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Stop Calling It a Little Bakery: Own Your Microbakery Value | Episode 135

  • Jul 23
  • 7 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


Someone asks what you do, and you hear yourself answer. "Oh, I just have a little sourdough thing I do from home." Maybe you add a laugh at the end so it lands soft.


I have said a version of that sentence, and I have heard hundreds of women say it about their own businesses. That one word, little, is doing more work than you realize.


This is a departure from my usual tactical posts about pricing and pre-orders. It is a heart-level conversation about language, and it ends with seven steps you can start today.


Where I first noticed the word little

I am part of a women's business community here in the San Antonio area, full of women building purposeful businesses across all kinds of industries. When new members stood up to introduce themselves, I kept hearing the same thing. "I own a little photography business." "I have a little graphic design business."


What I heard underneath that word was this: I am not taking myself seriously, and I do not expect you to take me seriously either.


You have probably been on the receiving end of it too. The well-meaning aunt or your husband's friend who asks how your little bread thing is going. It feels diminishing, like the business you built is a flash in the pan that nobody expects to last.


Here is what I believe. When we call it little first, we hand everyone else permission to see it as little. And we belittle our own effort, our passion, our achievement, and the real potential of where this business could go for our families and our communities.


Your value is not measured in loaves

I got curious and pulled a few numbers for this one. Women own more than 14 million businesses in the United States. Together those businesses employ around 13 million people and generate about 3.3 trillion dollars in revenue every year.


Those macro numbers are not really the point. The point is the impact on your own household: the flexibility, the presence, the income, and the model of hard work and pride you get to set for your children.


Your business's value is not determined by its size. It is determined by the impact it has on your life and on the lives around you. It does not matter whether you are selling two loaves a week or two hundred. What you are creating is significant either way, and the word little does not describe it.


Small business is a technical term and an accurate category, and you are welcome to it. Little is the word we are scraping out of the vocabulary. For more on the difference between running this as a hobby and running it as a business, I dug into that in Hobby Baker vs Business Owner: The Mindset Shift That Changes Your Micro Bakery | Episode 125.


The seven steps


1. Drop the word little

Starting today, take it out of your business vocabulary. Not "my little business." Just "my business," or "my bakery," or "our bakery." Not "I own a little bakery from home." Say "I own an in-home bakery."


It is a small change to make and a big change in how you and everyone around you hear it.


2. Write a mission statement

Clarity makes confidence easier. Sit down and write out why your business exists and what impact it has. Why you get up at four in the morning to bake for your household and your community. Why you want to generate income from this work. What it does for your kids, if you have them, and for the neighborhood you feed.


Once you can articulate that, dropping the word little gets much easier, because you believe in the work and you are proud to describe it.


3. Stop comparing

I know this is not a switch you flip once. But social media gives you a badly skewed picture. It does not show you whether that baker has family help, or child care, or a completely different season of life and a completely different capacity than yours.


Do not compare your beginning to someone else's middle. Do not compare your middle to someone else's middle either. Compare your own growth, week after week and month after month.


If your goal is to take home $1,000 in a month, look at your own capacity and work out what you need to produce to get there. Let other bakers inspire you. Do not let them make you feel like you are not enough where you are right now.


4. Celebrate your wins in writing

Go get yourself a success journal! A brand new notebook, or one of the empty ones already sitting in a drawer, and write your wins down in it.


The sold-out market. The first time you hit a revenue number. The kind thing a customer said. The eight hours of sleep before a market day. In my group coaching cohorts we celebrate every single win, including saying no to an opportunity that did not fit your goals or your capacity. A flop you learned something from counts too.


Then on the day you feel worn out and cannot quite remember why you are doing this, pull the journal out and read it. It is not there so you can boast. It is written proof that what you are building is real, that it is working, and that it is worth continuing.


5. Network with confidence

Find the right room. They are not all created alike, so look for a local chamber of commerce or a women's community focused on growth, somewhere people grow together rather than just trade business cards. If a room like that does not exist near you, consider starting it.


Then show up in it fully. When somebody asks what you do, you do not say you own a little sourdough bakery. You say, "I own an in-home sourdough microbakery. I bake organic sourdough, I sell at our local market, and I do porch pickups once a week." Period. Do not over-explain, do not stutter, do not apologize. Walk in like you own the biggest chain in the country, even if your week is ten loaves!


Feeling terrified beforehand is normal. I sit in my car and take a lot of deep breaths before I walk into a networking event by myself. Practice your pitch until it rolls off your tongue like you are talking to a friend. Say it in the mirror, say it to your husband, say it to your two-year-old, until you can say it without stumbling and without that word sneaking back in.


6. Invest in yourself

Growth takes an investment of time and money, and the time part is free. Carve out weekly development time: a business podcast on a walk, a book on mindset, a local growth event, or a few older Bread Winner episodes. That is time spent working on your business rather than in it.


When you are ready to level up, put some money behind it too. I have grown in ways that would not have happened without investing in coaching, because writing a real check gave me skin in the game. I could not squander that investment, so I showed up differently.


7. Shift your mindset, daily

This is a choice you make over and over, and some days it is moment by moment. Write down what you know to be true about your work and why it matters, and keep those words somewhere in your baking space where you will see them.


When you grow into territory you have never been in before, your brain will throw up red flags and tell you it is not safe. That is when we shrink back. We stop following up. We avoid the opportunity. We call the business little just to protect ourselves. You can thank your brain for trying to keep you safe and then take the next action anyway. I unpacked more of these patterns in Five Mindset Shifts Every Microbakery Owner Needs | Episode 77.


If you are a few years in

This is not only a beginner problem. At two or three years in, with real revenue coming through, the shrinking just costs you more. It shows up as the wholesale account you never followed up with, the price you did not raise, the market application you did not send.


Here is an audit worth two weeks of your attention. Write down every place your business gets described: your Instagram bio, your website about page, the email you send a potential wholesale buyer, the way you answer at a birthday party. Find the minimizing words and rewrite those sentences so they say what you actually do.


Then list every opportunity you have let sit in the last 90 days and pick one to follow up on this week. Ask another business owner to text you in two days to check that you did it. Accountability is gold when you are scared. If you want numbers to back up what you already know about your growth, KPIs for Sourdough Micro Bakery Owners: The 4 Numbers That Bring Clarity to Your Business | Episode 119 is a good next stop.


Final thoughts

Your business, whatever its size, is a reflection of your work and your belief in the impact you can have. It deserves to be spoken about with respect, starting with the way you speak about it.


Drop the word. Write the mission statement. Celebrate the wins on paper. Show up in the room. And the next time someone asks what you do, look them in the eye and say it plainly.


I own a sourdough microbakery. Period.


I am so proud of you for building something this real, and I would love to know how you are going to introduce your business differently after reading this. Send me a message on Instagram at @carolinebower_sourdough and tell me. If you know a baker who needs this today, send it to her too.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


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