197 – Creating Edible Fabric! with Marilyn and Joe Bawol of Unique Flexique ®

Gift biz unwrapped episode 197 there's no stopping the flexi egg

Attention gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun whether

you have an established business or looking to start one.

Now you are in the right place.

This is give to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.

Hi there Sue and thank you so much for joining me

today on the podcast.

You know,

often I'll get the question of I want to start a

business but I have no idea what it should be.

And one of the things I tell people is,

well look and see what is challenging for you as you

go. Oh,

around your regular day to day life.

Something that's missing,

something that you wish you had,

something that if it was created could make your life easier.

Or in the case of our guests today,

more creative.

Who would have ever thought about edible clothing?

Crazy isn't it?

But creative ideas for products come up every day.

The thing is are they acted upon?

I can't wait for you to listen to Marilyn and Joe's

story about how the product was identified and then how they

actually brought it to reality.

Is there an idea that you have that's just brewing in

the back of your mind?

This may be the trigger to make you get started and

create a new product that all of us want.

Today my guests are Marilyn and Joe Bay wall,

a natural born artist.

Marilyn thrives on combining her well honed sculpture and painting skills

with her talent and passion for baking and edible creations.

As the owner and creative director of unique cakes,

she specializes in nontraditional wedding cakes,

three-dimensional sculpted cakes and blown and pulled sugar amenities.

Her constant experimentation with different products and processes eventually led to

her discovery of a unique edible fabric like compound called flex

seek. This has been received with international acclaim for its unique

variety of uses.

As co owner of her second business,

unique flex seek Maryland has pioneered new techniques in cake decorating

and is the authority on all applications of the flexi line

of products.

Joe has been instrumental in running the operations of Maryland's cake

business and understands the cake community.

He is also the co owner of unique flex seek which

produces the revolutionary flex seek product line.

Welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast,

Marilyn and Joe.

Hi, how are you doing?

Hey, I'm doing great and I am so excited to share

what flex seek is all about with our audience.

We're glad to be able to be part of it.

So I know you guys are allowed to fund too because

I met you at the ultimate sugar show and we were

right across our booths were right across from each other.

It was a fun gig.

It sure was.

So for our audience to get to know you a little

bit better,

I'd like to have you describe yourself and I guess you're

going to do it as a combo.

I'm not sure,

but by way of a motivational candle.

So if you were to help us visualize a color and

a quote that would perfectly describe what you're all about,

what would your motivational candle look like?

We talked about that a little bit and I think Maryland's

got the great idea on the answer to that question.

Take it away.

Wow. It changes often,

but right now my favorite color is purple.

Maybe a drippy purple,

but purple.

Is it a Royal deep purple or a lilac purple?

Deep purple.

Because what it means to me is to give,

is to get,

the more I give,

the more I get back and I want to share everything

that I do.

It just makes me crazy.

I can't get it out there fast enough.

It's so true.

When you give and give and give,

it also comes back to you almost effortlessly.

I feel I have to kind of add to that because

I find that Maryland is one of those people that doesn't

like to keep a secret.

When she finds out something like a use for the product,

she'll broadcast that to everybody.

Anybody that asks,

she'll give them recipes,

she'll give them techniques and anybody that attends her classes finds

that gives them more than just the syllabus.

Anything that's on her mind,

any questions that people ask you answer them.

Yeah, and sometimes we do two or three different things in

the class rather than not rather than,

but beyond what we were supposed to be learning.

Okay, so you're going to be so sad that you just

told me that because now I'm like opening up new ideas

to things that we're going to talk about.

So we may be in for some secrets being revealed here.

Who knows?

Another reason why I think she chose purple is because the

label color on our flex seek instant lace happens to be

a light purple.

I like color.

So that kind of fits in with a theme,

doesn't it?

Oh it does.

All right,

so let's get into this and I want to start with

unique cakes and how that all came about and then we're

going to get into the whole flex seek portion as well.

So unique cakes.

Okay. So I am an artist at heart.

I've always been an artist and I was a hairdresser.

I did stain glass,

I did oil painting,

all kinds of crafts,

anything I can get my hands on and I'm a foodie

and so anytime anybody had a birthday or a wedding or

whatever, my gift to them would be a cake.

Now, at the time,

I did not know Virginia was one of the States where

you could have a cottage industry and actually have a business

in your own home and there are several,

I know of Virginia and Florida,

but it started out as a hobby kind of thing and

my neighbor said,

your kicks are so beautiful.

Why don't you make a business out of it?

And that is how it started.

Actually. Of course I use,

Joe is my techie.

I don't do anything on computers.

If you are talking to me on the computer,

you're not talking to me,

you're talking to Joe.

I do all the hand work and he does all the

business side.

It was the learning experience for us.

Let me tell you,

it seems ominous when you look at starting a business.

So wow,

that's a lot of work.

I can't do that.

Well actually you can.

If you do a little bit of research in your state,

there are all kinds of guides that walk you through how

to establish a business,

what forms you need to have in place,

what inspections,

what this,

what that.

And then there's also your local SBA or small business administration.

That's very helpful in getting the business started.

So that's what we did.

I love that you started with this portion,

Maryland, where you were talking about how you were an artist

of a lot of different things.

So here's a question for you in that.

If it wasn't cakes,

if someone would have come and said,

your stain glass is so beautiful,

you should think about selling that.

Would you have gone the stain glass route instead of the

bakery route?

Now you know,

I have to keep doing something different all the time.

I did sell my stained glass and I love doing it.

I still do it off and on.

As a matter of fact,

one of the classes I do with my flex sake is

stain glass.

Oh, so you're incorporating some of the other crafting into the

base of the cake design then,

right? Well,

every artist does that.

I mean,

if you have it in you,

it's in your fingers and you just want to keep doing

and doing and just everything kind of rolls together.

So how confident are you that you'll stay with this if

you'd like to keep changing things?

Well, I had my cake business for a long time before

we started flexi.

Now flexi is very time consuming for us,

going to a lot of shows and making classes and that

type of thing.

And so as we're getting to be senior citizens,

it's getting to be a little much for everything.

But I'm still,

I may tone down on cakes a little bit.

That's the good thing about having your own business that I

can pick and choose what I want to do when I

want to do it.

Right. If we're going to a show,

then I will not take a cake that weekend.

But I think there's no stopping the flexi seek,

that's for sure.

And the deal with like seek is that there are so

many different,

and we're going to get into this later,

I'm sure,

but there are so many different things that you can do

with the product line that I think the possibilities are endless

and she can continue to do things and get her artistic

release without having to go into a different business.

Let's stay back in the beginning Of unique cakes.

So yes,

I mean,

when you are doing a consumable product,

do you have all the issues of can you do a

cottage industry or other people,

you know,

are you going to be able to get your kitchen approved?

Do you need to go to a commercial kitchen?

All of that type of thing.

But once that was all figured out,

and I love Joe that you said,

you know,

it's really just research.

The information is available.

You just have to go and look forward to it.

It's really not that hard to find it.

So it's,

this isn't a barrier that should stop you for sure.

Right. But then once you've gotten going,

how do you get customers?

Well, there are several ways.

First of all,

word of mouth.

I mean,

yeah, word of mouth,

but then there are cake bridal shows.

You go to the different,

the chamber of commerce.

So local in your area you mean?

Right. Yeah.

Okay. I joined the chamber of commerce group like Joe was

talking about,

and you get contacts that way.

That group recommends you,

you recommend each other to all your clients.

Yeah. Once it gets going,

if you really have your heart into it,

it spreads like wildfire.

You really don't have to do that much.

Right. And of course getting a good website and Facebook page,

Oh, that's true.

Social media marketing is involved nowadays.

Pick up yourself,

a good techie like I did It.

Does he happen to be sitting right next to you?

Maryland? Yeah.

Okay. I think it is important and a lot of people

who are listening are selling to the community that's local and

some people will think,

Oh well I don't need to have a website or I

don't need to have a social media presence because they're doing

exactly what you were saying,

Maryland. They're starting to spread the word by maybe family and

friends first having a cake and then it spreads and then

they go to a chamber and then there's other people that

get cakes and we're just spreads and spreads.

I would suggest,

and I want to know what your thoughts are on this

is I think still people go online to confirm that you're

an established business,

that you're someone that they really want to do business with.

So you need to have a website,

you need to have some social presence.

Even if you're not selling through social media,

it's a credibility play,

I guess I would say.

What do you think?

That's absolutely right.

I mean,

Maryland pointed at me so,

Oh yes,

I like that.

You tell us the visual since we can't see,

so that works.

That's just fun.

I have to totally agree.

A website is a representation of the professionalism of the business.

So the first point I'd like to make is if you're

going to do a website,

do it right,

don't do a primitive kind of thing that's available through some

of the other.

You could start out that way.

Invest a little bit of money and getting a nice professional

website together because that's your face to the public.

What platform are you using for your website?

We actually have a developer that specializes in web development out

of Florida.

So is it a WordPress site?

Do you know?

Not WordPress,

no, it's,

Oh, okay.

So you really did custom.

Yeah, we did custom.

That's actually for both businesses.

We had our son that actually helped us with that.

But the other thing that we found is that once you

have a social media presence,

you have to realize that your reach has now gone international.

And so if you have a contact form and have somebody

creating a need for a product,

Oh my gosh,

you may expect some requests from overseas people who don't realize

that you're located in Virginia.

Wherever you're at.

I do have to say I did get a cake order

from Dublin,

Ireland. Oh no.

First birthday party cake.

Several. I haven't gotten several from overseas that people don't realize,

but yeah,

I mean jealous,

right? The website is really important.

As a matter of fact,

when people asked a friend,

us now with somebody,

the viruses out there that we go to their website,

check them out.

Yeah. People will do the same thing to you,

so you need to make sure that your presence online is

professional, like you were saying,

which means putting it together properly.

Right. Just not throwing it up.

And then also,

so your imagery looks similar,

like your imagery looks similar on a website versus your Facebook

page versus Instagram or wherever you are.

Logos and colors and all that.

Think of it as your first impression.

The first thing people see about you.

If your website is sloppy and just childlike,

they're going to think your business,

your work is the same,

right? Especially as an artist,

you know,

cake artist.

How do you handle photography for your website?

Not only is my husband a techie,

he's a photographer.

Oh, now that's just not fair.

He's good at everything.

A lot of her friends are jealous when she starts telling

her things like this,

but I do,

I've done photography for a long time.

I've developed my own pictures,

black and white and color,

and I set up a box in our dining room that

we use in relationship to any kind of photography that we

do for both businesses and I have the lights and everything

and we're actually going into videography with the green screen backgrounds

that we're going to be producing a lot of tutorials on

our flexing product line.

Oh, I love that.

And give his listeners,

you know that with every podcast there's a show notes page

which will give you all the links so you'll be able

to go and see what all of this is about.

I usually say this at the end of the show,

but I might as well say it now since we're on

the topic.

So any other things that you think would be interesting to

talk about specifically in relation to unique cakes?

Before we move on,

let me go with this question.

Any surprise that you had as you were developing the business

that you could warn or advise our listeners about with regard

to unique cakes?

I've done several competitions with the cakes,

pastry live and things like that.

A lot of shows because I do sculpting.

That's my forte,

but there's one thing that I've learned with my friends.

Some of them use Cape mixes,

but some of them do it from scratch and if you're

doing any kind of competition or anything,

don't even think of using the cake mix.

However, some clients prefer a cake mix over a dry scratch

cake. There's another aspect to any business and that's called pricing.

Okay. All right.

Go with this.

I can't wait to hear what you say.

One of the things that we found in the cake world,

and I'm sort of speaking out of turn because I'm not

in there,

but I've watched Marilyn and been learning a lot about the

cake business.

From a business perspective,

it seems like there's a dichotomy between the cake artists that

own their own brick and mortar shop and the ones that

work out of their homes,

the ones that work out of their homes tend to price

lower, much lower.

They're not taking advantage of getting reimbursed for all of their

time and their ingredients and their energy use and their mortgage

payment, whatever.

And so they're doing themselves an injustice by pricing low,

but they're also doing the brick and mortar people and injustice

because it's detracting from their clientele.

So if you're going to price,

make sure you look at what the going rate is on

whatever product in your area and try to get there,

don't really,

really undercut cause you're not doing anybody a service.

Well no.

And then if you want to grow,

how are you going to increase your prices that much to

exist in customers?

So I'm thinking someone who's able to work out of their

house or a commercial kitchen is even still less than a

brick and mortar.

Right. But take that extra margin,

use that margin,

save it for future growth of your business.

There you go.

Well, and I just talked to him a caker recently about

this. She was charging about half the price I was,

she was doing twice as much work,

maybe three times as much work.

She thought she was getting a lot of business,

but she was driving herself ragged and trying to meet all

the demand and she wasn't even getting compensated for it.

Right. Was she charging almost just cost Even less,

I think.

I don't know that because she was doing so much business

that she was doing well and that's not the case.

I mean,

if you want to do it for a hobby and lose

money, that's one thing.

But you really have to,

I mean,

it's hard in your mind to think,

okay, I'm doing less cakes,

but I'm making more money as to Oh and busy all

the time and I'm doing 20 cakes on the weekend.

Isn't that great?

But then you're not making any money.

They're making the same amount of money as someone who's doing

two or three cakes,

but they're doing twice as many.

You're exactly right.

Yeah. And you know,

I think in this community,

the maker community overall,

we also so undervalue our time and our skill when it

comes to pricing.

People take so many classes,

invest a lot of time in learning how to do things

properly professionally,

and then a lot of time in terms of putting together

and perfecting their individual skill,

if you will.

And then they apply it to actually making the product and

they don't account for them the time of production.

And as I already said,

the time of acquiring that expertise in that skill.

So I hope you set her straight Maryland.

Yeah, I did.

Yeah. There's some times when I can't do a cake and

I have to recommend them to somebody and I trust her

skills, but if I recommend one of my clients to her,

she's charging half as much as I do.

That's shooting myself in the foot too.

Yeah, it sure is.

So then I would never recommend somebody.

The other thing that a lot of folks may not realize

when they look at charging three times as much as what

their cost is and they say,

Oh wow,

that's overcharging.

Well, that's really not true when you think about it and

you research it.

We watched shark tank every once in a while and we

find that a lot of entrepreneurs usually tap on at least

300% on top of their costs for their retail.

No, we don't do that yet,

but that's sort of the norm,

so you shouldn't feel embarrassed or timid about charging what the

current market value is,

But I find myself doing the same thing.

I'm guilty of that.

Also, as you said earlier,

when I come up with a new idea,

I am so excited to share it with everybody.

When somebody will be saying,

well, why didn't you do a class on that?

And you can be making money doing a class on that

type of thing.

By the time I find somewhere to do a class and

whatever, it's late.

Yeah. But my guess is also that even if people heard

about it,

they would also love to take the class to really perfect

it and you know,

see how to do it properly too.

Right. The other thing is there are a lot of hidden

costs that people forget about.

Like what about the delivery costs of getting any materials that

you're using.

You know,

any of your ingredients to you or if you're going out

and getting them locally,

you're still having to drive.

So there's that cost.

There's all the administrative costs.

There's the cost of developing the website Joe,

like we were talking about earlier.

So they're not directly related to the making of your product,

but they are directly related to the development and growth of

your business.

And so that eats up a little bit of those percentages

too. So all things to consider with pricing.

A great topic to talk about.

We could probably go on the whole rest of the show

talking about pricing for sure.

But I want to get into flex seek.

So right now we've been talking unique cakes.

How in the world did you identify this idea of flex

seek? I can't wait to hear it.

So it started out with my cake business.

I had a bride who wanted a Birch tree cake and

she did not want fondant.

She did not want buttercream.

She didn't want the usual,

she wanted it to look like a real Birch tree.

So here I am,

racking my brain trying to figure out how I'm going to

do this.

Instead of saying,

sorry, I can't do this for you.

Picked up American cake decorating magazine and there happened to be

a Birch chewed cake that was just absolutely gorgeous and I

could tell it was not made from the usual stuff and

usually they have tutorials on all these things.

So I'm looking through trying to find the tutorial and all.

There was was this little paragraph that said,

this is a beautiful cake that I made.

The Birch tree part was a 13 step process that I

use that I use gelatin as the base and that was

it. I said,

Oh man,

No, you left me in suspense.

You want to know what I said?

I called her on,

not very nice name,

but as I'm very creative and we got going in the

kitchen, I've got gelatin and a base.

I added chocolate,

I saw looked like wafer paper,

I added wafer paper and we did about six months of

work on this and the kitchen back and forth.

And it actually came up with something else.

First actually came up with the lexicon wafer paper before we

came up with Lexi and it turned out beautiful.

But I tell this story,

I did call her,

not a very nice name,

but I tell the story and when every time people ask

me that and one time in New York I'm telling this

story and I said,

that B lady,

she plucked this cake at picture of the cake in the

magazine, but she didn't tell me how to do it.

Such a tease And yes,

and then the lady turned to me and said,

that would be me.

No, what did you do?

Oh, I gave her a great big hug and she gets

product free from that.

Okay, well that's,

that's good.

Her name is Madison Lee.

She's on TV all the time.

Oh my gosh,

that's so funny.

She is actually very creative.

But it was just that thought,

cause I actually called said the word and I said,

Oh I called her up and then When she's like hello,

it's me.

She's the sweetest thing.

But she was my inspiration.

Yeah. Well okay so but Maryland maybe people are saying that

about you now because they want to know what's in flexing

so they can make it themselves.

So it's a secret.

You can't say That's right.

Right, right,

right. We have patents on itself As well.

You should.

So you saw that you've now made this material and I

think we might be leaving our listeners a little bit in

the dark.

Explain specifically what flexi does.

That's Joe's deal.

He does good with that.

Okay. We're going to get to learn all about flexi.

Right after a quick word from our side Sponsor.

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For more information.

So in as simple terms as I can state,

we have three veins,

three different products.

The first one,

which Maryland first developed was flex seek.

It's what creates edible fabric.

You can cover away for paper to give it flexibility and

durability. Okay.

Yes. Gift biz listeners.

Edible fabric.

Yes. Okay,

keep going.

You can cover and protect printed images,

so if you do printed images for your cakes,

you can cover them with flexion so that they don't smear

when you touch them with wet hands or buttercream hands and

then it gives it flexibility so you can put it on

your cake and the wafer will crack.

It'll flow onto your cake.

That's flex seek.

There are other things you can do with it.

What else?

I said,

well also when you put the flexi Conway for paper,

if you let it cure overnight,

you can use the Martha Stewart cutters to cut outs with

it. And I have done that with snowflakes on a frozen

cake. I flavor them peppermint because you can flavor FlexDek anyway,

you want to color it or flavor it.

Flavor, peppermint and put it on a frozen cake and the

kids went nuts eating those off again,

so it was perfect for cupcakes.

You can cut any ships as long as you buy them

and you know they have not have been used for anything

else and you just dedicate them to cake decorating or to

whatever you're doing.

You can use the cutouts And that really is great for

cookies. Cut little shapes out,

put them on your cookies,

very lightweight they had here and they're tasty.

Then after flexi,

then norm Davis came to me and said,

well, there is no one in the United States making lace.

Why don't you try to use lace?

Can we use flexi?

Can the lace mold?

And I said,

well, I have tried that.

It doesn't work in a lace mold.

It doesn't give you all those nice little cutouts that you

need. All the detail of a lace.

Yeah, we went back to work and we created a lace.

It's made here in the United States and it's instant and

ready to use.

That's what Joe was saying earlier and it doesn't melt in

the fridge.

It doesn't,

it doesn't.

What doesn't get hard,

it doesn't,

yeah, it doesn't get super hard to stay flexible and it

actually sets up very quickly and sets up even quicker if

you put it in the fridge.

So that's a very nice product.

Instant ready to use.

That's the second one.

The third one is a flexi glue.

What we found is once flex seek cures,

there's nothing that will stick it to itself.

So if you're making ruffles pleats or if you're making roses

or making a dress or bows,

you need something that will attach,

seek to itself at certain points.

And that's what the glue does.

It almost instructs it to make it bond to itself.

Right. So I just have to say this was crazy.

And Marilyn,

you were talking earlier about when you make a cake for

a show and the difference between ready-made mix versus mix from

scratch Show event products are always a little bit different.

And most of the time they're not an order that you're

filling for a customer.

It's probably not what you normally sell because it's a competition,

it's for a show,

et cetera.

At the ultimate sugar show,

you guys,

they had a stage and people were coming out in clothes

that were all edible hats,

that were edible dresses that were edible and a lot of

that was your flex seek being used to give the effects

of ruffles on skirts and all of that.

Right. It was,

we were sponsors for the sugar show and everybody got to

use as much as they wanted or as little as they

wanted for the products and we still have these hats here

on our mannequins.

They're adorable.

The detail of these clothes was crazy and I could not

even imagine that they were edible.

I mean they looked like real fabric clothes.

It was crazy,

But they actually have a video.

In fact,

we've got it on our site,

on our flexi YouTube page,

the videos of some of the fashion shows that were actually

conducted at the cake fair a year or so ago where

they, and again flexi sponsored that also people used flex seek

products to create entire outfits and then these models wore them

and came out on stage to music.

That really,

really interesting.

Wow. That is so crazy and I do want to share

with all of our listeners,

those of you who are customers and have a ribbon printing

system, we are shortly going to share with you how you

can use this product incorporated with custom printed ribbon.

So stay tuned for that.

It's coming down the pike.

Let's get back into flex seek and its creation and development.

So you're in the kitchen,

you've made your product.

Where do you go next in terms of getting it to

be a real product that's trademarked that you can sell.

Can you share with us a little bit of the development

steps that you take?

Well there are two things that we did almost immediately.

One is we hired a lawyer to help us submit an

application for patent.

In some cases that might be important.

In other cases it may not be important.

It depends upon how concerned you are about somebody taking what

you're doing and duplicating it,

copying it.

The second thing we did was our son was in marketing

advertising, so he and his wife who's a graphic artist helped

us create the logo,

the flexi logo,

and we then went and got that trademarked,

so we have now a registered trademark for flex seek.

We're patent.

That was the first step.

The second step then was to create all of your social

media sites,

your website,

your Facebook,

your Twitter,

your Instagram,

your Pinterest,

your YouTube page and all that to start getting the word

out, and then we started to register for the various shows

to go and create a booth and demonstrate them to people.

In the meantime,

we also hired a professional videographer to come in to video

Maryland teaching the various aspects of our products and we had

published those on our flexi website as tutorials for people to

view. That's sort of the process.

Go ahead.

A flexi is a really great innovative product,

but it is very new in the way that if you

don't have hands on,

sometimes people get scared about using it or they just don't

know what to do with it.

Right? Yeah.

Those videos are really important.

Yeah. So that was important.

But then we had to go out and find someone to

produce it for us.

The product,

yes. Produce the product.

Okay. And how in the world do you do that?

You weren't going to spend all your life in the kitchen.

That wasn't the plan producing the seek.

I mean,

well and then actually people said to me,

well no one buys stuff that you produce in your kitchen.

Well and there's no way to scale it.

So you're absolutely right.

You want to find someone to be banking it for you.

So how does that work?

That was a difficult process.

We actually went to several of our friends who were in

business in big businesses and asked for references to potential sources

and found one that actually was producing a related cake product

in their manufacturing facility.

They were willing to take us on because it's not a

very large production line that's required to matter of fact,

you're our product.

They agreed to take that on and produce it out of

their facility.

And uh,

that was a perfect match.

And is it local?

Pretty local to you anyway.

No, it's actually in your area,

Illinois. Oh,

well when are you going to come visit?

Perfect. Alright,

so good point though in that when you're needing something to

reach out to your local network,

friends, family,

anybody that you know because they may know somebody who has

the solution to what you're looking for or has the next

step as you're doing your research to achieve whatever it is

you're doing.

In this case it was manufacturing the product and then how

did you go about what the container was going to look

like and the sizing and all of my goodness,

that was called also?

Well, we knew that we wanted something that a screw top

and we looked at the amounts that we would need to

prepare for to be a quantity of one.

And then we started to go to the various container manufacturers

to look what their inventory was and what their selections were

and found a couple of containers and asked for samples.

And then once we found one that we liked,

we then approached the silk screening process with them.

Again, enlisted my son and his wife to help us design

the labels for each of those products and had them silk

screened at the factory on the jars before they were sent

to us.

Yeah, and the size of the jars also had to do

with how much you would use at a time.

Our glue then is a smaller jar because you don't use

as much of it.

Oh, good point.

So you were really considering your end customer's application process and

figuring out the quantities appropriately for that.

Right, because why should they buy a quart of glue if

they're only going to use half a cup?

So we were thinking about that too,

because I was in the business.

It's easy for me to say,

Oh well I wouldn't use that much of it,

or I need more of this and that type of thing.

It was when we were being trying to be considerate.

So a question comes to me here in that you're starting

from nothing.

So you really don't know how much you're going to sell

off the bat.

We do know that the more you produce,

the lower your individual unit costs are,

you know,

I'm not asking you to give me quantities or anything like

that, but how did your mind go in terms of what

was going to be that initial offering that you were going

to produce?

Not knowing if it was going to sell out right away

or if you're going to be sitting on inventory for awhile.

We actually started with a very small quantity of product and

accessories, jars,

labels, et cetera.

Just as a test case,

because when we launched,

we launched actually at the cake fair during that fashion show

that I've told you about.

So that was just last year,

right? Or two years ago.

That was almost three years now.

The very first one.

Okay. And the product started to catch fire and the demand

accelerated so rapidly that we went out and then ordered as

much quantity as we could afford to buy for product and

for jars and went from there and priced it from there.

Yeah. Every manufacturer,

as you know,

has quantity,

price breaks.

Right. And the thing that we did do that some people

may not think about is when you talk to the representative,

you could negotiate a lower price based on higher quantities that

you would prospectively order in the future.

So you don't actually have to order them all now,

but say,

Hey, this is coming.

Educate them about your business and how it's growing and say,

Hey, I've got this potential that's gonna get me 10,000

of those jars by the end of the year.

And they may negotiate a lower price point for you at

the smaller quantity that you buy now Based on the potential

leading into the future.

Right? Yeah,

and we know that your product is very popular because your

booth was always packed.

I saw it because I was right across the way.

Any tips on what to do with trade shows and interacting

with customers and showing the product and all of that?

It helps to have a personality like my husband,

I'm kind of on the shy side,

but I ended up,

you keep saying that,

but you and when I got get to know somebody I'm

fine. But in the beginning I get a little timid.

I do believe in my product,

but I'm much more comfortable judging and teaching and that type

of thing.

And Joan loves to show off the product.

Very important what you are selling to demonstrate and demonstrate it

constantly in a booth and not just stand there and wait

for people to come around.

When people see you working on something and doing something,

especially if it's new to them,

they are right there trying to see what's going on.

It's like having a free class.

Yeah. And that's what you guys were doing cause you were

sitting down demonstrating and working and creating and then Joe,

you were more talking with everybody as I recall.

Right. So you have your two roles.

But the other thing with,

to answer your question about what to do at kick shows

or trade shows is every one of the trade shows usually

has an educational aspect to it.

Either classes or stage demonstrations.

Sometimes you get paid to do the demonstration,

sometimes you have to do them for free.

Yeah. But the benefit to you as a business owner is

so dramatic when you get on a stage and you're talking

about your product and demonstrating what you can do with it

that gets people's attention and curiosity and that the need to

buy is much greater than they'll come look for your booth

and purchase out of your booth based on what they saw

either in the class or the demonstration.

Yeah. Like John said,

even if you don't get paid for the demo,

we have seen in the past that right after a demo

is done,

people come flocking to the booth.

Right? Yeah.

That's perfect evidence of what you're saying for sure.

Yes, so anybody who has a product is get into as

many demos as you can or online and all that,

so much that you can get out there with at the

booth. Also Joe,

you and I talked a little bit because I purchased one

of your products so that we could test it and do

what we want to do on our end as we merged

together and suggest this to our customers and that's where I

found out that you are kind of like a chat bot

pro. So let's talk about that a little bit.

Share with us how you feel about chat chatbox.

Well, here's the thing.

We all know that Facebook used to be a good venue

for marketing and advertising for products.

It's not anymore because of the restrictions that Facebook has placed

on who sees what you post.

They want you to pay for Facebook ads and even those

don't reach the amount of people that you want right now.

Facebook allows you to create messenger bots that reach out to

people through various means.

You can do it through a Facebook live presentation with comments.

You can do it off your website,

you can do it off email blasts.

You can do it in very many different ways.

Have people subscribe to your messenger page and then you're allowed

to reach out to them periodically and Facebook does not limit

that reach out.

So if you wind up gathering four thousand five thousand six

thousand subscribers in messenger,

whatever you post,

a messenger is going to go out to all 6,000

of those subscribers.

The reach is there.

Facebook hasn't figured that out yet.

So before they clamped down on that,

that's a perfect medium for getting the word out to your

customers. And what application are you using for your bots?

I've found that many bot as an easy,

very easy application.

There are several of them out there,

but this one has a lot of features that make it

very user friendly and easy to create.

Yeah. Is it many bot or many chat?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Mini chat.

Thank you.

ManyChat okay.

Yeah, I haven't used it yet.

I'm kind of going back and forth as to whether my

audience would be happy with it or not.

Did you have that concern when you started with it?

I didn't because one of the things that they recommend you

do right up front is say,

okay, you're subscribing to our messenger,

we're going to give you information periodically,

and you always have the option to type stop when you

type stop,

you're unsubscribed and you don't have to worry about it anymore.

So the way we looked at it is if somebody didn't

want to get bothered,

even if it's after they've already subscribed,

they just typed in stop and they're done and they're out,

Right then you're not inundated with things that you don't want

to hear.

Right. And isn't there some thing where you have to have

engaged within a 24 hour period or something for them to

receive a message from you?

No, not a message.

Solicitation marketing.

You can send out broadcast informational broadcast to them all the

time, but what you need to do is in your informational

broadcast, if you're going to want to do a product solicitation

of any kind,

you need to reengage them.

So you give them a question that they answer or you

pose a scenario survey or something to require them to answer.

And as soon as they answer,

they're resubscribed again for 24 hours.

You can then send them any promotional messages.

Okay, got it.

We haven't talked a lot about messenger bots yet here,

but I know they're becoming bigger and bigger.

In fact,

when I was at social media marketing world last March,

they had a representative from Facebook on stage talking about their

anticipated future.

So you are right on the cusp,

right in the thick of things in terms of the newest

and latest and greatest.

And I know your bot is very smooth because I've used

it when I was making that purchase and all of that.

And the other thing I think just to,

I think for our listeners,

this may be just an introduction to what these bats can

do from a business owner's perspective.

Now the list of the people who are interacting,

your bot is still owned by Facebook.

It's not owned by you.

That's correct.

Right. As far as I know,

yes, it's owned by them.

So you want to try and then if you want to

have ownership of that list somehow you want to in some

way get their email.

Now if someone buys a product then you get their email

already. Right,

and those are some of the things that you can do

in your broadcast streams.

Ask for information,

ask for opinions,

ask for preferences.

I ask for parts of the country that you live in,

any of those things you can ask them cause it's just

informational exchange.

The other thing that may be beneficial for your audience is

if they do go to trade shows,

they can create a messenger code that people at the booth

can actually scan with their phones and that you can then

offer a discount for any purchases that they make in the

booth when they scan the code and when they scan the

code, they're automatically subscribed to you as a messenger subscriber.

That worked very well for us.

That worked very well for us at this last,

at the ultimate sugar show.

Oh, I love that idea.

Yeah. I think bots are in my future for next year.

Okay. As we start to wind down here,

what would you say to somebody who was back in the

beginning where you were in Maryland where you were making cakes

or jewelry or candles or whatever the craft is,

they're just kind of starting to tiptoe into this idea of

maybe monetizing their craft.

What would you say to that person?

Something that I'm going to say to somebody who approached me

just a little while ago.

Don't be afraid if you think it's a good product.

If you think you're doing a great job,

then don't be afraid to go on and sell it or

share it,

that type of thing.

And then don't be afraid to fail because you can just

turn around and pick it up and do it over again

or whatever.

Many people come up to me and say,

well, how did you do that?

I could never do that,

but I have this great idea and I'm going to be

talking to someone soon about it in a couple of days.

She says,

I have this great idea.

I can't wait to talk to you and have you help

me decide if it's good enough or should I do anything

with it.

Don't be afraid to talk to people.

Use your change of commerce and all that,

your friends,

and just not give them the idea.

Because once you're at ideas out there,

you can't do a patent on it.

Right? You can't put something out there that when we found

out and then three or four months and then go back

and try to put a patent on it.

Oh, you protect it first.

Yes, you have to protect it before you put it out

there. But you can in general talk to people about it

and think if it's a great idea where somebody can use

or somebody needs,

there's always a need for innovation.

Well, in think of how many ideas never actually come to

reality because people are afraid.

Oh wait,

I gotta tell you a great story.

Okay. Oh good.

I'm excited.

Drum roll.

We lived in Hawaii and I was really into,

we all were into health and running and walking and all

that kind of stuff to keep healthy.

And I would walk four miles a day with my friends.

But even though I don't sweat much in Hawaii,

I did and I just thought me,

I don't want to sweat.

So I had young kids at the time.

Then I had baby wipes and I use the baby wipes

on my underarms as we were walking to make me feel

fresher. So I called dove and I said,

you know what?

I have this great idea for someone who in an office

or whatever to make deodorant in a clock that you can

use on your underarm.

Just something to freshen up quickly during the day or at

the gym so that you're not incredibly awful smelling right until

you can get to a shower.

And they said,

Oh, don't ever use a product that was meant to be

used for something else.

You shouldn't be doing that.

And it freaked me out so much that they thought it

was a horrible idea.

And then two years later,

what do you think they have all over the shelf?

Oh my gosh,

Josh, same thing with my dad.

He went up to Canada to go fishing all the time.

He said,

the water up there is so good,

I should bottle it.

A couple of years later,

bottled waters all over the place.

See, I mean happy followed his thought and followed his gut.

He would have been a millionaire.

Right. And it's those little fleeting thoughts that we need to

pay attention to.

Right. Because you never know if that turns into the next

best idea And you gotta realize that it's really not that

expensive to start where the expense winds up is in the

legal side of the house.

So if you want to go patent and trademark that stuff

gets to be a little expensive.

But getting a business started at the beginning,

you know,

in the test mode or test phase is not expensive at

all. It's just takes a little bit of research and work.

Yeah. For so good.

It's so exciting to see people,

even some,

you know,

they're using it on the cake shows and all that.

Now they're not allowed to call it flexi,

but they use it on the kick show to see these

people, Karen portfolio.

And all these cake decorators that are well known,

they're using the product and they love it.

That has to be so rewarding for you.

Oh, it is.

It is.

I just wish I was one of them.

But you know,

you're one of yourself.

You are the owner of flex seek you guys.

Yeah. I think someone come up to me and said,

you know what?

I used to know you when you weren't famous and I

don't feel famous,

but people do know our name because of flex seek and

all that.

But you can't be afraid.

Don't be afraid to put yourself out there.

Uh, it's a little intimidating,

but you know,

it's worth it in the end.

Okay, so there's one more thing that I wanted to mention.

The public like Maryland had mentioned before is a little hesitant

about getting started with flex seek because they're a little timid.

What we're going to start doing is on our flex seek

YouTube channel,

we're going to start what we call flex seek Fridays.

So every Friday we're going to broadcast a snippet of information

about an aspect of flex seek use.

It'll get you started a little bit at a time.

So if you subscribe to flex,

seek YouTube now,

you'll get notified when we start.

because I think that's where the disconnect could be.

People understand the product,

but all the creative uses maybe in question.

So providing them with that information,

I think,

I can't wait to see what that does for your sales.

Yeah, a short snippet of information that tell you how to

do it because people don't like to sit there and watch

an hour tutorial just to go through.

It's just going to be a couple of minutes,

right? Yeah.

Yeah. Each one will be a cup,

but I think people will binge watch.

Yeah, yeah.

That's my guess.

So, Oh,

I'm excited.

So that's going to start the first of the year,

right? Yup.

Okay, so gift biz listeners,

I think when you are listening to this,

they'll already be a few up ready to go.

So I suggest you go over and take a look.

And is the YouTube channel called flexi heap?

Yes. Perfect.

F L E X.

IQ. Youi everybody go check it out.

There you go.

All right.

Now I would like to present you both with a virtual

gift. It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.

So this is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable

Heights that you would really wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What is inside your box?

Okay, well,

we talked about this.

Here's the vision we would have.

If you open this box and you see a video look

into the future where every single person has our products on

their shelves that they can use in some way.

Yes, because I call lay people,

which are not Cakery.

Both sides of the coin can use this product.

We're actually trying to get on project runway with it.

We think that it would be a great non-conventional challenge,

and that's one of the things that could be in that

box. It sounds like you're going to have to hire the

videographer again because you're going to get a lot of demo

videos. So if you think about it,

we talked about it.

Edible clothing,

decoration, prosthetics masks,

Halloween masks.

Oh yeah.

Painting on bodies,

food protection.

Preservation. Yeah.

Food safe barrier for non food items.

Sorta like that set and ribbon you referred to.

Yeah, You can go on and on and on for different

things to do with the product line.

That's not strictly related to the cake business,

but to any secular businesses out there.

So our vision is everybody's going to have it as a

normal ingredient item In their home on their shelves.

Yeah. You might not use it all the time,

but it'll be there when you need it.

Love it.

Well, I seem to think that this is going to happen

for you.

I'm really excited to see about new applications because some of

the things you just mentioned,

I never would have even thought of so,

and you guys together make a dynamite duo because you clearly

know how to start successful businesses here.

You have two under your belt and it sounds like flexi

has enough going forward.

It's going to take you far into the future,

so I really,

really appreciate your coming in.

I think we did pull out a few secrets here today,

so I'm really,

really happy about that.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

We had a lot of fun.

Thanks for inviting us.

So I'm usually pretty good at keeping secrets,

but I'm spilling the beans.

I can't help it.

I'm so excited.

I just want to tell you guys what I've been working

on over the last few months.

It's been a little bit of a secret project because I

wasn't sure exactly what the timing was going to look like

on it,

but I can't wait.

I have to share with you my secret.

Many of you have been following me for a while.

Know that I wrote a book that came out last may.

It's called maker to master,

but that's not what this is about.

Although it spins off a similar concept.

When I was getting serious about writing that book,

there were actually two books that I had in my mind.

One was maker to master and that truth be told was

the harder one to do,

but I also was really interested in writing a book that

was an inspirational book kind of inspiration a day.

I know you've seen those out there where it's 365 inspiring

thoughts for your year or something like that.

I think very often we get defeated by our own self-talk

and we also sway away from core solid business growth values

because there's a new social media site that's available or other

things come up that take our mind off of the really

important things that we need to grow our business.

As things happen.

My idea continued to evolve and I came up with the

idea of instead of doing a 365 inspiring tips type book,

it would be way more helpful for you if it was

included in some type of a planner so that every day

when you're planning out your day,

you'd also then see a tip.

If I look at how I work with things,

I don't know if I would have a book on the

side of my desk and every day look at one day's

inspiration and then another day's inspiration.

Way better to have everything in one place.

Consequently, I have created a planner.

It's called inspired a daily planner,

specifically for you,

our wonderful community of gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers.

I'll be sharing more in the upcoming days,

but let me give you a few highlights here.

One of the cool things about this planner is you can

start any month of the year.

Have you ever been like me where all of a sudden

in may you decide,

I want to start doing things different.

I want to get myself really organized,

but then you go to find a planner and they either

start in September going into the next year,

or do you have to buy a year and all the

prior months of the year are useless for you because you're

already in may with this planner.

You can start any time.

If you're listening to this announcement in January,

you can start it right away.

If you're hearing this in may,

you can use this planner starting in may.

It has monthly and daily layout,

so you'll be able to keep yourself really organized and special

life enhancing sections.

More on that later.

It also includes what I've been talking about earlier and the

reason I changed this from a book to a planner and

that is daily inspiration,

things that you need to be telling yourself,

affirmations to get in the right mindset as the owner of

your business.

Also business tips and ideas.

Some of them you're going to read and you're like,

yup, got it,

it's covered,

and then others might give you some pause ideas of things

you might want to implement into your business to further either

solidify or grow what you already have going.

That's all I'm going to share with you right now,

but I will tell you that we are just weeks away

from getting this out to you.

I'm going to do a limited first run,

and if you want to be one of the first ones

to know when it's available,

jump over to gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash add me and you'll get an email when

the planner is ready.

That link again is gift biz unwrapped.com

forward slash add me.

There is no time like the present to take the next

step on solidifying the dream you have for your business.

The new inspired planner could be just the ticket to making

sure that that actually happens for you this year.

That's a wrap.

Have a great week everybody,

and I'll catch you again next Monday on the gift biz