Let’s be real, friend…

If your holiday pre-orders are off to a slow start - or worse, non-existent - you’re not alone.

Every year, I see bakers pour their hearts, time, and energy (not to mention hundreds of dollars in inventory) into their holiday menus… only to end up wondering where the sales are at.

You’re working hard, showing up on social media, creating beautiful products - but somehow, the sales still aren’t matching the effort.

It’s not because you’re not talented.

It’s not because people “just aren’t spending money.”

It’s because you’re probably making a few small but COSTLY mistakes that are keeping your pre-orders stuck.

The good news? They’re 100% fixable!

Here are 5 reasons your holiday pre-orders might SUCK (and what the smart bakers are doing instead 👇🏼)

1. You’re doing GUESSWORK instead of GOAL WORK!

That looks like establishing a goal. For example, my total revenue goal for the holiday season is $5,000. I’m going to create a product or offer that is $20, which means I need to SELL 250 units of this product/offer. You know EXACTLY how much product you need to sell in order to meet the GOAL that you’ve created.

When you have a number to work toward, you stop guessing and start strategizing.

You can figure out how many weeks you’ll need to promote (which I recommend at least 4-6 weeks), how many orders you can realistically take, what supplies you’ll need to stock up on, and what your daily sales goals should look like.

Suddenly, you’re not just “hoping” sales come in - you’re creating a plan that makes them happen.

2. You’re offering too many products!

Especially if you’re baking from home and don’t have a storefront, you need to limit the amount of offers that you have. It creates confusion, overstimulation, and buyer fatigue. You really wanna be SPECIFIC and INTENTIONAL around what you’re offering.

Ask yourself: ➡️ Which products do my customers go crazy for every year? This is why RESEARCH is so important! ➡️ Which ones are the MOST profitable or easiest to produce? (This is especially important for the solopreneurs) ➡️ Which ones actually bring you JOY to make.

Sell what sells WELL, what’s manageable, and what you actually enjoy - that’s your money-maker!

Keep it simple and TRIM out the rest.

3. You aren’t selling what people NEED and WANT!

It’s not about what YOU want to sell. You’ll be MOST successful when you focus on developing products your ideal client actually NEED/WANT! Especially right now, Thanksgiving/Christmas is a GIFT-GIVING season. Which means people are looking for gift-giving ideas, so you should be creating products that are designed for GIFT-GIVING. So before you go creating a menu and pouring all this time, energy, and money into the “perfect” holiday products, ask yourself these questions in order to SOLVE the biggest problems for your customers:

• What do people normally do to celebrate this holiday or time of year?
• WHO do they normally celebrate it with? (Loved ones, immediate family, friends, co-workers, classmates, etc?)
• What is a customary budget?

4. You’re ignoring trends!

If you have NO IDEA what to create, then that’s most likely because you’re ignoring trends. Trends could be something NEW and FRESH that is popular in the world right now (cough cough WICKED), but they can also be those timeless holiday favorites that come back year after year. Think about it - peppermint, gingerbread, cozy cocoa, holiday gift boxes… they never go out of style. Why? Because they’re familiar. They make people feel something. They’re nostalgic. And at the end of the day, that’s what sells.

So before you overthink your next product or spend hours trying to “come up with something original,” pause and ask yourself:

➡️ What are people already excited about right now?

➡️ What seasonal classics always make a comeback?

5. You’re spending too much time on the CREATING and not enough on MARKETING

I know its really difficult to focus on marketing and creating content when you have a laundry list of things to do, orders to fill, and fires to put out, and things that NEED to get done BUT once you figure out what products you’re gonna sell, and what your goals are then you NEED to start showing people WHY they need your product and WHY your product will MAKE their holiday season that much more special.

Friend, if you don’t have your holiday menu set, if you don’t have a REVENUE goal in mind, or maybe you have ALL of those things but haven’t actually started doing the THING to make sales then this is your sign to sit down, set aside 20-30 minutes today and figure out 5 different ways to talk your customers about your holiday offers.

If you found this helpful and wanna go even deeper into holiday sales strategy, I've got you! You can grab my EXACT step-by-step system that helped me generate over 10k in treats sold every single holiday and every time I launched a new product!

I break it all down for you inside my Booked & Banked Workshop - where I’ll walk you through how to PLAN, PROMOTE, and PROFIT through every holiday season with less stress and more sales.

Wishing you TONS of sales in your future, friend!

Xo, Janelle