I started my home-based business when my eldest son was one. After training as a chef prior to getting pregnant, I had a choice of going back into a pastry kitchen, working all hours to pay for childcare or realise my dream of having my own cake business. As you can probably imagine, it wasn’t easy. I would put my son down for a nap and get on with my orders, drum up new business or get on top of my admin. I was exhausted but I had a desire to create something special.
When I had my second son the business was in full swing. A friend took on my regular orders and a couple of hours after giving birth I was checking on deliveries. Somehow, I managed to juggle building a 6-figure cake business with support of my mum and mother-in-law who helped out with childcare.
What I know now (my boys are 22 and 19) is that watching their mum grow a business from their kitchen table to shops, wholesale and ultimately over £2 million cakes sold is that they know they can achieve whatever they put their minds to. Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy but it sure is rewarding which is why after I sold my cake business I now coach other cake makers to grow a business that makes them money, and works around their lives.
Here are the top 5 things I recommend you do before growing your home-based business
1. Know your numbers
It is so important to price properly from the beginning. Don’t fall into the trap of being cheaper than everyone else just because you are new. Charge for your time and if you are a product business, your skill level.
2. Make sure there is demand before you expand
One of the biggest mistakes business owners can make is expanding because they hope the extra space or staff will bring more customers. Ideally, it should be the other way around, you want evidence that your current setup is restricting the growth of an already healthy business.
Perhaps you’re regularly turning work away or you’ve reached the maximum number of customers you can physically serve or you’ve been offered larger contracts that you simply don’t have the capacity to fulfil from home. That’s a very different situation from taking on premises and then thinking, “Right… now I need to find enough customers to pay for this.” Demand first. Expansion second.
3. Stop trying to do everything yourself
This can be a difficult one, especially if you’ve built the business around family life and have been responsible for every tiny detail from day one. But there comes a point where doing everything yourself actually holds the business back, start looking at the tasks that genuinely require you and the ones that somebody else could do.
Your first hire doesn’t necessarily need to be a full-time member of staff either, it might be someone helping a few hours a week, a freelancer handling your admin, or somebody helping with packing, production or customer service. Learning to delegate is a huge part of moving from being self-employed to becoming a business owner.
4. Build systems before you build a team
If everything about your business currently lives inside your head, hiring someone is going to be painful for both of you.
Before you grow, start documenting how things are done. How do you respond to enquiries, how are orders processed, how do you manage stock, what happens when a customer complains, how do you deliver your product or service consistently?
Simple processes and checklists make it much easier for somebody else to step into the business without asking you a question every six minutes.
5. Decide what you actually want your business to give you
This is probably the most important one, bigger isn’t automatically better.
I grew my cake business into two shops, employed a team, secured large contracts and generated more than £2 million in sales. I’m incredibly proud of what I built, but I also learned that turnover, premises and staff aren’t the only measures of success.
Before you grow, ask yourself what you actually want your life to look like. Do you want a large team and the responsibility of premises? Do you want to manage people, how many hours do you want to work? How much money do you want to take home? And what do you still want to be able to do with your children and family?
Your business should support the life you want to create, not become something so demanding that you lose the flexibility you started it for in the first place.
You don’t have to stay small, but grow deliberately
There’s something incredibly exciting about realising that the little business you started at home has the potential to become something much bigger, you absolutely can make that leap.
But don’t rush it because you think having premises or staff is what a “proper” business is supposed to look like. Get your numbers right. Prove the demand. Put systems in place. Get comfortable delegating. And be really clear about what success looks like for you.
Then grow because the business is ready for it. Not because Instagram convinced you that you need an office and a neon sign.
About the author
Jenny Gilson is a cake business coach and mentor and the founder of Sweet As Success. Before becoming a coach, Jenny spent more than 25 years in the cake industry, building her own cake business from home into a multi-premises business that generated more than £2 million in sales.
Today, she helps cake makers and bakers build more profitable businesses without burning themselves out, through her coaching, training and The SWEET Cake Business Certification.
Find out more at Sweet As Success or follow Jenny on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sweet_as_success/
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