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We Started a Home Bakery

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I have a licensed commercial kitchen that we added to our home. I can’t tell you what an absolute blessing it has been. I am often asked just how we did that. For ten years I ran my home based catering company from home, and did it legally.

I wanted to stay at home with my kids, and investigated all sorts of ways to help generate income. One of the things I was pretty good at, was baking, and many friends suggested I start a business selling some of the great homemade baked goods I made regularly. After investigating the possibilities, I decided to give it a try.

I started my business working out of our churches kitchen. It was a true gift, however, proved to be a lot of work since I had to work in the middle of the night, clean the kitchen and be out by 7:00am in order to get the deliveries made for the corporate breakfast meetings that I baked for. I used that kitchen for about nine months, and then decided I needed my own space.

Okay, this is a long story!

Let’s face it, the story spans ten years, so it will take awhile to tell the whole story. I have decided to break it into bite size pieces, I will include a “To Do” list for you if this sounds like something that fits your dream. Rome was not built in a day, and neither are most successful businesses.

I am an impatient person, you may be too. I can’t stress enough that a fatal mistake too many small business owners make, is lack of complete planning.

I know you may need to start making money now, most of us do. You might not like what I am going to tell you, but realistically, if you are at the very beginning, you could be 2-3 years away from running a profitable business. Please don’t get discouraged right off the bat, if I can do it, chances are really good you can too!

Well, I don’t want to overwhelm you here, so I will end on this note. If you have not read a book in awhile, today is the first day of the rest of you life. The library, bookstores, Amazon, the internet, podcasts, online classes, audio books are about to become a BIG part of your life from now on.

The first thing on my suggested “TO DO” list is to go to the library and checkout “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. It is available on audio, you can listen while you work, drive, walk etc. If you would like to add this book to your personal library, below is a link to Amazon. I must tell you that using this link is a blessing to my family because it is an affiliate link, however there is no additional charge for you. If you prefer, you can simply go to Amazon and search for it by name.

I know that you probably are thinking, what does that have to do with baking.You are right, I don’t think he was known for his baking skills. He does however, provide a critical foundational piece to the success of any business, it is his recipe for success, in business and in life. Enjoy, I’ll talk to you soon.

Please leave a comment or question, I would love to get some great dialog going here as you embark on the path to your specialty baking , and hopefully starting your home bakery business. We can all help each other.

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Stepping Into Making Money at Home

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Throughout our lives, we are constantly learning the steps of how to do a new task, be it a hobby, a job, a class, etc. Depending on what you are wanting to accomplish, there can be tons of steps, or just a few.

The goal of being a stay at home mom is one that involves many steps, and spans lots of years. To be sure it is a marathon, not just a stroll around the block. We all know that to be able to complete a marathon takes training, and there are many who train for years before ever attempting to run one. (I wonder if anyone has ever counted the steps required.)

One of the steps that I neglected as a stay at home mom, was realizing that I had to be actively working on ME to prepare myself to realize my goal of being a work at home mom. I was totally into my family, but the reality of the situation was that I was living in a blissful ignorance of not adequately preparing for the future. As a family, we could live within our means, stretch the budget, be frugal, I was great at that.

As a young mom, I was totally naive about the expenses we would encounter as our children grew. I figured out the part about the fact that they would eat more sure, but all the rest was more of a surprise. In my mind, I just assumed that as our family grew, so would my husbands income. To be sure, it did, but not in the same proportions as our expenses.

As those expenses became reality, I began to feel a very real pressure to do something to contribute financially.  So I began the search of a viable way to make money. I still desperately wanted to be a stay at home mom. Lets be real here, it was more than a want, it was a NEED. Childcare for my brood would have consumed all that I made.

The search began, and as time rolled on, I became more desperate. That is when I began to fall victim to scams. I have already covered all that in past blog posts, but my point here for you is that things would have been different if I only  had a plan from the beginning.

I am starting a series here for my blog, and my purpose is to help others avoid some of the mistakes I have made. I will try and  share a few of the things I learned along the way. We will begin with some baby steps, but you need to know that this is just the beginning of training for your stay at home mom marathon.

I am not suggesting that I have all the answers, that would be laughable. What I am saying is that simply by the time I have spent on this planet, I have run into a number of experts that have provided me with answers to my questions, and hopefully, I can refer to them, or at the very least recall my experiences.

I will close with a step that sounds very simple, but don’t be deceived, it is harder than it will appear. Decide today that you will carve out a half hour every day that you will dedicate to working on the plan that will be the foundation to your goal of being a work at home mom. This is really important, it will start training you to make time in your day to work on yourself and your business.

I would love your thoughts and comments. Please feel free to share your ideas and questions throughout this series.

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Is Green the New Color of Love?

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Could green really mean love!


I am not trying to imply that money can buy love, but when you pair love with money, it can do wonders. I never realized before a few weeks ago that I had the power to use my talents to make a real impact on the lives of others that I don’t even know and will probably never meet. I took a few simple ingredients, put them together, spent time and labor, and with the help of my children and their friends, we were able to raise money to help others in ways that we will never realize.

It was a realization that stopped me in my tracks and made me re-evaluate how I will build this business. Sure, it will give my clients the ability to make some money to help their families, but the ability raise money for others is truly a bigger deal. The money that is raised to benefit others can have a ripple effect that we can only imagine.

I see the big picture now, and when we partner our love of family with the desire to help others, moms (and dads) of the world can take a giant step toward changing the lives of others as well as truly making a difference in the world. Moms (and Dads) working together with a common goal can really make a difference. All we have to do is our own one thing, but when added together, we have tremendous power to help others in an unstoppable way. It sounds like a lofty goal, I agree, but who else has more influence on their families than mothers. If we unite, we can lead the world to a better place by doing our one thing that we are uniquely gifted to do.

Put away your humbleness, it is time for action. Believe it or not, there are people in your own town that need your help, as well as people all over the globe just praying that someone somewhere will care. Moms, we all have that caring gene, but most of us just don’t know what we can do to help

.

I have prayed long and hard on this, and now I know that the answer is simple, and if you are reading this, you can be part of the movement to make positive changes in our world. You have that one talent, probably many talents, and you have some spare time, we all do. Turn off the tv, that will free up all the time needed to do your one thing. It really does not matter what gift you bring to the table, it is needed, and when paired with all the gifts of others, the power of love can be unleashed.

If you would like to know more about how our Dough Raising Mom program can help your family as well as the families across the globe, we would love you to join our website so we can keep you informed about when we will begin taking applications to be trained by us to help groups with their fund raising needs. A benefit to you is that you raise money for your family

    AND

be able to stay at home with your kids.
[Read more…]

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Start My Own Business

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Delightful Aromas Awaken My Family

Homemade Goodness

I kept investigating everything I could find about making money from home, yet I could not find anything at the time that worked for me, and I ran into a lot of scams. I finally decided to start my own business doing breakfast catering for corporate business meetings. It grew and took on a life of it’s own, and the end result was very different from the original plan.

I learned a lot during those years. But as I began the journey toward how I could help others, one thing stood out to me. Many people have a need to generate immediate cash. Lots of business ideas are very valid, but they fall short of being able to generate immediate cash flow. If you can become profitable the first year, that is great, but that is not very immediate. I noticed that many people have that need for the immediate cash whether it is to help them pay off debt, make a necessary purchase, or build an emergency fund.

For so many years I had been helping youth groups raise money, and then one day a group that I was not familiar with asked me to help them, and wanted to know what I would charge them to make cinnamon rolls for them. We decided they would purchase them at a wholesale price and sell the at retail. A win win for both of us. That weekend I worked really hard, but the payoff was very nice indeed.

Much later I began to wonder if this could be the answer for other stay at home moms. My daughter offered to conduct the market research and approached a few churches offering to help them raise money they needed and she got a great response. She was able to generate a tidy profit for both parties. Requests for repeat sales started coming in, and we had the proof we were looking for and Dough Raising Mom was created.

We are putting the finishing touches on our new business that will teach stay at home moms or dads how to start and run their own business. In late May we will meet with our trusted advisers and make sure we have covered all the bases, and hopefully will start taking applications for our first class in June. Please check back for the latest news or join our mailing list so you can take advantage of this program in the near future.

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