you are.


Celebrate your wins out loud

Did you get a new customer this week? Did you finally nail a recipe you have been fighting with? That counts, and you are allowed to be proud of it.


Keep a success journal. Write down your wins weekly, and go back and read it on the days you feel discouraged. Reviewing what your business has actually done for your family and your community will do more for your confidence than any pep talk.


Share the wins too. I post when my business has a great day, and I post when I sell out. Not to boast, but to bring people in so they get excited with me. It lets everyone see that this business is thriving and growing, and that helps them treat it as a real business. Which, in turn, helps me see it that way too.


Network like an owner

Networking sounds like a room full of people in suits handing out business cards. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you just have to try a few until you find one that feels right.


Look for a women's business group in your area, or join your local chamber of commerce. Rubbing elbows with other owners builds the confidence muscle and it builds real connections that bring you work.


Come prepared with a short elevator pitch that explains your business and its value, then practice it until it sounds natural. Mine sounds something like this: "I own an in-home microbakery. I bake breads and other baked goods with organic ingredients, and I sell at the local market."


Notice what is not in there. No "but I only sell ten loaves a week." Just say you own a bakery.


Being part of a local women's networking group changed things for me. Owning a business is isolating, and the women in your mom friend group often cannot relate to the entrepreneurial brain. Having a room full of women who are chewing on the same problems gave me a place to connect on that level, so my other friendships got to be about something else. Every part of my life has somewhere to be supported now.


Invest in yourself on purpose

Keep growing your skills and your knowledge. Workshops, courses, networking events, coaching. Your business grows when you do.


Block time each week for it. Business books, an online course, a webinar. I like to walk in the evenings with a business development podcast on, listening for a while and then just walking with my own thoughts for a while.


Getting a coach or a mentor is worth serious consideration when you are ready to move up a level. I am an overthinker with too many ideas and a hard time following through, and having the accountability of a coach helped me get more done in six weeks than I would have in six months on my own.


For the operator a few years in

If you already have real revenue, this is not just a confidence exercise. It is a pricing and positioning problem.


Bakers who describe their business as little tend to price it little too. Go look at how you describe yourself on your order page, your Instagram bio, and your market signage. Every "just," every "little," every apology, comes out. Then look at your prices next to that language and ask whether they match the business you just described.


The way you talk about your business is upstream of what you charge for it.


Final thoughts

Your business, whatever its size, is a reflection of your work and your dedication, and it deserves to be talked about with respect. Change the way you speak about it and you change the way you and everyone else sees it.


I am proud of you and everything you have built and will build. Go say it out loud today: I own an in-home bakery.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


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