In this episode of The Bread Winner Podcast, host Caroline Bower explores effective strategies for selling sourdough bread without relying on farmers' markets. As the farmers' market season winds down, or if they don’t suit your sourdough microbakery, Caroline shares practical alternatives like porch pickup and other creative selling methods. Learn her strategies to streamline sourdough orders and payments, and discover her tips for setting up a consistent, stress-free porch pickup system. She also shares several alternative ideas to help you share your bread in creative and effective ways.

Caroline also announces two exciting updates for sourdough bakers: a new podcast format featuring live coaching and the upcoming launch of the Bread Winner Inner Circle, an exclusive community for sourdough microbakery owners. She invites listeners to apply for coaching and join the waitlist for the Inner Circle, focusing on building a sustainable and profitable sourdough business. Tune in for actionable sourdough sales tips and inspiration for growing your microbakery!

Links to things we talked about:

Apply for a coaching slot on the podcast

Join the Bread Winner Inner Circle Waitlist

Project Broadcast (Use code BLUEBIRD for 50% off your first month)

Download the FREE Guide and Checklist, Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery at https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist to begin building YOUR thriving microbakery! 

Caroline Bower Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolinebower_sourdough

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Welcome back to the Bread Winner podcast. This is where we explore practical strategies to help you build a successful sourdough micro bakery that compliments your lifestyle , and brings you joy. I'm your host, Caroline Bower.

And I own a successful sourdough micro bakery right here in my home.

As you can see, it's dough day, if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see the evidence of a very busy day. I changed my shirt, so I'm not covered in dough at the moment. And I am ready for today's episode.

So we're going to talk about the very common porch pickup strategy. But also, we're going to talk about a few out of the box, not traditional options that you could consider as well.

Before we get started. I have a couple of really cool things that I'm really excited about. First starting in a couple of weeks, I'm going to be adding a new episode format every several episodes. In these new episodes, I'm going to be coaching one of you, my listeners on the episode through a challenge a question or some sort of factor that's going to help you level up in your business.

This is where we're going to be sharing life sharing business, growing in both areas in a meaningful, sustainable way.

And I just cannot wait to build this community. There is a link in the show notes to join the waitlist where you'll get updates and be the first to know when it launches and more details when that's coming.

All right. Let's get into today's episode.

This episode is going to contain a lot of ideas but just know that you don't need to do all of them. So listen through the whole episode, choose one or two strategies that feels aligned, feels doable, feels exciting and go with that. Take what serves you, leave the rest.

Number one is traditional porch pickup. With a porch pickup, the way it usually works is you take orders on a set day for pickup on a set day.

For example, personally, my menu goes live on Sunday afternoons. my followers get a text at three 30 on Sundays with my menu. They place their order. That menu closes on Tuesday. They receive an automated reminder on Tuesday morning, just in case they forgot and didn't get their order in. And then pickup is on Thursdays between 11 and six.

As I grew in my capacity grew, it made sense to condense it down to just one bake day. I've been doing that first several months. And so my customers now know what to expect. And we've build that consistency and reliability and so they know when to place their order.

As you're planning out your porch pickup, there are a few things to consider.

First you'll want to consider how you're going to take your orders and your payment. Are you going to use Google forms as a free option? This is a little more manual. You have to babysit the form a little bit to make sure you're not getting too many orders.

I've been using it since February. And I've been overall really happy with it. Their customer service is phenomenal. They are constantly developing and improving the app. They're very receptive to. Feedback. And it has streamlined my business in a lot of ways. The automated texting is fantastic.

So my customers can receive a text when my menu opens. They can receive a text when my menu's going to be closing. And then they receive a text to remind them when to pick up. Previously I had been doing a lot of that manually. And so this cuts out that step. It makes my life a lot simpler.

But it does have a few more capabilities than the Simply Bread App. And there are a few other options as well. Those are the two main ones on the market. And I would really recommend one of those two, but do your research and land on what feels most aligned for you. So that's taking orders along those same lines is how you're going to receive your payment.

So if you're using something like hot plate or the Simply Bread App, Generally that is going to require prepayment. So your customers are paying ahead of time in full, and then when they come to pick up, they've already paid and they're just free to go. The Simply Bread App does have a cash payment option.

Venmo is also an option. If you're going to be receiving payment through Venmo, make sure you have a business account.

I do find that I prefer receiving prepayment in full before my customers pick up. I do accept cash payments at the market. So for a couple of customers who had been paying in cash when I first got started, and then I transitioned over to the new app, which requires prepayment, they just come to me at the market and pay in cash that way.

Another thing to consider is how you're going to communicate with customers.

I've talked about this in previous episodes. I'm super happy with it. It gives me a local numbers. So customers recognize the area code, but it's not my actual personal phone number. And all the texts go into the app. So I can search by customer by keyword. And keep it all in there so they're not texting or calling my personal number.

All right. Next thing to consider with a porch pickup is how you'll set up your pickup. I am lucky to have a really nice covered porch. And so I set out a couple of shelves on my porch each pickup day. I put each customer's order in a paper bag and label it with their name. And then they're just free to come up, grab their bag and leave. Every once in a while.

They'll knock and chat a little bit, but generally it's a pretty easy streamlined process. If you don't have a covered porch, you could keep everything inside and then just put a sign out and invite customers to knock, and you can bring their order out to them.

I do like having customers indicate their pickup window, especially here in south Texas. I just feel better about not putting their order out and leaving it out in the heat all day long.

The final consideration with a porch pickup system is how you're going to get the word out.

I have talked about marketing your business in a couple of previous episodes. So for a lot deeper conversation about this, I recommend you go listen to some previous episodes. But I will say consistency is key. Whether you're sharing on social media, building a text list. Don't post once and get discouraged if you don't get traction, you, it really requires posting over and over and over.

After about a year of consistency, I can count on the orders coming in reliably and pretty consistently and predictably each week, but that has taken work and me showing up week after week and not being discouraged by the low days. That's true for any area of your business as you're growing, whether you're doing porch pickups markets or any other avenue of selling.

Consistency really is going to be key.

So I have found that if I scale back my pickups a little bit to bring them more to a comfortable capacity, even if I'm maybe missing out on a bit of revenue I would much rather build a sustainable business. It's not going to burn me out than just hit the gas all the time until I can't anymore.

And then my business just goes up in flames. That's not what we're about here at the Bread Winner podcast, we are about building a business that is sustainable, and that means checking in with our capacity and making sure that we are able to accomplish everything that we are promising while still getting enough sleep.

All right. Let's move on to another strategy for selling without a farmer's market.

So this can go a couple of different ways. Depending on the cottage laws in your state. You can partner with local businesses, such as coffee shops and cafes. Or local grocery stores to place your product in their store, on their shelves. If that is permitted in your area. In many areas, that's not, you can't do a wholesale sort of situation, but what you can do is a regular pop-up.

So if you build a relationship with a business that is aligned with you, that caters to very similar customers, as you such as a coffee shop, a cafe, a boutique, a health food store, a grocery store, something like that. And you pop up on a regular basis, whether that's once a week, once a month. You can build a strategic partnership and allow that to be a place where customers can come to you.

If you're in an area that allows a wholesale sort of situation, it could be really exciting to partner with a grocery store or a specialty food store to stock your sourdough on their shelves, even just a small section at a local store can boost your visibility and your reach.

If you were going to do this, I would recommend researching local grocery stores that focus on artisan products, local products, healthy products. And then you could go in and prepare a pitch, highlighting your products, uniqueness, and how it is differentiated from other products that they already have in their store. And how it would benefit them and is aligned with what their customer's looking for. When you're pitching it. It'd be a good idea to bring a sample package. So several of the loaves that you would offer.

All right. Another strategy that you could explore. Is a subscription or delivery service.

Subscription packages could look like offering weekly or monthly delivery. So customers prepay to receive a loaf of bread every week or a seasonal product every month.

You could get creative with this and let it be a foodie experience or just let it be weekly or monthly staples. But this guarantee some recurring income. And it could be a great fit for the customers who have really busy lives and often forget to order.

Again, like I said, at the start of this episode, I'm throwing out a lot of ideas. Take what serves you. Leave what doesn't. You may be like me and say, delivery does not fit with your lifestyle. You do not have the bandwidth for it and choose to just say no to deliver delivery completely. But just make sure that you're making the choices that align best with your goals and the needs of your business.

Okay, let's talk about a couple of creative, maybe unconventional out of the box ideas.

This could look like offering a bulk order of your products for them to put together gift baskets, or you could even curate gift baskets with a few of your baked products, put them together in a cute basket and sell that as a whole corporate gift option to businesses in your area.

This is a great thing to consider as we're approaching the holidays. Corporations are often looking for ways to gift their employees and their clients. If you wanted to do something like this.

You could develop a proposal and put together a sample basket and then take it around to businesses that you'd love to work with. Whether that's real estate brokerages or insurance offices or any other corporation that you feel. Is aligned with your products and might be looking for corporate gifting opportunities.

If you know of any event organizers, conference organizers, things like that. You could

reach out to event organizers and propose, including your bread or your baked goods in their event packages. Often events like conferences. We'll provide a goody bag for their participants.

And if you could stick a scone or a cookie in those bags that could be some great exposure as well as. A large order for you.

All right. I hope that those ideas got your wheels turning. Whether you take one and run with it. Or it sparked you to try something a little bit similar, but different.

There are so many opportunities and so many ways to get your bread out in the world.

You have so much potential to grow your business and gain new customers. And I am excited to support you as you do that.

Thank you so much for tuning into the Bread Winner podcast. It truly means the world that you choose to spend some time with me in your ears each week. If you found today's episode helpful. I would love it. If you would screenshot it, share it on your Instagram stories and tag me. I'm @carolinebower_sourdough.

If you have not already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. I drop new episodes every Monday and Thursday. So if you subscribe, you'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. And if you're loving the show, leave me a review, give me a rating so that other people can find the show as well.

All right, I'll be back soon with a new episode until next time.

Happy baking.

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