7 Things Every Bakery Owner Needs to Hear (From a Brick-and-Mortar Bakery Owner)
Dec 16, 2025
16 years as an entrepreneur, 8 years as a bakery business coach, and after a DEACDE of building and running my own brick-and-mortar bakery, and still NO ONE believes me when I tell them these things…
I’ve lived every season of the baking industry- from baking out of my home, to managing 20+ employees, to signing leases, to managing payroll, pricing mistakes, burnout, growth, and real profit. I didn’t learn this from theory. I learned it by doing. By failing. By fixing. By leading. And by coaching thousands of bakery owners through the exact same crossroads.
So here are 7 things I KNOW to be true that every bakery owner (or women who are thinking of getting into entrepreneurship) needs to hear:
1. You don’t need a storefront to achieve MASSIVE success.
More space DOES NOT equal more profit, more followers, or more customers! A storefront is just a term for where you operate your business out of. STOP putting so much weight into the word and meaning of a storefront. If anything, you have MORE challenges operating out of a storefront.
2. Refusing to raise your prices won’t make your customers love you more.
And choosing to keep your prices LOW because you “want people to be able to afford your products,” is only hurting YOU. Undercharging your products isn’t some noble deed for the sake of the greater good. It may “FEEL” good now because people are ordering from you… BUT not long down the road, you’re gonna face a crossroads. Either you’re gonna be BURNT OUT and BROKE from trying to accommodate a shit of orders… OR you’re gonna realize you can’t AFFORD to keep this “business” going anymore unless you raise your prices.
3. Your education level/resume doesn’t mean SH*T and doesn’t define how successful you’ll be.
Fun Fact- I never went to culinary school. I never studied to be a pastry chef, and I never worked in a kitchen or a restaurant of any kind. I learned EVERYTHING I know about the baking industry by getting DIRTY in the kitchen and HIRING amazing pastry chefs who DID get an education. If you wanna be successful in something, you need to surround yourself with people who know MORE than you do.
4. Wholesaling your products is NOT the answer to your money problems.
And to be CRYSTAL CLEAR, wholesale is something that home bakers shouldn’t even consider in my opinion. WHY? Wholesale is ONLY beneficial when you are making MASS QUANTITIES of the same item (like THOUSANDS), then selling them at a discounted rate to multiple distributors. Instead of selling high-priced items (which is what you do when you sell retail) your goal is to sell as many UNITS as possible at a reasonable lower profit level than if you were to sell directly to the consumer. Selling a few dozen of something at a discounted rate does not qualify as wholesale. In FACT, you’re giving up your own PROFIT margin in order to have your product sit on someone else’s shelves so THEY can make a profit on your hard work.
5. Home Bakers ARE NOT less qualified than storefront owners.
Again… some of the MOST TALENTED and SUCCESSFUL bakery owners operate from their home. YES, it is so more difficult to gain recognition and credibility because they are operating from their own home vs. a physical standalone building, BUT that doesn’t mean they are any less of a “LEGIT BUSINESS.”
6. You can make 6+ figures selling cakes.
BUT only if you do it the right way! That means focusing on BUILDING the business from the ground up, understanding your numbers down to the penny, prioritizing your PROFIT margins, and expenses, etc. If you don’t understand your numbers, HOW can you ever expect to make 6-Figures+ in your business?
7. The amount of products/services you sell DOES NOT correlate to HOW much you’ll actually sell.
In fact, you might actually be causing MORE buyer fatigue and confusion amongst your customers. Instead of offering the kitchen sink because one product or service isn’t working out as well as you thought it would, get GOOD at mastering ONE thing and then start to add more products/ services to your business.
If ANY of this resonated with you, you’re EXACTLY who I made my FREE Bakery Biz Growth QUIZ for. This quiz will tell you EXACTLY what level of business you’re at and, based on your result,s share a BLUEPRINT that is perfect for you.
What would you add to this list, friend?
