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Microbakery Q&A: Time, Pre-Orders and Repeat Customers | Episode 130

Jul 30
6 min read

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


At the end of the Bread Winner Summit I opened the floor and let bakers ask me anything in the chat. It was rapid fire and it was my favorite hour of the whole event.


The questions clustered around three things, and they are the same three things I hear in my inbox every single week. How do I find the time. How do I grow my pre-orders. How do I get people to come back.


Here are my answers, expanded a little past what a live chat allows.


How do I find the time for all of this?

Start with a plan for the week, and start it with your personal life instead of your bake schedule.


Write down your top three personal goals for the week first. Cuddling with your kids, a walk by yourself, a coffee date, whatever it actually is. Then write your top three bakery goals. Only after both of those lists exist do you start blocking out time.


Block the personal priorities on the calendar first, because they are the ones that get eaten first when a bake day runs long. Then build the baking around them.


For the bake day itself, reverse engineer it. Decide when you want to be finished, then work backward. If everything has to be packaged by five and packaging takes an hour, you are packaging at four. If you have five hours of baking, you are starting between ten and eleven. Doing that math the week before is the whole difference between a calm Friday and a frantic one.


A few more things that buy back hours:

  • Batch your tasks. Chop all the herbs, shred all the cheese, prep all the inclusions in one sitting so that job is done for the week.

  • Give admin and marketing their own day. I do mine on Mondays. Trying to squeeze them in between oven loads never actually works.

  • Write text templates for the messages you send over and over, like a customer asking to pick up a day late. Change the name, send it, move on.

  • Prep ahead where you can. Print labels the week before, pre measure dry ingredients, order packaging early.


How do I grow my pre-orders?

The first move is usually not chasing new customers.


It costs about five times more to bring in a brand new customer than to keep one you already have, and even if you are not spending money on ads, you are spending energy. Your repeat customers already trust you, they already know how ordering works, and they are the cheapest growth you have.


So before you go looking for more people, make sure ordering from you is effortless. If you do not have an ordering system yet, get one. Simply Bread and Hotplate are both good, and setting one up early is the single thing I would go back and change about my first few months in business. A confusing process sends people to a baker whose product they like less than yours.


Then stay in front of the people who already know you. I have sent a text to my list every Sunday for well over a year. Plenty of those people do not order often, but when they want bread, I am the one they think of, because I have been landing in their inbox all along. Do not wait for customers to remember you.


How do I turn a first time buyer into a regular?

Watch for their first order and treat it like the beginning of a relationship.

  • Send a short welcome text. Something as simple as noticing it is their first order and telling them you are glad they found you.

  • Put a handwritten thank you on the bag when you cannot greet them in person.

  • Greet people by name at pickup. It takes cross referencing a phone number sometimes, and it is worth it.

  • Watch for the second order and say something about it. I love telling someone I saw their order come in and got excited that they came back.

  • On a third order, tuck in an extra cookie or a scone with a note. None of this has to be complicated or expensive.

People do not only buy bread. They buy the feeling of knowing who baked it and knowing they are supporting a real person with a real family. Let a little of yourself show up in your posts so there is something to connect to.


What if almost none of my customers are repeat?

Look back at your last ten bake days and count. How many of those orders came from someone who had ordered before?


If only two or three are repeat buyers each bake day, that is your signal to put your energy into retention rather than reach. If you are brand new, everyone is new, so instead build the habit now, while your list is small enough to manage.


Then make a simple list of the ten or twenty people who order at least once a month. A basic spreadsheet is plenty. Those are the people to personally thank, to give early access when you run something special, and to check in with when you notice they have gone a few weeks without ordering. A gentle message saying you noticed and you are there if they need anything brings a surprising number of them back.


How do I keep this sustainable?

Simplify the menu. Ten items on a bake day or twelve inclusion flavors a week will burn you out no matter how organized your calendar is.


I keep cookies on the menu every single week, so people know and love them and come back for them. I rotate scones and do not offer them every week. Being predictable about a short list is easier on you and it makes you easier to remember.


I also do not take custom requests. I will consider a flavor idea for a future menu, but I am not baking a one off for one person on a bake day I already planned.


And schedule the rest, not just the work. Block the hour after the kids go to bed. Plan for the week to go sideways sometimes, because it will, and adjust without deciding the whole system failed.


If you are a year or two in

Do the repeat customer count this week and write the number down. Then do it again in ninety days after you have added a welcome text and a weekly touchpoint. That single number tells you more about the health of your bakery than your follower count ever will.


While you are at it, look at what your regulars actually order together. When the same combination keeps showing up, you are looking at a weekly food rhythm in someone's house, and that is what you build your menu and your pre-order deadlines around.


Final thoughts

None of these answers are complicated. They are small, repeatable habits that compound, and the bakers who feel calm are usually just the ones who decided which habits to keep.


Pick one thing from this post and do it this week. One welcome text, one week mapped out on paper, one item taken off your menu. That is enough.


The summit runs once a year, and the Q&A is always the part people tell me they loved most. Get on my email list if you want to hear first when the next one opens!


Cheering you on,


Caroline


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