Starting a Cake Decorating Business at Home, part 2

While it is important to develop and maintain your cake baking and decorating skills to the highest standard, if you want to start a cake decorating business at home you will also need to master a range of business skills. In part one of this series, we looked at finding and working a niche, developing your creative skills, and promoting your cake decorating business. In this post we focus on presentation of yourself and your product, understanding and working within your abilities, and the use of technology, both for making and selling your cakes.

Presentation  It goes without saying that the presentation of your cakes is of the utmost importance - and that includes everything from the cake itself to the board it is displayed on and whatever table or stand is used - but it is equally important to present yourself and your business in a totally professional manner. Personal grooming and hygiene is fundamental in the food industry - doubly so when you are meeting clients, and so too is the presentation of your promotional material, price lists, contracts, and any other documentation you need. Keep them in a clean, tidy, and easily accessible folder so they are readily available to hand to people. The quality and convenience of desktop publishing means that this material can be printed as required, rather than keeping papers in a ratty old folder to get dog eared or covered in cake decorating ingredients. Make sure your vehicle is clean and in good repair, and the same goes for your home, especially that part of it you use for your business, particularly if you see clients at your home.

 Work within your limitations You will know your strengths and weaknesses regarding designing and decorating cakes, so work within these. If you are confident and capable with fondant and sugar sulptures, and the other finery involved in wedding cake construction, then by all means enter this most lucrative of all cake markets, but if your skills are not yet sufficiently developed, work other niche areas until you can meet the exacting demands of this one. If you are constantly improving your knowledge and skills, you will soon find yourself able to offer a full range of cakes for all occasions, giving your business a broader and stronger footing.
It also pays to be careful of over committing - you are better to start slowly until you get enough experience to know how many clients can be properly serviced within a certain period of time. Nothing will damage your reputation more than delivering an inferior product because you have had to rush, or even worse - failing to deliver at all.

Technology is your friend and it is a friendship that you should take full advantage of. You will be well aware of the various electronic and mechanical devices available for the actual making and decorating of cakes, but where technology really comes into its own is in the management and promotion of your business.  There are lots of business software programmes available - find a really good one that covers everything, from accounting and taxation, to business planning and staff management (if you get big enough to need that!).
Perhaps where technology really comes into its own, is in the promotion of your business. E-mail and the various types of social media (Facebook, Twitter etc) are great for maintaining contact with clients and suppliers, and it is a very simple matter to make and host your own website (this can be done very easily and free on Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo) and used in conjunction with the recent advances in digital photography, these are the perfect way to promote your business and provide a portfolio for potential clients. Use of all these types of technology is greatly to your advantage in running your cake decorating business, and will only be more so in the future.
Tomorrow's post will look at ways in which you can make your home based cake decorating business more efficient (and profitable).