When you run a cake business from home you’ll face certain challenges that a storefront bakery doesn’t. One common problem is how to handle requests for cake tasting appointments if you do wedding cakes.
I’ve managed tasting appointments in a few different ways through the years, and some work better than others.
I’ll go through a few different options in this guide, and will try to give you some ideas about what format will work best for you.
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Whether to do tastings or not: Time considerations.
Your first decision will be whether to do tasting appointments at all.
Some types of cakes will require a planning appointment, or at the very least a series of phone calls or emails to plan the design of the cake.
Wedding clients in particular will expect some kind of tasting, generally before they book the wedding cake. But other types of clients may not need a tasting, or it may not be cost-effective for you to do one.
Small cakes (one tier, less than 75 servings, whatever you consider to be small) are commonly excluded from tasting appointments by most bakers.
This is because the cost of the TIME involved will dip into the profit from smaller cakes so much it will make them not really worth doing.
You have to decide if you want to put limits on the size of the cakes that you’ll do tastings for based on how the time will affect the final profit on your cake.
For the smaller cakes, you might want to only do appointments for cakes that the client is very confused about in terms of design.
Sometimes it’s easier to have a client meet you and go over design in person for ten minutes than it is to go through a series of emails that don’t get anything resolved.
Even then, I wouldn’t do a tasting for a party cake, but I would do a design consult.
Cut through the confusion.
I once had a customer who would send me emails that were very complicated and long, describing what she wanted in excruciating detail that never got to the point.
I finally told her that I needed to meet with her, and I scheduled her in between a couple of wedding appointments to go over details for five minutes.
That’s all it took in person to figure out what she wanted, so it was worth taking the time to meet. If it’s a time-saver, consider it.
Tasting appointments aren’t just the investment in the ingredients to make the sample and the time for the actual appointment.
You also have to take into account the time that it takes to plan, shop for, make, and assemble the samples before the customer even arrives.
Plus, there’s always the possibility that the customer won’t even show up!
No-shows are a big problem for tastings, since people tend to shop around and they don’t always let you know if they’ve decided on another baker and don’t need the appointment anymore.
For wedding appointments, it’s better to try to get everything done in one meeting because of the time savings.
You can write up the contract with all of the important information and basic design info during the appointment. If you can get everything done in one session it’s more time-effective, and you can always finalize details over email at a later point.
Minimums and tastings.
If you have a minimum serving count for tastings, you’ll need to decide whether to enforce it if the cake is for a wedding but it’s a small wedding.
I’d say that minimums should be observed regardless of the event, since many people will figure out that they can get a tasting if they say it’s a wedding even if it isn’t!
If you do tastings for wedding cakes, you should also try to get the basics of the contract done during the appointment while the bride and groom are available to answer questions about the details of the location, start time, etc.
The specifics of the cake design can be finalized afterward, but getting the basic details directly from the couple will save you time later.
It’s NOT normal to do tasting appointments for smaller cakes.
Watch out for customers who want you to do a lot of extra work before they’ve even hired you, because that won’t stop if they do hire you!
Whether to charge or not.
One way to offset the cost of a tasting appointment is to charge for the tasting. This isn’t always something that’s done everywhere, but it’s becoming more common.
In my area nobody charged until a couple of years ago, but now it’s pretty common to charge a fee.
There are good reasons to charge for appointments.
- It allows you to recoup the cost of some of the samples and your time. If you can schedule all of your appointments on one day you’ll be able to consolidate the time required to bake and prepare samples, and collecting multiple fees for meetings will give you a little payment for that time.
- It eliminates the looky-lou clients who just want the fun of getting free cake. Especially with weddings, there are clients who shop around to get the “wedding perks” attached to being engaged. If you charge for the tasting you’ll eliminate people who are just looking for freebies.
- It eliminates wedding planner shenanigans. It’s not unusual for wedding planners who have kickback arrangements with certain vendors to send their clients to multiple vendors anyway, then steer them toward the one they have a relationship with. The client thinks that they’re getting a choice, but the planner is using the other vendors as pawns. If the client has to pay to come to an appointment it’s far less likely that the planner will use you in this way. I had a wedding planner who would send people to me all the time, but they never hired me. I knew that she had an “arrangement” with another baker who got most of her business. As soon as I started charging for tastings the referrals from the planner came to a screeching halt, which was only a bonus to me because she was only sending people to me to make herself look better. A florist I know told me that the same planner did the same thing to her. So I swear I’m not being paranoid!
- It attracts clients who are more serious about hiring you. If you charge for appointments, clients will screen you better before making an appointment, and will have decided in advance that you’re a fit for them. They won’t be taking the “throw a dart at the map and go where it tells us” approach since they’ll have more invested in the meeting.
- It cuts down on no-shows, because if people have paid for an appointment ahead of time they’re more likely to be there! Make sure that the fee is paid in advance and is non-refundable. It covers the cost of samples, which have to be accounted for whether the couple shows up or not.
The downside of charging for tastings and how to handle that.
- If nobody else in your area charges for tastings brides might not be used to having to pay and will give you resistance about it. If you don’t act apologetic and just tell them matter-of-factly that there’s a fee of X amount, and that you’ll be sending an invoice before the appointment, they’ll probably go along with it. If they don’t pay it, they don’t want the appointment.It’s possible that if you start charging for appointments other people will, too. Sometimes people won’t do different things until someone else does it first.
However, it’s possible that if you start charging for appointments other people will, too. Sometimes people won’t do different things until someone else does it first.
-Applying the cost to the cost of the cake can pacify people if they don’t want to pay for the appointment. Applying it means that you’re not being paid for the time that it takes to do the appointment, though, so you’re losing profit.
-Applying the cost to the cake is basically a discount. You need to decide whether to add something back in to the cost of the cake to make up for that!
Pricing and flavors.
There are a few ways to price tasting appointments, and how you charge can also affect the flavors and options that you offer.
Flat pricing structure.
I used a flat pricing structure, which is one price for four basic cake flavors of my choice, for up to four people.
I didn’t give people a choice of flavors because I do more than one appointment per date, and I didn’t freeze samples, so I didn’t want to have to bake twelve flavors if people request that many different ones.
To me, the point of a tasting is to see whether the client likes my cake in general. It’s not to see which specific flavors they like, but rather as a screening of the basics.
For that reason, I do a chocolate, vanilla, almond, and one fruit flavor (usually lemon or strawberry.) Those tend to be some of my most popular flavors overall, so narrowing it down to those will allow people to try some of the most commonly-chosen flavors.
I don’t apply the cost of the appointment to the final cost of the cake because it’s two separate services. Many people do offer that as an option in order to entice customers to book with them, and if you decide to do that it’s perfectly acceptable.
Tiered pricing structure.
One of my friends uses a tiered pricing structure for her tasting appointments. This is her breakdown:
I offer three types of tastings: a free one, a $15 one, and a $50 one.
A Complimentary Tasting (the free one) is a single plate for 1-2 adults to share. It is 1 cake flavor, 1 filling flavor, and a taste of fondant. The cake is either vanilla or almond, and the filling is almost always vanilla buttercream.
A Basic Tasting (the $15 one) is individual plates for up to 3 adult attendees. Each plate is 3-4 cake flavors, 4-5 fillings, and a taste of fondant. I choose the flavors to be tasted, based on what I’m making for that particular week’s orders. The fee is credited toward the cake order
A Custom Tasting (the $50 one) is also individual plates for up to 3 adult attendees. Each plate is 3 cake flavors, 6 fillings, and a taste of fondant. The bride/couple chooses the flavors to be tasted. The fee is credited toward the cake order.
The Complimentary Tasting works for clients who want to get a general idea of your product, who are in the “just shopping around” stage, who are very excited to “experience” the wedding-planning process with multiple cake bakers, or who do not place a big priority on wedding cake. Around 10-15% of clients choose this type of tasting, and this has the greatest number of “no-shows”.
The Basic Tasting works for clients who are a little more serious about their search for a cake baker, who probably have greater interest in hiring you, or who are open to trying new flavors. This has always been my most popular tasting appointment. Around 85% of clients choose this type of tasting.
The Custom Tasting works for brides who are very particular about food flavors or who have food allergies/sensitivities. In six years, two clients have selected this type of tasting
Why do this type of tiered pricing?
- To give people an incentive to show up for the appointment. Preparing for tasting appointments takes time and product. Before I started charging for tastings, I routinely threw out plates full of samples, and my time spent preparing for the appointment was lost without any compensation. Make sure you clearly state that the fee is nonrefundable for cancellations made within 24 hours of the appointment.
- To set realistic client expectations for the appointment. By clearly stating what is included for each type of tasting, clients have a realistic expectation of what they will taste. Before I started charging for tastings, I had a client call the day before her appointment, insisting that her (free) tasting plate consist of only variations of vanilla.
Where to do tastings.
There are a few places where you can hold tasting appointments.
In the home is the obvious choice, but that has some limitations, and might not be legal in your area.
If you have a separate studio/shed or attached office space at your home that’s a good option and splits the difference between home and away from home.
Away from home, you have the options of a coffee shop or other public area, or rental space.
As far as rental space goes, you can either rent an office, share rent with another home-based professional, rent space from a business or a vendor who has retail or office space, or take part in a vendor co-op.
Pros and cons of each.
Each arrangement has plusses and minuses.
Over the years I’ve done tastings from my home, from a shared office space, out of another vendor’s space, and I’ve rented one of those rent-as-you-go office spaces.
The arrangement that has worked the best for me is to share the rent for a small office space with another wedding professional who also works from home. We have an online calendar so that we’re not in the room at the same time, and we use the space for consults only so that we don’t have to bring clients to our homes.
At one point we were sharing the space with two other people for a total of four people sharing the rent, but that got complicated with so many people.
With only two we can schedule our time without having people emailing to see if they can “sneak in” one client in the middle of a block that’s been scheduled already. I’m also able to store all of my dummy tiers there, along with many display cakes, which gets them out of my house!
Vendor co-ops are another option that are gaining in popularity.
They give you a space in an office that multiple vendors share. There are usually one or two consult areas so that people can schedule to meet clients there.
One space in my area has a separate office for each co-op member, so you don’t have to share a room with anyone else. The setup will vary, but you’ll basically have an office-type space to meet in.
At one point I was using a consult room that a local florist had. They didn’t charge me for the use of the room because they thought that it would bring customers into the shop.
That was okay but it was difficult having to transport everything that I needed and I wasn’t able to store anything there.
So you basically have two options for location, home and away from home.
At-home tasting appointments.
- Can you do tastings at your home? Check on your local regulations including state zoning laws about having customers come to your house. Some homeowners’ associations have their own regulations about home-based businesses, too. Check into all of that before having people over for meetings.
- If you do appointments at home, you’ll need a room that is separate enough from the rest of the house that you don’t have your family wandering in and out.
- Your family will have to be quiet if they’re home. If you have young kids this can be difficult!
- You’ll need to clean the house! Unless you have a separate entrance where you can bring people in and out of the meeting area, they’ll get a glimpse of your living area. If it’s super messy it’s going to make you look bad.
- People might want to see your kitchen. Have it ready for inspection. I prefer not to let people in and out of my work area, but some people are going to be insistent.
The downside of using your home for meetings:
- Strangers coming in and out of your house can be a safety issue. Make sure that you’re not alone during appointments in case anything happens.
- At-home appointments tend to feel less formal and less businesslike to clients. People tend to linger and not take the process as seriously, so you’ll probably need to manage the time more actively.
- You’ll need to have a rider on your insurance policy that covers you for having customers coming to your home. If someone slips and falls at your house and you’re not insured for business clients you could have a problem.
- Some clients don’t want to work with someone who works from home. For whatever reason, they just want a storefront, and an at-home meeting will put people off. I’ve had people sitting in my office tell me that they drove up to another home-based baker’s appointment, realized that it was at her house, and drove away. Meanwhile, they were willing to hire me even though I also worked from home because I use an office for tastings. Totally irrational, but it’s just the way some people think. Other people won’t care at all, and it’s not something that you can predict.
- You might be interrupted by kids or people going in and out. Background noise from other rooms makes the whole process feel less professional.
- If people arrive early, or an appointment runs late, you’ll need an area for people to wait while there’s overlap between meetings.
- You’ll need to store all of your display cakes, reference materials, etc. at home.
- Your neighbors might not like it if you schedule a lot of people in and out all the time.
The benefit of using your home for meetings:
- No added cost for rent for meeting space.
- Easy access to cake books, reference materials, etc.
- Less time wasted waiting for customers because you can do other things while you’re waiting.
- You don’t need to schedule people one right after the other because you’ll be able to get work done in between appointments.
- No travel time for you.
I once had a couple arrive at my house for a tasting. They ate every bite of cake while also saying that they didn’t like it, then they wouldn’t leave and the groom started wandering around the room and looked like he was going to go check out the rest of my house. I had to corral them and end that meeting. They seemed to think they were at the buffet and not a business meeting.
Outside-the-home tasting appointments.
Benefits of meeting away from your home:
- A neutral area will take the burden off of you feeling like your life is being studied by the client.
- If you have family at home, they can be at home and not have to sneak around and be quiet. And you won’t be worried about whether someone will scream and need attention in the middle of a meeting.
- It avoids the issue of having strangers coming to your house and the liability insurance needed for that. (But you do need insurance for the other space!)
- No pre-meeting housecleaning necessary!
- If you rent an office space you can store your display cakes there, which reduces the cake clutter in your home.
The downside of meeting away from the home:
- No easy access to things if you’ve forgotten them.
- If people expect an office setting they might be put off. However, many wedding professionals meet with clients in public places these days, so that’s not as much of an issue as you might think it is.
- If you meet in a coffee shop or anywhere else that serves food it will be difficult to do a tasting during the meeting. It would be courteous to the location to pack the samples in a box for the client to take home rather than serving them there.
- If you meet in a rental location you’ll have the cost of renting the space.
You might have to try several options out before settling on the one that works best for you. What worked best for me was a solution that allowed me to get out of my house and also let me leave all of my junk in the meeting space!
How to handle samples.
Once you decide where to hold your meetings, you’ll need to figure out the best way to handle the samples. You basically have two options, either serve them during the appointment, or send them home with the client so that they can eat them later.
Serving at the appointment.
- You can answer questions right away, which is helpful. This also gives you an opportunity to sell your cake to the customer by telling them things about your recipes that make them special, or by suggesting other flavor combinations that would go well together.
- You’ll need a private area to serve samples during the appointment. Don’t go to a public place that sells food and takeout food to serve to your clients. That’s just rude.
- If you serve the samples during the appointment, you can use real flatware and plates or disposables. You’ll have to figure out whether to cut the samples ahead of time or not depending on whether you think the cake will dry out if it sits for a while. This works best if you do appointments at home since you won’t have to transport plates back and forth to an office location that might not have a kitchen.
Sending samples home with the client.
- This gives them more privacy while they’re tasting and they might be more comfortable talking about what they really like and don’t like if you’re not there.
- They can share the samples with people who couldn’t come to the appointment. This could be good or bad depending on whether the other people have a lot of opinions or not.
- The downside is that they might not handle the samples the right way, so the quality could be affected before they try them.
- You also won’t be able to answer questions about the samples as they’re trying them.
- This option also requires cute packaging on your part, or at least something that will keep everything secure and lets the client figure out what it all is for later.
What kind of samples?
- Remember that whatever you make, it’s a sample, not a meal. Keep them small, especially if you’re giving people more than one flavor.
- Cupcakes or mini cupcakes are easily transportable. You can also bake three or four types of cupcakes, divide them up for your samples, then take the rest and sell them as sampler packs if you have a following on social media. Just advertise ahead of time that you’ll have boxes of these flavors available for X amount, and people can purchase them in advance. That way you can get rid of the extra cupcakes, recoup some of your costs, and maybe make a profit for the day. Don’t give tasting appt. clients more than one or two cupcakes per flavor… I’d leave it at one of each flavor that they can share.
- If you serve sliced cake, you’ll need to have some way to pack them up on plates or in individual sample cups. I put pieces of cake and some icing in a sample cup with a lid so that I can pack them up in a gift bag that I use for each couple.
- As far as flavors, keep it simple. There’s no reason why clients should place an order for specific flavors. The reason that you have tastings is so that potential clients can see if they like the general type of cake that you make. Do a basic selection, and work in a special request if you can, but don’t feel that you have to serve each client their specific selection of flavors. I always do chocolate, vanilla, almond and a fruit flavor, usually strawberry or lemon.
- Some people serve plates of cake to each client, either with icing or in a mix-and-match format. Here’s a photo of a cake sample plate that one of my friends did for a tasting. Each person got three flavors of cake with different icing and filling flavors to combine with the cake. Notice that these are not huge pieces of cake!! You don’t need to make people the equivalent of a full 6” tier’s worth of cake.
I once had a client try to set up a tasting where she wanted very specific combinations of flavors that I don’t make for tastings.
I told her that I didn’t make those flavors for tastings, but she kept insisting that I make them and told her cousin, who was going to pick them up, that I was making those flavors. After five or six emails like that, I suddenly became unavailable for her date…
When to set up appointments.
When you set up tasting appointments there are a few ways to do it.
Some people will fit them in here and there, in the evenings or on the weekend between cake deliveries.
It’s easier to do it that way if you have a storefront, because you’ll have regular business hours, but if you work from home that can be problematic.
What day to do tastings.
The way that seems to works best for most home-based businesses is to schedule multiple appointments on one day so that you can do the setup and prep work once.
If you bake specifically for your tastings, this is even more important. It doesn’t make financial sense to bake multiple cakes for one appointment, but if you have several scheduled on one day you can split the cost of the samples between clients.
If you freeze samples, you might have more flexibility in terms of having samples ready to go, but you still have to take the time involved for setup and getting everything ready into account. If you only have to get your setup ready once for multiple clients you’ll save yourself a lot of time.
I suggest scheduling tasting appointments for the weekends, preferably for a day that you DON’T have anything scheduled to deliver. I did a lot of appointments on Sundays when I had Saturday weddings but nothing to deliver on Sunday.
If you schedule appointments for the morning on a day when you have afternoon deliveries you might run into a situation where you need the time in the AM to finish up the cakes that need to be delivered.
If you schedule things for a day where you don’t have deliveries, you’ll be able to focus on the appointments and you won’t be watching the clock or trying to make sure you get back to work in time to finish up cakes that you have to deliver.
Weekends are generally okay for clients, too. Since most people work during the week the weekends are generally better for people to be able to coordinate a meeting where everyone is available.
In addition, if clients are coming in from out of town (which happens more than you’d think) weekends are usually when they plan on being there.
You might get people who think that since you’re based from home you’re available any time. People will ask if they can come over after work to do their appointment, but I don’t recommend making a habit of that for a few reasons.
- First, if you have kids, the after-work hours (5-7 PM or so) are usually hideously busy for parents. Don’t kid yourself, you know it’s true. Trying to do a professional appointment at that time of day isn’t a good idea.
- Second, even if you don’t have children around, that time of day is when people are tired and really aren’t in the mood to eat cake regardless of whether they think they will be or not. You’ll also be tired, and scheduling work in the evenings like that makes for a really long day for you, which is no fun.
- Finally, allowing clients to dictate when you’ll meet with them teaches them that you’re available all the time. You need to set professional limits from the beginning so that people don’t expect you to answer texts and emails at all hours of the day and night.
How often to do tasting appointments.
I generally scheduled appointments once or twice a month depending on whether it’s a “booking season” or not, and that’s when I offer people times.
If they say that they’re coming in from out of town I’ll try to meet with them, but sometimes that isn’t workable FOR ME, so I then offer to have them send a surrogate cake-taster to an appointment day, or I’ll meet with them without samples just to talk design.
You can always have someone pick up samples for them, then report back, then you can meet with the bride and groom later to discuss the design. You can also skype or talk on the phone with the bride to talk about design details.
My point is that YOU are in control of your own business. You shouldn’t feel like you need to reschedule your life because someone doesn’t like the time that you’re offering.
I can’t tell you how many times someone has said that they can’t make a certain date, then when I don’t offer to change my schedule for them, they can suddenly make it.
When you call the doctor’s office to make an appointment the doctor doesn’t let you tell them when you’re coming in, they offer you a few times and you choose one. THAT is how making an appointment works.
You can be as flexible as you want to be, but the client shouldn’t dictate when you meet with them.
I got messages from people all the time saying “I want to set up an appointment for 12:00 on Wednesday,” without asking if that’s a good time.
I think that people just assume that I have a shop and that they can walk in anytime, so I just write back and say “the next time I’ll be doing appointments will be Saturday the 4th, will that day work for you?”
And an important piece of advice…NEVER schedule appointments on a holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas. I can’t tell you how many times people expected me to accommodate their travel plans by telling me they needed to get together on the morning of Christmas or Thanksgiving, I’m not kidding you.
That’s just a hard no, it won’t turn out well and it will ruin your holiday.
How many appointments?
The answer to this question is generally ONE in-person appointment. That’s all you need to get details down and to have them taste cake. Some people will want more than one appointment, but unless you plan on charging them for it, I wouldn’t recommend this.
There are vendors who meet with clients multiple times, but those are usually people who have to work with their clients in a different way than the baker does.
Wedding planners and venue coordinators will need to meet with clients more than once because the level of detail and decisions they need to cover are far greater than the cake.
If you’re thorough and you get the details about the cake in the first meeting all you’ll need to do after that is finish up and finalize things over email.
It’s very unusual that I need to do a second meeting with someone. Cases like that generally only happen when a client is so undecided about the design that it just makes more sense time-wise to get her in the same room with you and pin her down on her decisions.
It’s NOT as unusual for people to ask for multiple appointments, since they’re either not sure about how many appointments you’ll need, or they just think that they should be meeting with you more than once.
Don’t feel bad about NOT meeting with someone if there isn’t a good reason for it.
Just tell them that you can take care of this over email, or you’ll give them a call, and that way you can save them the time of coming out to meet with you. Present it as a time-savings for them (which it is.)
If someone asks for multiple tastings, you should charge for them even if you don’t charge for the initial meeting. Multiple sample appointments isn’t “the cost of doing business,” it’s a customer asking for additional services, and there’s a price to that.
There will be times when it makes sense to meet with someone more than once. Like I mentioned previously, if someone is really undecided or confused, meeting with them can actually save you time because you won’t need to go back and forth on email to try to figure out what they’re talking about.
If someone met with you once and didn’t do a tasting for some reason, meeting for a tasting will probably have to happen as well.
I’ve had people ask for multiple appointments because their relatives didn’t get to come to the first tasting and they want to eat cake too.
This doesn’t really fall under the umbrella of “good reason to do another tasting” so I tell them that if they’d like to buy a sample box I can put one together for them and they can drop by to pick it up on a day that I have other clients over for tastings.
Meeting logistics.
When a customer contacts you for an appointment, you should let them know which dates you have available that are coming up. If one of them works, you can then offer a couple of times and let the client choose which one works for them.
If nothing that you have scheduled works, tell them that you’ll hold onto their information and will get in touch as soon as you set up your next appointments.
If they’re from out of town and will be in town on a certain date you might want to try to schedule your next block of appointments for that date if it works for you.
The week of the appointment (or about 5 days ahead of time) you should email to verify the appointment and send them the invoice for the payment.
I use PayPal invoices so that the client can pay through PayPal online. I don’t let people pay at the appointment, I tell them that the payment of the fee is what confirms the meeting.
If the fee isn’t paid by the day before I’m putting the samples together I’ll send the client a reminder saying that if it isn’t paid by the end of the day I’ll assume that they don’t want the appointment because I need to confirm before I put the samples together.
When you send the confirmation email add the address where you’ll be meeting, your phone number for that day, and ask the client to send you any photos of cakes that they like so that you can see what they’re thinking style-wise.
You can also ask if they have a link to a cake page on Pinterest so that you can check out their wedding style ahead of time.
Make a note of how many people can come to the appointment if you have a limit!
If you have young kids, don’t let people drop by or schedule last-minute appts, it’s too hard to juggle both.
I once had a client show up to an appointment with about eight extra people, including the parents and half the bridal party. They all spent the time there arguing about what the bride should or shouldn’t do and should or shouldn’t choose for a cake design, until she just burst into tears.
She had probably had them all tagging around with her to every appointment and this was just the final straw. I now limit the number of people at the appointment to the bride, groom, and two other people!
Screening first.
When you set up the appointment, you should do some preliminary screening. First, you want to make sure that you’re available for the date, and that the cake they want is something that fits into your minimum charge (if you have one) and is something that you can do.
The contact form on my website asks for that information, so that if someone is asking for a cake for 20 people I can respond that I only do larger cakes.
Or if their date isn’t available I can let them know. It saves time and that way you know that the customers you’re scheduling for an appointment are people you can actually work with.
This is a sample of the kind of email I send out in response to people who email me asking for information:
The next time that I’ll be doing tasting appointments will be November 7th, which is a Saturday. If that works for you let me know and I’ll give you some times to choose from. There’s a $20 appointment fee to confirm the meeting, which I’ll bill ahead of time the week of the appointment. If you have any questions, or have idea about the cake design so that I can give you a rough estimate on the pricing, let me know.
I always want to see what kind of cake designs they like, because it will allow you to see if their budget and their tastes are in line with each other.
If the customer sends you photos of cakes covered in gold leaf and elaborate gumpaste flowers, then says she has 200 guests and a budget of $300, you can save a lot of time by “educating” her before she even shows up for the appointment.
Tell her what a cake like that would cost, give her some options, but DO NOT let people walk into your meeting space without screening what they want first.
I guarantee that if you ask people if they have links to cakes they like they’ll have SOMETHING, whether it’s a specific cake or a page on Pinterest.
If, in fact, the client says that they don’t have any idea what they want, tell them to start looking before the appointment so that they can bring three photos in to show you.
Give them some homework because that will force them to start thinking about it. They might still walk in with no ideas, but if you ask them to look they’ll probably have a tiny bit of a concept.
The customers who generally take the most time are the ones who have no idea about what kind of design they want.
I’ve had people who took an hour and a half at a meeting because they were so undecided about what kind of cake they wanted.
Those are the ones that you need to work the hardest to direct and pull ideas out of, so if you can put the idea into their heads before the meeting that they need to start narrowing down their ideas, it can only help.
What to cover during the appointment.
Every tasting appointment should have a similar structure to it so that you get used to covering everything you need to cover. Whether you fill out a contract during the appointment or send it later, you’ll need to get the information necessary to fill it out as the basic starting point.
- Get the date, starting time, location and contact person/venue coordinator for the event.
- Get the phone numbers for the bride and groom, and also for someone who can be contacted the day of in case something happens which would mean you’d need to call someone. The venue coordinator or wedding coordinator is usually the best contact person for that purpose. Try to avoid calling the bride, groom, or their parents on the day of the wedding if at all possible!
- Get a mailing address and email address.
- Go over the basics of the cake design. If the bride doesn’t know what specific design she wants, have her look through photos to narrow down what she’s thinking of so that you can get an idea about what she wants. You’ll need to know what she wants the cake design to be before you can price the cake.
- Make notes about the size of the cake tiers, serving counts, guest counts (not the same as serving count!), and any other details like what topper will be used, etc.
When the basics of the design and location have been determined, you can tell the bride how to book the date if she wants to hire you (how much of a deposit you require, etc.). You can also go over the price of the cake if the bride knows what she wants design-wise.
Do NOT give out sketches to brides who haven’t hired you! Keep any drawings or sketches that you do during the appointment to prevent the customer from taking your design to someone else, and to keep it as a record for yourself of what she wanted.
If you’re not sure about the cost of the cake, don’t quote a price. It’s better to take some time and figure out the price accurately instead of guessing and shortchanging yourself.
The agenda during the meeting.
What I did during a meeting was pretty set in stone. I covered the following things in this order:
- Welcome the customer and invite them in to sit down.
- Go over the basic details like time and date of event and contact info, write it down on the contract.
- Ask the bride if she has ideas about what style of cake she’s looking for. If she’s sent me photos ahead of time I print those out and have them with her intake forms so that I know what she wants.
- Work on the design and determine the size and number of tiers appropriate for the guest count.
- Price the cake based on the design and tell the bride how much the whole thing will cost.
- Bring out samples for tasting, have them try the samples and answer questions.
- Give them the flavor chart, write down flavors if they know what they want, or send them home with the chart otherwise.
- Give them the contract and tell them that they can take it home to look it over, and explain what to do to book their date. If they want to book then, take the deposit and get signatures on the contract, then keep the contract and tell them you’ll email them a copy later when you can get to your scanner.
- Wrap up by asking if they have any questions while I have them there. This is a signal that the appointment is almost over and most people get the hint. If they don’t, you might have to stand up while thanking them for coming!
Some people will linger, especially if you’re doing meetings at your house.
Make sure to schedule enough time between appointments to make up for the fact that you could have a group that just won’t leave until you shove them out the door!
I’ve had people who saw the next couple arrive at their appointment time, but it made no difference and they just continued to sit and look through books of cakes.
If that happens you’ll need to be direct and say “My next appointment is here, so we need to wrap up. If you have any other questions please feel free to email or give me a call. Thanks for coming and let me know what you decide.”
Keeping the “order of operations” at the appointment is important for two reasons. First, it will help you to remember what you need to go over so that you don’t forget things, and it will help you keep an eye on the time once you get the rhythm of the agenda.
You should also make sure to work your selling points in as the appointment goes on.
For example, tell the clients what sets your cake apart while you’re putting the samples out, tell them how long you’ve been doing cakes while they’re looking at photos, show that you’re familiar with the venue while you’re filling out the information on the contract. (For example, if they say the reception is at XYZ venue, you can ask if they’re working with the coordinator there and mention them by name. That shows that you’re familiar with the venue and staff, which demonstrates your experience.)
Whether to take payments at the meeting.
There are two schools of thought on this…One says that pushing for a signed contract at the appointment is too much of a hard sell. The other says that you should play off of the excitement and goodwill that you’ve built during the meeting to secure a deposit while you have the customer there.
I say that if someone wants to book the date at the appointment, of course you should take a deposit to book the date! There are many reasons for accepting deposits on the spot:
- It books the date and prevents it from being taken by someone else, takes care of it on the spot.
- It eliminates any need for you to tell people that you’ll hold their date for a week, or however long you hold dates if you do that.
- It makes the day much more worthwhile for you if you end it with four or five new bookings!
If you send customers home without taking a deposit they tend to go home and start thinking about their options, instead of convincing themselves that you’re the one for them.
If a client says that they have some other appointments before they’ll be making a decision, thank them for coming but tell them that you work on a first-deposit gets the date basis, so to please not wait too long to make a decision.
You might want to develop a policy about holding a date for a certain number of days after the appointment, where you won’t give the couple’s date away, but this can get hard to schedule. I didn’t hold dates because I had too much to keep track of already!
I’ve had more than a few brides who lost their date because they waited too long to send a contract back. Make sure to remind people that if they don’t book you and someone arrives tomorrow with a deposit in hand, their date could be gone.
Handling contracts
When I did tastings, I filled out the contract during the appointment and sent the client home with it if they didn’t book during the meeting. I’m able to do that because I price my cakes using a simple method that allows me to give a client a price without having to do a lot of extra calculations.
If you need to figure out the final price and can’t do that during the appointment, there’s nothing wrong with telling the client that you’ll work out a proposal and get back to them.
Just make sure that you do it that same day, since the meeting will be fresh in the client’s mind. Email a copy of a contract with the pricing filled out to them, but make sure to put it in a non-editable PDF format!
Make sure that you tell them how to book with you, i.e. send the signed contract back to you and you’ll sign it and send them a copy with all of the signatures.
NEVER sign a contract before the client does. If someone gets a copy with your signature they could potentially change things on the contract before signing it themselves.
You may think this won’t happen, but I know a photographer who had a client return a signed contract that was heavily edited in the client’s favor. If the photographer hadn’t paid attention he would have signed a contract that eliminated a lot of the terms and policies that he had in place.
You should always try to get a copy of the contract that has the client’s original signature, not an electronic copy. Because of inconsistencies with courts and who accepts electronic signatures and who doesn’t, it’s just safer to keep the original yourself.
Never cash a check or withdraw an electronic payment if you don’t have the signed contract in hand.
Taking the money implies acceptance of the contract, and if you don’t have the signed contract yet that could be dangerous.
It happens more often that you think, especially with weddings, that someone will send a deposit without the contract.
Sometimes a parent or other relative will pay for the cake, but the bride needs to send the contract back and doesn’t do it. If you get a check but no contract email them immediately and tell the bride that her date isn’t booked until you have the contract too!
Controlling the appointment.
As the “leader” of the meeting, you’re the one who’s responsible for keeping things moving along. You have to control the flow of the conversation and make sure people don’t wander off topic too much.
If the bride brings a large entourage with her it’s going to be difficult to keep things on-topic.
For that reason, I highly recommend limiting the number of people you allow at the tasting.
The decision-makers are the bride and groom, and sometimes a parent who’s paying for the cake, so that’s the group you should encourage to attend.
More people than that are unnecessary to the design decision-making, and are generally just there to eat free cake, which isn’t really productive.
I ask that people leave children at home because they distract the parents’ attention from the task at hand.
If people show up with a lot of kids tell them that you’ll need to either have someone in their group stay outside with them or reschedule for a time that they can get childcare. You don’t need the liability for childcare!
Sometimes people will get off on tangents about other parts of the wedding. It’s not unusual, for example, to have a bride and her mother start discussing her wedding dress or flowers and start wandering away from the topic of the cake.
In order to maintain your schedule, you should steer the conversation back to the cake. If they’re talking about the dress, ask if there are design elements like lace on the dress that she’d like to incorporate on the cake.
That will indicate to them that they need to pay attention to the cake for now and leave the topic of the dress until later.
Every now and then you get a group of people who ignore your request for a limit on the number of people, and who seem to think that the meeting is a party for free cake. This kind of group is usually loud and can verge on the obnoxious because they’re only there to have fun, so in cases like that you’ll have to be direct and say something like “And now…back to the cake” while interrupting their non-cake conversation.
Sometimes you just have to be direct, and if breaking in and insisting that they pay attention has to happen, it has to happen. You can be jokey about it, but be direct. You have to act as the tour guide and control the conversation.
Keep an eye on the time so that you can move things along by asking questions.
For example, if they’re taking too long looking at photos, you can say “Who wants to eat some cake?” to move along to the tasting part of the appt.
If it’s obvious that they’ve just taken so long you’re not going to have time to eat cake, tell them that you’re going to send it home with them because you’re running out of time, and give them a description of the flavors etc.
If they insist that they want to eat it there but the next client is waiting, tell them that you’re out of time and your next group is already here, so you need to send it with them. This happens a lot if people show up late.
If people do show up late, start the appointment by saying that you’ll try to get through as much as you can on the design end of it, but that you’ll probably need to send the samples home with them because you’re starting late and you have another client scheduled who might arrive.
It’s more important to get design details out of the way while you have the client in the room because it’s a visual thing and it’s easier to do in person.
When it’s time to wrap up, ask if they have any questions for you while you have them there. This indicates to people that the appt is ending and they can ask their final questions then.
When they’re leaving tell them to feel free to call or email with any questions they think of that they didn’t ask you. Tell them if email or phone is better, etc.
Controlling expectations.
Every now and then you’ll get a bride who wants something that you can’t do, or that you know is totally unrealistic. You get to be the bad guy in situations like that, because you’ll be telling her why what she wants can’t be done.
This is more common these days because of the number of AI-created cake images online. There’s no way to make a cake look like most of the AI cakes that I see on Pinterest, so you have to be the one to break it to the bride that the cake “photo” that she brought you isn’t real.
If it’s more of a situation where you don’t know a technique, just tell her that you’ve never done that particular technique before and that you can look up more information about it before letting her know whether you can deliver or not.
It’s better to be honest and not commit yourself to doing something that you’re unsure about.
You could try to bluff your way through and say that you can do whatever it is, but if you do that you might find yourself in a situation of not being able to deliver what you’ve promised, or getting yourself stuck trying to make a profit on something that’s taking five times longer than you thought it would.
Other scenarios include having a client who brings in a photo of a cake that’s covered in something like disco dust, which you know shouldn’t be used on things that will be eaten (you do know that, right?), or covered in gold leaf, which you know is very expensive.
In situations like that you need to explain the reality of the situation to the customer and give her alternatives. You could suggest colored sanding sugar for the sparkle, and edible metallic paints for the gold, but you’ll probably need to show them photos of their options, so be prepared.
It’s good to have an internet-connected computer with you for ease of viewing…It’s not fun to try to see details on a cell phone that’s being passed around.
You could also be forced to tell a bride that the design she wants is impractical for the weather conditions she’s going to have at her reception.
The most common version of this is a bride who’s having an outdoor reception in the middle of summer, but who says she doesn’t want fondant.
As the cake professional, it’s your job to put your foot down and explain that you have to do fondant in certain situations in order to keep the cake from melting. Some people also want designs that have to be done on fondant to look a certain way (painting, brush embroidery) and you’ll get to be the one to tell them that they need fondant.
DO NOT try to get away with allowing a client to convince you to do certain designs on buttercream if she’s brought you a photo of it done in fondant.
There are a lot of things that can be done in both buttercream and fondant, but some things just won’t look the same.
You need to make sure that the client knows that a fondant cake with a ton of fondant detail, hand-painted designs and metallics won’t look the same when it’s done with buttercream. It can be similar, but it won’t be the same.
Basically, don’t overpromise and you’ll be fine. You’re the one with cake experience and it’s likely the customer has never thought about cakes before, so it’s your job to be the reality check.
I recently had a bride who brought in a photo of a cake that was completely covered in disco dust. I told her that I wouldn’t do that because disco dust is finely ground plastic and isn’t meant to be used on food, just on decorations that can be removed.
I told her that people routinely do things to display cakes that can’t be done on real cakes, and I gave her some other options. Oh, and she didn’t want fondant, she wanted buttercream.
After showing her some cakes that I had that were painted with metallics she liked those, but she still didn’t want fondant. Since the metallics don’t work on buttercream the way that she wanted, she didn’t want to go that route.
What we finally decided on was to do gumpaste flowers that were blinged out with disco dust in order to put the sparkle on the cake. They’d be removed before serving, and wouldn’t affect the buttercream.
After the appointment: Follow up.
Whether to send a follow up email after the appointment is something that you can decide based on your comfort level with spamming people.
I personally did NOT send follow ups unless it’s to send someone a contract or some information about the cake that I wasn’t able to get to them during the meeting.
I did tell them during the meeting that I didn’t email after the meeting, though, so they weren’t expecting me to. I just told them that I didn’t want to harass them, so if they wanted to ask me more questions or get more information to please get in touch, but that I wouldn’t be bothering them with unnecessary emails.
Some decorators will send a short email thanking the couple for coming, with the idea of keeping you in their minds. If you want to do that I’d do it the day after the appointment, or at least by a couple of days afterward so that it’s a natural continuation of the appointment.
If you wait too long it can be perceived as being a sneaky reminder to hire you.
Keep any follow up positive, and if the customer responds by saying they’re decided to go with someone else don’t respond rudely, if at all. A simple “it was nice meeting you, best wishes for your wedding” or something neutral like that will do.
I had a client who told me about another decorator who emailed repeatedly after the appointment asking if they had made a decision about whether to hire him or not. When they responded that they hadn’t made a decision and were still going to meet with someone else, he began to ask them why and had some derogatory things to say about the person they were going to see. Do not respond like that.
Things that you should do as a follow up if the customer did hire you during the appointment is to send a copy of the contract as soon as possible. If you told them that you’d follow up with some more information, send that as soon as possible too. The same day would be best.
If you have a hold on their date for a certain amount of time, you should send a reminder about that a day before the time will expire as a courtesy. However, if people are going to hire you they would probably have the date in mind, so don’t be a pest about it. One reminder is all you need to send, and any more than that is spam.
Problems during the appointment.
It will eventually happen…You’ll run into some weird situation during a tasting appointment that you didn’t anticipate. If anything happens to throw you off, just try to keep a level head and be professional.
The surprise appointment.
Sometimes people will show up without an appointment. This can happen if you post what time you’re doing appointments on your website and people decide to just drop by. I’ve also had brides bring friends who are also getting married without bothering to tell me.
I started bringing an extra box of samples to appointments in case this happened to me. That way you’re not turning a potential client away, and even if you don’t have time to sit down with them you can get their contact information and get in touch later that day.
Follow up with them later and try to set up another appointment to talk design. Since you already gave them samples this can be done at a time when you’re not necessarily doing tastings.
Bad chemistry.
Sometimes you just get the feeling that you and the customer are not going to work well together.
I can usually tell within 5 seconds of the start of the appointment whether the client is going to be someone I can work with, or whether it’s just not going to work.
Trust the feeling that you get, and if someone gives you a bad feeling don’t encourage them to hire you! Nine out of ten times when a decorator says they had a problem with a customer they start by saying “I had a bad feeling about this one from the beginning, but I took the job anyway.” Trust your gut!
If someone comes in and is rude or abusive you have every right to ask them to leave, or to just end the meeting early.
You don’t have to take abuse.
I’ve also had people speaking in a different language that I happen to understand in front of me, and I always enjoy commenting on what they said in English.
If they don’t speak English that’s one thing, but a lot of people assume that they can talk in front of people and they won’t be understood, which generally leads them to say things they probably wouldn’t have said otherwise.
Indicating that you know what they’re saying lets them know that they need to watch it. And if they were being rude it’s fun to “surprise” them, too.
Remember that not everyone is your client, and there’s no reason that you have to take every job that comes your way. If you feel like the client isn’t going to be someone you can work with, refer them to someone you feel would be a better fit.
Chances are, though, that you won’t need to do that, since bad chemistry can be felt by both parties and they might not want to work with you either!
I once had a client who brought her grandmother with her to the appointment. This lady was a very proper old-money type who spent the whole appointment sizing me up and giving me the stink eye. She asked me some strange questions that made me feel like she didn’t trust me to do the job right, and I was relieved when they left without putting down a deposit. I didn’t hear back from her for a few weeks, and her date booked up. Then I received her signed contract in the mail…I didn’t feel bad about having to tell her that her date had been taken because I had a bad feeling that the questions and mistrust wouldn’t have stopped when they hired me!
Uninvited guests.
No matter how thorough you are in your communication about how many people can come to the appointment, some people will bring little kids or extra people without asking.
You’ll need to accommodate the extras or be willing to ask that they stay outside with the kids so that you can concentrate on the business at hand. Doing that can really offend people, so be prepared to have them leave in a huff.
I have a small office, so that’s my “out” as far as allowing people to bring a giant entourage with them.
Even so, I’ve still had people show up with the couple, both sets of parents, all of the bridesmaids and a couple of random siblings.
I mentioned groups like this earlier in the section about controlling the appointment, for good reason. This type of large group tends to be louder than a normal group, and they tend to take longer because everyone wants to “contribute” something.
When you see a group of ten people coming toward your house or office space, you need to change your meeting strategy.
First, don’t even plan on doing the tastings during the meeting. A lot of people eating cake will slow the process down so much it will throw your entire schedule off.
This is a good reason to have a box or two of “to-go” samples with you at every appointment, just in case.
Kids or no kids?
After several bad experiences with kids at appointments, I started requesting that people not bring children with them, since a tasting appointment is a business meeting, and business needs to be discussed.
Sometimes that’s not possible and people have to bring a little kid with them, but I think that it’s best to try to avoid that.
If you’ve asked that people leaves their kids at home and they bring them anyway, just go through the entire meeting as fast as you can unless the child is well-behaved.
I had a meeting once where the client brought 5 kids with her and they literally spent the whole time crawling around under the table and running around in the hallway. Just get those people in and out as fast as you can.
If you do tastings at your home, you really need to watch out for the extra kids, because they’ll just randomly leave and wander around your house.
When I was doing appointments at home I had kids try to go and play with my kids’ toys more than once. And one time the groom went WITH the kid, just got up and walked into the playroom. Are you kidding me? Those are the people who get the to-go samples.
Some people are so oblivious to the limits you try to set and their kids’ behavior it could affect them hiring you, and that’s okay!
I once had a bride email me an angry letter after I sent my basic informational email to confirm her appointment. It says to please leave children at home or arrange to have someone there to stay outside with them during the appointment, and she apparently didn’t take kindly to the idea of leaving her 7 kids at home.
She informed me that the kids were an important part of the wedding and if they couldn’t be included in the cake meeting they wouldn’t be coming. Fine with me, because the idea of 7 kids piping in with opinions while shoving cake down their throats really didn’t sound appealing or productive to me.
Decorator mistakes.
Sometimes the clients follow all the guidelines, and it’s the decorator who’s responsible for making the appointments less than efficient. Here are some issues that you might want to watch for and correct in yourself!
Being too chatty.
Sometimes people are just friendly…Or nervous, or unsure of how to act. So they get chatty to fill in gaps in the conversation, or they feed off of the chattiness of the customers, or whatever causes it.
If you’re the type of person who enjoys chatting with people, that can be good to make people feel comfortable, but you don’t want to make them feel so comfortable they linger and waste your time.
Sometimes I have clients who have multiple children whose cakes I’ve done, or who I know from other situations. I know that they’re going to come in and want to spend some time chatting and catching up.
If you know that you have an appointment like that scheduled, be ready and start out by saying something like “We have a lot to go over, but I want to catch up for a few minutes.”
Then spend A FEW MINUTES catching up and move right along into the appointment and the business at hand. After a bit say “I’m glad you’ve all been doing well. And now we have another cake to plan for, which is exciting! What kind of design are you thinking of for this one?”
Another thing that can happen is a customer who just wants to divulge way too much personal information and personal anecdotes during the appointment. Who knows why, but some people just enjoy telling anyone who will listen about themselves.
If you get a client like that the best thing to do is to just not enter into the conversation. If they want to tell you stuff you can listen but don’t comment other than neutral uh-huhs and sympathetic nodding.
If you don’t respond in kind it will diffuse the situation and you’ll be able to steer things back to the contract or design or whatever you were discussing.
Being unorganized.
If you have to get up ten times during the appointment to look for things it can derail any progress that you’ve made in getting the client to be on your side. While you’re up looking around for something you’re missing, they’re thinking that you really don’t have it all together.
Make sure that you have any paperwork, pens, computers, price lists, or other materials you’ll need within reach.
When I set up for appointments I put the intake forms for each client with a contract and a list of flavors so that all of the paperwork for each client was ready to go.
Not wanting to be “mean.”
There will be times when you can’t tell a customer “yes.” If she wants an ice cream cake on a beach in the summer, if she wants seven tiers for $100, if she wants you to deliver 5 hours away for free, whatever it is, the time will come when you have to say no.
SAYING “NO” DOES NOT MAKE YOU MEAN. It just means that they’ve asked you for something that you can’t provide.
If someone comes in with a completely irrational budget based on what design they want, you have to tell them that what they want isn’t possible.
But then you should give them alternatives. If you say “I can’t do this, BUT I could do this or that instead” people may be disappointed, but they won’t be able to say that you weren’t trying to help them!
You have to remember that you’re the expert and they probably have no idea how much cakes cost or how much they should budget. Don’t take it personally, and don’t give in and tell people that things are possible because you’re afraid they won’t like you if you don’t give them what they want.
Over 20 years of doing cakes I’ve had to tell hundreds of people that their date was taken, their design idea wouldn’t work, their budget wouldn’t fit with what they needed, etc. etc., the list goes on.
As long as you keep the message matter-of-fact and try to provide alternatives it’s not mean, it’s business.
Not paying attention to the bride.
Every now and then there will be an appointment where you just “click” with someone other than the bride. Or there might be someone there who’s loud and wants to draw attention to herself at take the spotlight from the bride.
Remember that the bride is the one you should be paying attention to (and the groom if he’s there.) Be aware of who the “decision maker” is, but even if that isn’t the bride, she’s the one you should focus on.
I’ve had meetings where the father of the bride doesn’t let the bride get a word in edgewise, speaks for her, and is generally a bossy big mouth because he’s paying for the cake and is mad that his daughter is getting married.
I definitely engage with him, but when it’s time to talk about design I turn and speak directly to the bride.
Any opportunity I have to talk directly to her, I’ll take it. Sucking up to the father won’t accomplish anything but make the bride mad that someone else isn’t on her side.
There are also appointments where a bridesmaid or a sibling is obviously trying to get attention for herself.
Just be aware that weddings bring out the jealousy, sibling rivalry and petty behavior that lies below the surface of a lot of relationships.
You don’t need to engage with this, just concentrate on the bride and direct your questions and attention to her.
If a bride leaves a meeting thinking like she was treated like a second-class citizen, it’s unlikely that she’ll want to hire you.
Remember that you’re in charge.
The most important thing to remember when you do tastings is that you’re the boss of the appointment, it’s your business, and you run it how you see fit.
Set whatever limits for them that work for you, and don’t feel that you have to do things the way that other people do them, or that the customer is insisting that you do them. You’re in charge!
Take a look at the next sections, which include some things that customers might say and situations that you might run into during an appointment.
Go through them and think about what you would say if someone asked you something similar. Prepare a response so that when the time comes that you do have to answer a weird question, you have some ideas already.
Awkward situations that might come up during tasting appointments.
Sometimes something happens during an appointment that’s just totally out of the ordinary and makes you want to go rewrite your policies after the customer leaves.
Earlier, I mentioned a group who arrived with ten people, a group with little kids who crawled all over the office, and a group who wanted to come over and have dessert after they went out for dinner.
Those were all unusual, but there are some situations that happen more often than you’d imagine.
The bickering group.
It’s more common than you think to have a group arrive for an appointment that is just ready to fight with each other.
Either it’s the bride and groom’s mothers who disagree with everything the other one thinks and spend the entire meeting slinging little passive-aggressive comments, or the bride and groom who are mad about something and bring it into the appointment with them…You’ll have to deal with the tension at some point.
The solution to this is to TOTALLY IGNORE IT. It has nothing to do with you and you’re not going to make them stop fighting and hug it out. Just follow your meeting script and see if they start to relax as they pay attention to something other than their argument.
When you get to the tasting part, do a quick assessment of how sour the atmosphere is and act accordingly.
If they’re still seething, ask if they’d like to take the samples home with them so they can try them in private.
Cross your fingers that they say yes, because in general, if a couple comes to an appointment in a bad mood it’s unusual that they end up booking with you. Just get them out of there and let them go home and argue in private.
If they’re still angry but you really want to try to make it through the tasting, focus on the bride and let the other people snark at each other. Keep her focused on the cake and answer her questions, let her be the center of your attention.
If they’ve calmed down and you think that you can get through the tasting part relatively unscathed, go ahead and serve the samples.
Sometimes the food will cheer people up, and if they all agree on a cake flavor being delicious that can calm the tension down a little. If they leave in a better mood than the one they came in with, that makes you look good. But don’t push your luck.
The oversharing customer.
Occasionally you’ll get a client who thinks that you’re their psychiatrist. DO NOT FEED INTO THIS!! The more that you sympathize and engage with them the more they’ll monopolize your time.
I have a decorator friend who seems to attract every oversharer in a 50-mile radius.
She’s had people tell her about their sex lives during appointments, and someone show up for appointments in tears about something then stay for 90 minutes talking about her woes, among others.
Some people are just more in-your-face than others, so if you get caught with one of these customers you’ll need to stay very professional and stay at arm’s length.
DO NOT ask leading personal questions, keep the conversation on the cake or the contract or whatever is applicable.
And whatever you do, DO NOT relate personal anecdotes that are similar to the customer’s situation. Keep your mouth shut for a myriad of reasons.
You’ll be perceived as less professional if you spill your guts about your personal life, and if what you’re talking about isn’t something you especially want people to spread around town, be aware that it might be spread around town.
If you do tastings from your home this is going to be more of a problem for you because people tend to perceive being in someone’s house as less of a business environment.
If you meet in a public place people are less likely to be dramatic, and if you meet in an office people tend to act in a more reserved manner.
So let’s say that you’re meeting with someone at home, and they just start telling you things that you really don’t need to know.
This is the kind of situation where you have to be direct and move it back to the cake, even if it means interrupting a conversation to move back to the topic at hand.
Let’s say that you have a group of four women who came in and somehow got on the subject of the bachelorette party and the male stripper they’re going to hire the bride. They’re cackling and ignoring you and you’re getting nothing done.
You need to totally redirect that energy, probably using humor. Say something like “Although I appreciate this topic as much as anyone else, I really need to get you all to focus on the cake so that this conversation doesn’t overheat.” They’ll all cackle some more, but they’ll start eating.
If someone says something REALLY lewd (and it has happened), you need to just shut the whole thing down ASAP. Ignore the comment and finish up to get them out of there.
Not acknowledging the comments is sometimes the best thing to do unless you really feel like you have to say something. I’d say that if you are completely and utterly offended by something that someone has said you’re certainly within your rights to speak up.
This includes people who make racist remarks, rude comments about you or your business, etc. Just don’t expect to get that job…But would you want it anyway? I didn’t think so.
And on that note, let’s talk about people who don’t deserve your patience.
The abusive customer.
I’ve had bickering couples come to appointments before, but only once have I had a groom who was so rude to his fiancé that I was so taken aback I didn’t know what to say.
This guy spent the whole time telling his fiancé that her opinions were stupid, she was dumb, rolling his eyes whenever she said anything, the list goes on.
She just sat there and took it, which said to me that she was used to this kind of treatment. At one point he turned to me and said something along the lines of “See? This is always what happens. She does this all the time” when she was undecided about something.
I gave him the “mom look” and told him that she was allowed to be undecided and that she wasn’t stupid. He gave me a surprised look and hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth again, but it didn’t completely stop him.
It was such shocking behavior, and I’d never had it happen before, that I didn’t know how to handle it at the time.
However, in retrospect, I’ve promised myself that if I ever met with anyone (regardless of whether it was the bride or the groom) who treated their partner that way, I would tell them to stop it, and I’d look the victim in the eye and tell them they didn’t deserve to be treated like that and to run far away.
Yeah, the rotten groom might have been offended, but I don’t care. If someone is being treated like dirt they need someone to stand up for them. Their dignity is worth more than booking a cake would be to me.
The hungover customer.
If someone arrives to the meeting and they’re hung over or otherwise sick, it’s going to be pretty obvious.
I’ve had grooms who looked like they were hit by a truck sitting forlornly at the table, and brides who ran outside to throw up in the bushes due to a stomach bug (at least that’s what she said.)
If someone is obviously not feeling well you should offer to send the samples home with them.
The hungover grooms generally say that they don’t want to eat cake, so that way they can wait until they’re not sick to try it. You also don’t want someone to lose it and throw up all over your meeting space. Just don’t even bother.
The phone addict.
Sometimes people will answer a phone call during a meeting and talk, talk, talk.
Or they’re attached to their phone, texting someone the entire time. If they’re that oblivious to basic courtesy it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to train them during the time you have with them, but you can definitely make it more appealing to them to get off the phone if you get the samples out.
They probably can’t sample cake and text at the same time if they have a fork in their hand.
Just bring out the samples and give them to everyone except the person on the phone, keep those in front of you until they hang up.
If everyone in their group is eating they’ll be far more likely to get off the phone and pay attention. At that point you can keep asking them about the cake details and design.
If the phone rings again you can say something like “Could you let that go to voice mail? I’m almost done and just need a few more details from you before my next appointment arrives.”
Use an apologetic tone, like you know how rude it is of you to ask them to pay attention but you REALLY just need to inconvenience them for a few more minutes.
If they say they have to answer it you have the answer to how important this cake is to them, which is not very important at all.
While she’s yammering away just finish up with the other people in the group and stand up to indicate that the meeting is over when you’re done.
If she suddenly wants to get off the phone and talk then, you can answer some quick questions, but tell her that you need to wrap the appointment up so that you can prep for your next client. Invite her to email (or text) you if she thinks of anything she forgot to ask during the meeting.
The unexpected customer.
There will occasionally be someone who shows up unannounced and expects you to cater to them anyway.
This will happen far more often if you do appointments from home.
I’d suggest that if you do work from home you do NOT put your address on your website or on any other communication.
If there’s a field that requires your address somewhere put “By appointment only” as the first line in your address, then the city and zip code.
If you open your door and someone is standing there expecting that you’ll be available, just tell them that you work by appointment only.
Have them give you their email address (don’t invite them into your house, are you crazy?) and tell them that you’ll get back to them to get their details.
Some people will be offended that you aren’t going to drop everything and cater to them, but you need to remember that if you’re acting in a professional capacity you need to have limits.
I wouldn’t show up at any business that works on an appointment basis and expect to be seen right away.
Even hair salons that offer walk-in service will make you wait until they can fit you in.
Doctors and other businesses where you need an appointment won’t change their schedules just because someone shows up and expects to be seen, so why should you?
If someone shows up during scheduled appointment hours without an appointment (this is unusual if you charge for appointments but it does happen) you’ll need to figure out whether you can fit them in (did you bring extra samples?) or whether you’ll need to schedule something else for them. I
f you can’t see them that day, get their email and get back to them with some other times that you’ll be available.
If you can see them that day you’ll need to make sure they know there’s a fee for appointments and get the payment then.
Don’t let people push you around from the beginning because that kind of behavior doesn’t get better over time, it just gets worse!
The no-show.
The no show is less of an uncomfortable situation and more of a super annoying one.
Charging for appointments is the best way to reduce your no-show rate. When I email to confirm appointments I send people this:
This is to confirm our appointment at — o’clock this Saturday the —-. We’ll be meeting at my office, (enter address), and my phone number for that day will be —–. I’ll be sending a PayPal invoice for the appointment fee, and once you pay that the appointment will be confirmed. It needs to be paid by Thursday so that I can put the samples together on Friday. If I don’t have it by Thursday I’ll assume that you don’t need the appointment anymore and will cancel. The fee is non-refundable, so please make sure that you can be there before paying it!
So that tells them that they have to pay it or they won’t have an appointment. I send that email on the Tuesday before Saturday appointments, and I do the invoices immediately after sending the email.
People usually pay it right away, but if they don’t I’ll send a reminder on Thursday morning:
“Hi, —, Just a reminder that the appointment fee for Saturday is due today, so I wanted to make sure you know that I need to receive it by the end of the business day. If you don’t need the appointment anymore no need to respond, I’ll cancel the appointment if the invoice isn’t paid by the end of business today.”
I’ve had some people just never respond to the first email, but people usually write back and say whether they’re coming or not. And if they don’t pay the invoice I cancel the appointment.
If they do show up after not confirming I’d reschedule their appointment.
If I take the time to send two emails and an invoice and they don’t respond at all I would trust my instinct about irresponsible people who might not feel like they need to pay bills on time. (I’ll add that when I email people I go to the last email they sent to me and respond from that so that I know it’s going to the right email and not sent to spam or the wrong email address.)
Which forms to use.
Following are a few forms that I’ve used or my friends have used during their tasting appointments and leading up to them. They may or may not fit with what you need, but if you have versions of these you’ll pretty much cover yourself.
- A sample tasting form that you can give to clients while they taste cake to make notes about what they liked. (Or you can do it while they eat.) Change the flavors to the ones that you’re giving out at that meeting.
- Intake form to fill out when someone calls for information (you don’t need all of this information to set up an appointment, but a lot of is it helpful to determine whether you can do the cake within their budget.)
- Sample flavor chart to give to clients to show them the full range of flavors that you offer (send this home with them).
You can get my intake forms on Zazzle with your personal business details here: Cake Intake Form.
Responses to weird customer questions.
One of the most difficult things to do is to know what to say if clients say or do something you’re not expecting.
Here are some possible responses to keep you on track and unsurprised. The idea is to not react, and to divert attention from the fact that something “off” just happened and steer the conversation back to the topic of the cake.
Every single one of these examples is something that actually was said to me or one of my at-home baker friends, so I’m not making this stuff up.
Did you make all of these cakes yourself? (While looking at your photo books or website.) –Yes, and that’s a good question to ask, because some people use photos of cakes they haven’t made. –Absolutely, and I’ll be the only person handling your cake so you can be sure that I’ll be the one to quality control the baking and decorating.
Do you cut and serve the cake yourself? –I put them together, but the catering people will usually be the ones to cut it! I get in and out and do the setup before your guests arrive, so you probably won’t even see me on the wedding day. Well, CAN you if we need you to? –It would depend on my other deliveries, and I’d have to charge a fee for the time I spent at the reception waiting for the cake cutting. I could supply a cutting chart for someone to use if you have a friend or relative who could do it for you. -or- –No, I don’t offer that service. I can provide a cutting chart for someone if you have a friend or relative who could do it for you.
Another baker told me (fill in a stupid thing someone else told them) –Everyone does things differently, but I can do (the thing). (Then explain how you do the thing the other person said can’t be done.) Why did they tell me you can’t do that? –I can’t speak for anyone else, but it can be done. They might not have anyone working for them with experience in that area so they prefer not to do it, or maybe they’ve never done it and they don’t want to promise something to you they weren’t sure of. I can do it for you, though.
Can you make the icing less sweet/Change your cake recipe? –Icing has sugar, so it’s going to be sweet, but a meringue buttercream might be more your style. It’s a little richer and less sweet than the American buttercream. We’d have to decide on a cake design before I saw whether I could use it on your cake or not. –I don’t change my recipes, I know how they work after using them, and the department of health has approved all of them so I can’t mess around with them. (Blame it on the government.)
I don’t want fondant, but my reception is going to be outside in the summer. –I don’t do buttercream outside in the summer, it’s too risky for the cake melting. Well, baker XYZ said they could do it. –Sometimes people will replace all of the butter in their icing with Crisco. That might make the icing hold up a little longer, but if it’s really hot it will still melt. I just require fondant in the summer unless the cake will be inside, it’s my policy because it protects the cake I know that you don’t want to do it. I don’t care, I don’t want fondant. So the question is, are you going to do it or not? –No, I can’t do that. You should get that other person to do it if they said they’re willing to risk it.
I’m ready to hire you, but I want you to change these sections of your contract first. –I’m sorry, but my contract isn’t negotiable. I understand if you don’t want to hire me because of that, but I had an attorney go over it and I don’t want to invalidate any of it by changing things at this point. If I wanted to sue you I could get an attorney to rip this contract apart, so it doesn’t matter if we change it. –I’m sorry, it’s just not possible for me to do that. Are you refusing to take my order? –No, but I’m refusing to change my contract. You might want to try XYZ Baker, they might be more of what you’re looking for. (Then give them the name of someone you don’t like.) Do NOT take an order from this person regardless.
We want to hire you, but we got a quote from XYZ baker and they say they can do it for less, so we wanted to know if you would meet their price. –I don’t match prices because I’ve worked out my pricing based on my costs and experience. I understand if my pricing doesn’t fit with your budget, just let me know what you decide. –Or— –I can waive the delivery fee, but that’s as far as I can go to discount. (Or give whatever discount you want to.)
What happens if you get sick and can’t make the cake? –I have friends who do cakes who I could call to finish the work that I need to do. I also have an entire section in my contract about what refunds would be given based on how much of the work I didn’t do, so I’ve thought of that before and do have measures in place to cover that!
What if you get in a car accident on the way to deliver the cake and you die? –If I’m dead I won’t be worrying about it. (Sometimes humor is the only response to a question like that. Then you can tell them about your refund policy. And yes, I had someone ask me this question.)
I want to do a small wedding cake and put cupcakes from Costco around it, nobody will be able to tell the difference anyway, no offense. –People will definitely be able to tell the difference, there’s a big difference in quality between a custom cake and a discount grocery store cake. I assume that you’re doing that to save money? What budget do you want to stay within? I can try to do something that will fit with your budget, but I do have a XXXXX minimum order amount. –Or— –I won’t do that. I have a clause in my contract that says that no other baked goods will be served if I do the cake. That’s to protect my reputation as a baker, because I don’t want anyone to eat a grocery store cupcake and think that I made it. I’m sure you understand the quality issue and why I have to enforce that.
My friend does cakes and she’s going to be in touch with you to give you tips about how to do the cake that I want. –That’s generous of her, but I’ll be fine. If you’d like to give me her email address I’ll get in touch with her if I need help. (Email you then receive) Hi, I’m Susie Q’s friend, I’m going to help you make the cake. –Hi—Thanks for getting in touch. I’m all set for the cake, so I appreciate your offer but I don’t need any help at this point. I’ll definitely get in touch if I need some advice. (i.e when hell freezes over.)
These flavors are all good. Can I also try some cannoli filling, some Bailey’s filling and some white chocolate champagne cake? –I do basic samples for tastings so that you can get a general idea of what my cake is like. If you liked these that’s a good indication that you’ll like the other flavors I make, but if you’d like to buy a sample cake to try something specific you can place an order with me for next week.
My family and I are going out to dinner. Can we stop by after that to have some cake samples for dessert? –No. The next time I have appointments will be on XYZ date. If that works for you we can arrange something. I also have a $$$ appointment fee to confirm the meeting.
(Little darling child tasting cake) I don’t like this. Yuck! –Ha ha…Kids. Most kids don’t like flavors other than chocolate and vanilla, they haven’t developed an appreciation for different flavors yet. (Make a note to tell people they can’t bring kids with them.)
This is almond, right? I’m allergic to nuts. (while shoving cake in their mouths) –Oh, don’t eat it then! Oh, that’s okay, it just makes me kind of itchy. –I can avoid nuts if you let me know in advance. If someone has a serious allergy you should avoid the nuts completely, or tell them to not eat the cake!
The client who requested all alcohol-based fillings then brings a baby with them and starts giving the baby the booze cakes: –You realize that has alcohol in it? You shouldn’t give it to a baby. It does? –Those are the flavors you requested, Bailey’s and Amaretto. Those are real liqueurs. If you’d like non-alcoholic versions of them you could tell me in advance and I could arrange that, but the ones I have here have real alcohol in them.
Will you be making a prototype cake beforehand so that we can approve it? –No, that would involve you buying a second cake from me. It wouldn’t end up being exactly the same as the wedding cake anyway since each one will be handmade and will vary a little. I can do a sketch for you to see what it will look like once you’ve hired me if you’d like me to do that for you.
This is really good. Can I have the recipe? –I don’t give out my recipes because that’s a trade secret. I’m glad you like it, though. Would you like to have that flavor as one of the tiers on your cake?
I want this cake, but I don’t want fondant (Looking at something that’s totally covered in fondant.) –I can do it in buttercream, but it really won’t look exactly the same. I’ll have to adapt some things to make the buttercream work, so if that’s okay I can do an approximation. –or— –No, that won’t work for this particular design because it requires fondant to work. If I tried to adapt it to buttercream there’s a good chance that it won’t look anything at all like this picture.
I like the design, but I think I’d like it to be bigger. Can we make it five tiers instead of four? And make the fifth tier a fake one, so the price will be the same. –That would still increase the price because it takes just as long to decorate a fake tier as it does a real one. With custom cakes the cost of the ingredients isn’t the main part of the price, it’s the time that it takes to decorate it.
The entire wedding industry is such a total scam. (Yes, someone actually said that to me before. And they waived their right to a polite reply.) –That seems to be a common misperception, but I can guarantee you that none of the wedding professionals I know are living in mansions and sitting around eating bon bons all day. I know how expensive weddings can be, but you’re basically taking 150 people out for dinner, dessert and dancing and provide the musicians and all of the rentals. It’s all going to add up. Are you having trouble with your budget? The easiest way of reducing your costs is to cut your guest list. (Then let them squirm for a minute.)
I have a friend who does cakes, and I want to give her a chance at it. We’ll get back to you. –Okay, just let me know what you decide. (Then start charging for appointments if you don’t already.)
We’ve been to ten bakers and I really like XYZ. Can you make your cake more like hers? –We probably use different recipes, so no. What was it about that cake that you liked? (Sometimes you find out that they prefer a confectioner’s sugar buttercream and you use meringue, for example, and you can tell them that you can do that. Or you find out that the other baker only makes pound cake and you don’t do pound cake, so you can’t help them…In that case, be your normal charming self, continue promoting your cake, finish up and thank them for coming, but don’t be surprised when they to go with the other person.)
Is there a way to make this cake the same but with a fluffier texture/less sweet/less dense? –Not really, all of my recipes are pretty well-tested and approved by the health department, so I can’t make changes to them.
We want to hire you but want to know if you’ll waive your delivery fee since your office is so close to the venue. -I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. I deliver everything from my home, which is half an hour away from my office, and your cake is going to require time at the site to do the setup to make it look right. The delivery fee also covers that setup, so I can’t waive it because it covers my time on site.
Do you do discounts for military/teachers/police/firefighters? -Yes –Or— -No, I’m sorry but I don’t offer discounts.
Your cake is really dry. (While they’re still eating every bite and licking the plates.) -I’m sorry you feel that way. Maybe you’re used to a different type of cake, but we can wrap this up now since you’re obviously not going to want to hire me if you don’t like the cake.
Where’s the coffee? You should have coffee to go with the cake. -I don’t do that because the taste and smell of coffee can mask the flavor of the cake and I want you to be able to taste it. I do have this water if you’d like another bottle.
My mother is making me use XYZ bakery, but I just wanted to go to a bunch of appointments to get the full wedding planning experience. -Is that a definite decision, or can I show you why you’re going to be happier with a cake that I make for you? (You do charge for appointments, don’t you?) Oh, it’s definite. She used them for her wedding and she won’t pay for the cake unless they do it. -Well, they do nice work and I’m sure you’ll be happy with that. I think I can give you a cake that would make you much happier, though!
You should give out more free cake. (I provide enough samples for four people) -Hahaha! It is good, isn’t it? I bake everything from scratch, so people do appreciate the difference when they taste it. Which flavor of the samples did you like best? (Say this while you’re thinking “It’s a tasting, not a meal.”)
My Aunt decided to do my cake, so she wanted to know if she can come watch you make some cakes so she can learn how to do it. -Sure, I do private lessons. The one on making a wedding cake is $250 for two hours and she would need to provide all of the materials, including the cakes and icing. Have her give me a call to schedule that and get a list of the supplies she’ll need.
We want to do a small groom’s cake but only for about ten people. -I have a $$$ minimum, so I can do a groom’s cake, but ten servings is really, really small and unless it’s a tiny round cake it won’t work. I’d recommend doing a larger groom’s cake and reducing the size of the wedding cake so that you make up the serving count there, and it will also keep your budget on track.
