037 – Icing Smiles – A “Sweet” Non Profit Success with Tracy Quisenberry

Gift biz unwrapped episode 37.

You've Got to let go of perfection in a growing business.

This is John Lee,

Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to give to biz unwrapped.

And now it's time to light It up.

Welcome To gift biz,

unwrapped your source for industry specific insights and advice to develop

and grow your business.

And now here's your host,

Sue Monheit.

Hi there.

I'm Sue and welcome to the unwrapped.

Whether you own a brick and mortar store sell online or

are just getting started,

you'll discover new insight to gain traction and to grow your

business. And today I would like to welcome Tracy Quesenberry.

Tracy is the founder and executive director of icing smiles.

I seen smiles is a nonprofit organization that provides custom celebration

cakes to children with critical illness and for their siblings.

She believes that everyone has a responsibility to give back with

their God given talents.

And Tracy has identified in herself.

Two of these talents.

One is her artistic skill of cake decorating,

and the other is the ability to work with numbers specifically,

international tax plan cake decorating,

however is much more fun.

Unfortunately, it doesn't pay the bills.

So she spends her days juggling between her job as an

international tax consultant and her role at IC and smiles.

She's also a mom to two great kids,

Emily and Justin.

So with that,

Tracy, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

So thanks for having me.

I'm so thrilled That you're here with us.

Would you like to share anything else that possibly I didn't

cover in the introduction Now.

I think you got the key points.

All right.

Well, as our listeners know,

we like to align the conversation around the life of a

motivational candle.

The light shines on you while you share your stories and

experiences. So Tracy,

are you ready to light it up?

Of course.

Wonderful. In your case,

these are candles that are on a decorative cake.

Okay. We're going to stick with the theme here.

Gotcha. All right.

You have a beautiful Cake in front of you with candles,

glowing brightly.

What color are those candles?

Well, they would be purple because those are the,

I think smiles,

colors. And that's what motivates me.

My original answer was going to be white.

Cause I was thinking of a fragrant candle and I love

the smell of vanilla buttercream.

So that's where I was headed with that.

But if it's on the top of a cake,

it's gotta be purple,

Gotta be purple.

And actually your logo is purple and white.

So there you go.

Those are our colors.

Okay. So you've got purple candles on a white cake,

let's say.

And what is the motivational quote that is on your cake?

My motivational quote,

always since I was a kid has been ships.

Don't come in,

they're built things,

not going to come to you.

You have to work for them.

So if you want something bad enough,

you don't just wait for your ship to come in.

You make sure you get out there and you build that

ship and you take it on.

Yeah. Yourself,

You take control of the situation.

You got it.

Right. I think so many people in life just wait and

they let life happen to them instead of taking the forefront

and being the captain of your ship,

if you will.

Absolutely. Well,

let's go back and talk.

It's so interesting.

Always to hear how people have gotten to the places they

are, not necessarily with their corporate jobs like yours,

with international tax planning,

but the passionate thing that you're doing,

the thing that drives you the most.

And right now it's icing smiles.

But talk to us about how the whole concept evolved and

how you've gotten to where you are today.

Sure. And I think it really kind of goes hand in

hand a little bit with my corporate job.

You know,

everybody thinks that when you start a nonprofit,

it's this light bulb moment.

And for some people it is because they have experienced the

loss of a child or the illness of,

or they were caregivers to someone with Alzheimer's that wasn't my

situation. Mine was not quite as much a light bulb as

it was a puzzle.

And it was a several different pieces of a puzzle that

came together that formed icing smiles.

I'd say the biggest part of that is I was always

very career focused.

I worked for Marriott international for about 20 years.

I was on the career track on the international tax side

and really enjoyed my job.

But it was just that it was a job.

I would go home at the end of the day and

I would feel,

what difference did I make today?

And I really couldn't say I made a lasting difference,

just kept on the path that I had always intended until

I had children.

Both of my children were born prematurely.

And while neither one of them experienced life-threatening situation,

we had an introduction into the medical world and we saw

what some of these families were dealing with.

My son ultimately had an immune deficiency and that prevented me

from putting him in daycare.

Cause every time he would go to daycare,

he would end up sick.

So I had to take family medical leave.

And during that time kind of re-evaluated where am I going?

I'm on this treadmill of career and family and lack of

balance. And just really decided at that point,

I picked up cake decorating as a hobby to do for

my own children and fell in love with the craft,

but really didn't want to start a business it's way too

hard to make money doing custom cakes.

And I understood the business and the liability side and said,

you know,

what, what can I do with this in a way that

I can participate in the craft without having a for-profit business

and dealing with your bride Zillow's or your high wealth individuals

that can afford custom cakes?

So I said,

well, if I give my cakes away,

then I get the best of both worlds.

So that's really was the impetus for icing smiles.

I made a cold call to Ronald McDonald house and said,

would this be something your families would be interested in?

And the rest is kind of been a runaway train for

the last five or six years.

Wow. So you,

what you really did is you took the craft that you

loved, which was cake decorating and merged it with this very

personal experience you had with your own children and you saw

the need,

and then you tested it out yourself then.

So you were making cakes providing to Ronald McDonald house first.

Yes. And then how did this idea expand let's and let's

for our listeners,

because I don't know that we fully covered this.

Let's expand to exactly what icing smiles does today.

And then talk about how you went from you doing it

personally to creating the business the way it stands today.

So let's first start with what does ice and smiles specifically

do? Okay.

Well, we are,

as you mentioned,

a nonprofit organization,

we provide a Labrecque custom celebration cakes to kids with critical

illness. We also serve their siblings because we understand that they're

the unsung heroes of,

of medical family.

Families will apply for a cake through us.

We verify the eligibility of the child and their siblings.

And from there,

the family requests,

certain dates,

and we match them with our local volunteers and create these

elaborate food network type cakes for these children to give them

a little bit of sense of normalcy in very trying times.

And who would these local volunteers be?

They are both home-based bakers and professional bakers all across the

U S we have a database of about 8,000

volunteers at this point.

Wow. 8,000.

So some of them may really be in an established business

and some people might just have the skill like you did

in the very beginning and are just doing this also as

a gift back from themselves.

Correct. And do you vet them in any way in terms

of they have to have certain qualifications to be on the

list? That's A great question.

We actually accept all volunteers with the 8,000

volunteers that we have in compass,

a wide range of skill sets.

So we have some,

we literally have your food network bakers all the way down

to someone that has just made their first batch of buttercream

and is using the will in one method and piping stars

on their cakes.

It runs the gamut.

And what we try to do as much as possible is

utilize all the bakers we have,

although it's a little difficult,

we have a dream cake program.

So we use our best bakers for the dream cake program.

And then we have a fun cake program.

Once a child's received a dream cake from us,

they're eligible to receive a fun cake,

as long as their illness still qualifies them.

So that's a way we use our bakers that are a

little bit less experienced.

They would be then in the fun cake category,

Correct on occasion,

we'll do certain partnerships with hospitals and things like that where

we'll bring in cookies or brownies or something that's not decorated.

But for the most part,

our focus is on our dream cake fund cake program.

And one thing that I didn't mentioned,

and I do,

we tend to forget about is we have a cookie club

where we send decorated cookies to kids that we've served previously

that are going through a difficult time and that's prompted.

And those kids are referred by our volunteers and we'll just

send them out without notifying the family that they're coming.

So it's a true surprise to the entire family Without saying,

but I'm going to state it here.

The end result is just a wonderful experience for the family

to bring some happiness and little,

very special moment to the child and the family.

Absolutely. And a lot of people don't recognize,

you know,

if you think about it,

how often do you see pictures being taken in the hospital?

We're giving these families or reason to forget about their illness

for a little while,

and a reason to take pictures,

which will provide them with some lasting memories,

even though it's a difficult time,

it's a happy memory during that difficult time.

That's really our mission.

Love that.

Very heartwarming.

Thank you.

Let's go back and talk now about how icing smiles started.

So like more on the business and you were doing this,

you connected with Ronald McDonald's house.

And so we're providing,

so you were being the baker that you now have the

database of.

And how did it transition from that you doing it just

as one person to icing smiles,

take us through some of that journey.

It's Really kind of funny actually,

because my original vision,

when I started doing it for Ronald McDonald house was the

hope that I could get other bakers involved.

I did incorporate right out of the gate.

So I didn't just work and say,

become a volunteer at Ronald McDonald house.

I incorporated icing smiles mostly for the legal protection that it

would provide me.

I'm serving food to sick kids.

And my husband was already not thrilled,

bad idea.

So, you know,

I said,

well, if I incorporate that will protect us legally.

And then we get liability insurance and all of that.

There's also certain federal laws that have to deal with the

donation of food and doing it through a nonprofit that was

helpful for us.

So I incorporated out of the gate with the hopes that

it would grow.

And I had a vision when I started that it would

really become a Make-A-Wish for cake.

And as a matter of fact,

my, I would have loved to have the name bake a

wish, but I didn't want to be confused.

Make-A-Wish cause that's really what we're doing is we're providing dream

cakes. So I had the goal to get to this place.

Just didn't know how long it would take.

I like to say that it was a 10 year plan.

That 10 year plan quickly became a 10 month plan.

We did a few cakes for Ronald McDonald house and it

was, we meaning me and it was slow out of the

gate. It was hard to get them to provide me enough

time to get the cakes prepared.

I maybe did two cakes in the first four months.

And then we had a request for a child in Illinois.

We did a cake for that child.

I reached out I cold called bakers,

told them what I was doing.

I would love their support.

Ironically, a food network baker was the first person besides myself

to do a cake ricing smiles.

And that was Bob.

Then this is the key part where everything changed overnight.

The next request outside of Bob that was done was for

a child in New York city.

I'm still close to the family.

His name is Ben and I reached out cold called multiple

bakers in the New York city area.

And that's a hotbed for cake decorating.

So I was really calling the best in the world and

didn't necessarily know what was going to happen.

Kate Sullivan from cake power was the one who accepted this

request. And she did a three dimensional Yoshi cake from Mario

brothers for Ben.

And I say that this is the cake that launched icing

smiles because Kate blogged about her experience delivering this cake and

how emotional it was.

And she is followed by many decorators all across the world.

And when she blogged about her experience,

I got bum bombarded that blog got shared that got passed

on to pink cake box in New Jersey,

which is an amazing bakery.

And they read blogged.

And we literally,

it was probably either June 24th or 27th.

I can't remember the exact date.

Our first cake was in January.

This was six months later.

My email just went crazy.

And one day we had 300 people reach out to me

and say,

I'm interested in baking for you.

And I had a decision to make that day.

Am I going for this?

Or are we going to stay a local organization in central

Ohio? And I said,

where God guides,

God provides he's guiding.

So let's roll and see what happens.

And we're now serving all 50 states.

We have a chapter in Canada as well as in Holland.

And we're working on additional international chapters.

What I love about your story is that you were going

along a path.

Okay. And so you had a good sick,

what did you say?

Four months?

Five months,

maybe six months where you only did a couple of cakes

and then all of a sudden it exploded.

So let's take both of those sections just for a second.

Sure. How were you feeling during those first months you had

this vision,

you were doing it yourself.

You reached out to a couple people to do a couple

of the cakes,

a couple of the jobs,

but there wasn't a lot going on.

Right. Were you nervous?

How did you feel about that?

More quiet,

dormant time.

I knew the potential.

I spent a significant amount of time trying to identify how

do I get traction?

And at that point I was more concerned about supply than

I was demand.

I knew once families heard about our service,

that it would be something that they would take advantage of.

But I was concerned about the supply side.

Custom cake decorating is a significant skill and a significant number

of hours.

of their time,

plus their materials and give these cakes away.

And that's what I was asking them to do.

So I was really concerned.

I spent a lot of time writing my cold calls.

How do I approach a baker and ask them to do

this? What things do I need to sell when I approach

them? Ironically,

all that time was kind of wasted because I had them

at hello to coin a movie Right after the blog article.

Yes. The thing I like about your story is you really

knew where you were going.

You had a passion for the cause.

And during a time when you didn't necessarily have the business

in, you kept planning and figuring out in a strategic way,

how you were going to make this to continue to grow.

And the good thing is you also,

weren't really under pressure because you had another job.

You know,

it's not like you were all in this had to work

right from the start,

which when people plan in that way,

you kind of take shortcuts.

You don't necessarily put the quality or the support underneath your

business. So for those of you who have full-time jobs also

have a hobby or a craft on the side.

And you're thinking of turning this into a full-time business,

listen to what Tracy did here and take that as a

way of an example for yourself to be able to grow

in a less stressful way and just go slowly down the

road, if you will,

to make sure that all of the support and all the

base underneath your business is there.

Okay. So that was step one.

In these two phases that I've identified sounds like you were

going to add something.

I would,

I'd love to add something because I think when you talk

about that base and that foundation being there,

I knew out of the gate that I needed to define

what it was that we were.

So in effect I needed to define our brand.

Not that we had a lot of competition in the market,

but how were we going to be viewed in the public

eye? And you know,

people laugh,

you're a charity.

It doesn't really matter.

Well, it does because donors want to know what it is

they're donating to.

They want to know that it's a well done in a

well-run. So from the get go,

I treated this like a business and I was always focused

on this action or that action.

What is it going to say about my brand?

Anything that I put out in the public eye,

how were people going to view it?

And would that make me attractive to donors or would that

pull people away?

Very strategic in communication and what got put out to the

public. So that,

that brand was well-defined as we got some traction Well-defined and

also credible,

because I think a lot of people with non-profit,

you know,

how much money is actually really going through well,

in your case,

it's product going through not money,

which is what's really cool.

It is.

But it's also both.

One of our biggest challenges is that people don't recognize that

we have about $150,000

operating budget.

That's cash based.

We need $150,000

to command,

to operate at this point of our growth.

And that's outside of the cake donations.

So that covers things like state registrations.

It covers our database.

It covers our technology and our website,

our liability insurance,

a lot of things that people don't necessarily recognize.

So we had both and that's one of the PR and

marketing areas that we really had to focus in on because

we get that question a lot.

If your product is all donated,

what do you need?

Cash donations for?

How are you fundraising then to be able to get that

hundred and 50,000

that you need to keep icing smiles alive?

It's a great question right now.

It's almost a third,

a third and a third.

It's a third individual donations.

Just your average donor that sees our mission and sees the

impact that we're having and donates to the cause.

The second,

third is corporate sponsorships.

We work really hard to develop relationships with corporations for the

most part,

they're within the food industry,

but we're trying to branch out beyond that.

So Domino's sugar and Nielsen,

math, even Nella,

chef rubber,

smart baker.

Those are examples of our corporate sponsorships that help fund our

operations. And then the final third is on events that we

host fundraising events that we host that give the local community

a chance to come out and enjoy what icing smiles has

to offer.

And those events we call the buttercream ball.

It's really not a ball.

It's more of a cocktail party,

but buttercream cocktail party sounds kind of silly.

Thank you so much.

Cause that's a really good peak into how people,

especially for a non-profit,

how you do support the business.

So I appreciate your sharing that with us.

Sure. Okay.

Going back to the phases.

Now this first phase was what I'll just call the growth

phase. And then all of a sudden this blog gets posted

and you are overcome with people who want to get on

the list and want to participate.

And the wonderful thing that I heard from you is you

were open and receptive to kind of a change in path

because you thought you were going to just stay local.

This huge opportunity presents itself and you didn't sit and wait,

you decided I'm doing it.

Yeah. Talk to us about that time.

In all honesty,

it was really scary because I tend to be very risk

averse. So to me it was okay if I take this

on, do I have the capacity as the only administrative person

running this organization?

Do I have the ability to handle these volunteer applications?

I don't have a volunteer application.

People are just emailing me and saying they want to get

involved. So what do I not know?

It was probably the biggest time in my life where I

just threw myself on my face and said,

you know what?

I just have to have enough confidence in myself that I

can pull it off and enough faith in God that he's

going to provide me with the resources.

And we're just going to have to roll and hope.

I don't blow it along the way.

And there are certainly areas I've blown it.

And there are others where we've just been incredibly blessed.

First year we did 45 cakes.

We're doing 3,500

a year at this point in our growth.

And we're probably at capacity from an administrative perspective,

unless I can get staff on board to handle some of

the requests.

We're probably at capacity right now.

Wow. Just the growth that you've had in how many years

did you say five?

It'll be yes.

Our sixth anniversary will be the end of January.

That is spectacular.

It kind of sounded though that when this all hit and

you made the decision and now you're figuring out how you're

going to manage it all,

you first decided,

yes, we're going to do this.

Then you decided based on faith one way or another,

this is going to work out.

And then you kind of took a logical approach to how

are we going to handle this?

How are we going to do this?

But you also mentioned some failures.

There are some things that didn't quite work.

Can you tell us about one of those and something maybe

that was unexpected that occurred and then how you dealt with

the situation?

There's Probably probably several overall.

I think what I have to say,

probably that sets the tone for the examples that I will

use is you have to have a thick skin.

You have to accept your limitations and you have to be

able to say,

you know what,

I'm one person.

I am doing the best job that I can.

And I just have to hope that that's enough.

When you experience that type of growth,

there are going to be balls that you drop.

There are certainly things that we didn't expect along the way.

We didn't expect to figure out how to deal with situations

where a baker can last.

We did not expect to deal with families that you get

feedback from them,

that they can't get too many calories.

So they're disappointed.

Oh my gosh,

you'd be shocked when you run a nonprofit,

you kind of anticipate,

well, you're not going to get any complaints either way because

you're doing something positive.

And that's mostly what my job entails now is how do

you handle those types of unexpected negative situations?

And we handle them the way we would,

if we were a for-profit to a certain extent,

that customer is always right.

And we have two customers,

we've got our volunteers and we've got our families that we

serve. So you handle them with respect and you just suck

it up and where you're wrong,

you admit you're wrong and you apologize and say,

I'll do better.

And you move on some of the biggest challenges that we

faced right before one of the largest trade shows of the

year, we were rolling out a whole bunch of things,

including ticketing to the events that I mentioned back in November,

the buttercream balls and our website got hacked and got hacked

so badly that we had to go down.

And when our website goes down,

our operations go down big applications from families,

come in through our website.

We went down so bad.

We had to start from scratch.

We couldn't even fix the bug enough to go back up.

We had to redesign a website.

And at this point in our growth,

I'm surrounded by amazing people with amazing skills and amazing dedication.

And we were able to pull off a website brand new

in three days and we were ready for this trade show.

It wasn't perfect.

And you just have to say to people doing the best

we can,

we're not perfect,

but hopefully it's enough for ya.

And we rolled.

And our team is just amazing.

So it's knowing where you don't have strength and putting the

right people in place to do the job for you and

building that strong team.

Whoa, I am so sorry that that happened to you.

How did you know that it was hacked?

Was it just not there anymore?

Yeah, we went to go on and you get a blank

screen. It was panic because we really did not have the

skill set within our staff to be able to do this,

but we did within our volunteer base.

So you just reach out to a volunteer,

you know,

your volunteer base and say,

we need some help.

And you know what,

if we didn't get it,

we would simply do just that.

We'd put a temporary site up that said under construction and

we would just have to roll.

And that's where you've got to let go of perfection in

a growing business,

you got to have a plan B and put in place

a quality plan B because sometimes things are out of your

control. Right?

And really good point.

Talking about plan B for your website,

any images that you have,

anything that goes onto a website,

make sure you have that stored somewhere else as well.

Like don't just take an image,

put it on the website and then delete a file or

something. Keep everything somewhere.

So that at least you have all of the parts,

all of the elements to a website.

If something like this happens,

I've gone so far is to take screenshots of different pages

of the website.

Just so you have it all because you don't then need

to reinvent all the wording and all of that from the

start. You can just copy what was there before.

Absolutely. Oh my Gosh.

I'm so sorry that you went through that,

but I'm really glad you brought it up for us today

because that's a really good learning.

I have another really fun example.

If you've got time that I think would be really fun

for your listeners.

I don't know if anybody saw,

we call it Elsa gate.

We had a situation where there is a popular cake blog

that compares like these top quality cakes done by the best

in the world with amateur cakes.

And usually the amateur cake is on the losing side.

It's not fair to say amateur.

They say they only take work from professionals,

but they're less quality.

Let's just put it that way.

And unfortunately,

this blog got ahold of one of the cakes that we

delivered and they compared it to a cake done by one

of the best in the world.

And ours really did pale in comparison in all fairness,

but this got picked up by another blog and then went

viral. Well,

when I say it went viral,

I mean,

it went to the today show,

it went to people,

magazine people.com.

It went all over the place.

So we were dealing with a lot of backlash over a

couple day period.

It started on a Wednesday.

I let it ride completely until Monday.

And then I finally said,

you know what?

Enough is enough?

And I posted,

and this was there.

Here's your plan B how do you react to something that

was unexpected?

And it was such negative press and everybody making fun of

this cake.

So I posted an open letter on social media and I

basically said,

we understand that our cakes,

once they're put out there,

they're public domain,

people can say and do whatever they want in the world

of social media,

but understand the impact of what's happened.

I now have a baker whose work is being made fun

of, she donated this cake to a sick child.

I now have an administrative team that is mortified by what's

been going on and it kills their motivation.

When they're spending 20 to 40 hours,

volunteering for us a week to see something like that happen.

I also had a child who is absolutely devastated that this

amazing gift that she received was being made fun of in

social media.

So this was a situation where when this first happened,

it killed all of us.

It broke our spirits.

It was devastating.

I posted that letter and why posted was not just a

picture of the cake,

but a picture of the baker delivering the cake to the

child changed the entire tone while my open letter went viral

and what's come of that has been multiple corporate sponsorships,

thousands of dollars in donations since that point.

So they say any press is good press.

That was another situation where we woke up devastated and it

turned into something absolutely amazing all in the way you handle

it. If you handle it professionally with respect,

you always managed to find something good,

come out Of it.

Right. It sounds like your first hope was just to let

it die.

Yes. Because you went from,

what did you say Wednesday to Monday,

but then your letter,

interestingly enough,

because many times they'll say don't talk to the naysayers and

all that on social media.

But what you did is you didn't just talk,

you represented the personal effects that it had behind the scenes

to your business and to the recipient of such a wonderful

gift and all that,

and look at what happened.

Right? And we didn't batch.

That was the message that we continually say,

no matter how we are being bashed,

believe it or not,

we get it.

We still go out there very positively.

And just say,

we understand,

but here's the other side,

Right? Well,

I am so glad that all ended well for you and

did actually very well for you as you're describing best Thing

that could have happened to us.

You didn't think that at first on that Wednesday,

I'm quite surely not,

oh my Tracy,

we're going to roll over into the reflection section.

Now this is look at you and what's helped you with

your success along the way.

You have mentioned that you've always liked baking and all of

that since you were a little girl,

but what other natural trait do you have?

That's helped you to be successful?

I think hands down,

it's the ability to build rapport with people,

no matter what business you are in,

you have to listen.

You have to see what resonates with the person that you're

speaking with and find a way to develop an connection with

that person.

And I really believe that that is by far the one

trait that has allowed us to succeed.

And I can give you a great example.

We brought on domino sugar as a corporate sponsor because it

became as a result of a personal connection.

I attended an event that the wife of the CEO of

domino sugar was attending as well.

We happen to sit next to each other at this event

and hit it off amazingly.

Well, she was trying to start a nonprofit.

I gave her some tips.

I told her about,

I think,

smiles. The next day I got a phone call from the

CEO of Domino's sugar and they have been a corporate sponsor

of ours for the last three years.

It's all personal rapport.

It never would have happened.

Had I not taken the time to listen and develop that

relationship. And I didn't do it with the intention of pulling

a corporate sponsorship out of it.

So I really believe that it's personal connections that make all

the difference in the world Fully agree.

What tool do you use regularly to keep productive or to

help create balance in your life?

I have none.

In all honesty,

I have none technology I would say is probably the best.

And I use an old fashioned to do list.

I find I'm the most productive when the night before or

the very first thing I do in the morning is schedule

out my day.

So there's no downtime wondering,

okay, what do I need to do next?

I wake up at four in the morning,

every morning,

get a cup of coffee,

schedule my day.

And I'm moving by four 30 and my day ends at

10, no matter what.

So it's knowing that that time has got to be productive.

You don't waste time and you don't feel as tired and

mentally drained trying to figure out,

okay, what happens next?

Now obviously things happen during the day,

but if I don't start off on that,

but in that reflection and that quiet time,

it makes it really hard.

It's a written piece of paper and a pen.

Right. Okay.

So then when you're scratching things off,

you're seeing a sense of accomplishment throughout the day.

Absolutely. Whether it's a workout day or it's a,

you know,

start with email,

it doesn't matter,

Got it.

And I like what you just said in there scheduled,

so you fit everything in because you've got it planned out.

Yes. Okay.

So you may have a little more balance in your life

than you think you're just ultra busy,

ultra Busy.

And I will say,

I can't tell you.

I execute that tool every day.

I mean,

that's my goal when I don't do that,

that's when things start to fall apart A good point.

That's good insight though,

too. And what book have you read lately that you think

our listeners could find value in?

I hope this isn't too corny,

cause it is not a professional book.

It's more on a personal level,

but the book is called real love by Greg Bayer.

And the reason I love it,

it's about really kind of understanding people's motivations as well as

your own and the defense mechanisms that you put up in

dealing with any relationship.

It's mostly geared towards a significant other,

but the concepts in that book are amazing and they can

be applied to any relationship at all,

whether it's personal or professional.

So I highly,

I command real love.

Wonderful. And you know,

we just got done talking about how important developing connections with

other people are.

Yes. So that just,

that makes total sense.

I don't know.

This book I'll have to check into it.

Yeah. It's was life-changing for me for many reasons on a

personal level.

And it gave me insight into me where I didn't even

notice I was kind of putting up some walls and some

defenses and I realized,

well, you know what?

That's not good in any relationship.

So it's helped me to kind of recognize when I'm doing

it as well as recognizing other people so that you can

make them feel a little bit less defensive and a little

bit more open to and receptive to what you're saying.

And you can understand then possibly better where people are coming

from too.

Absolutely. Yeah.

We'll give busy listeners just as you're listening to the podcast

today, you can also listen to audio books with ease.

I've teamed up with audible for you to be able to

get an audio book just like real love for free.

All you need to do is go to gift biz,

book.com and make a selection again.

That's gift biz,

book.com. Okay.

Tracy, we are beginning to wind down now and we've arrived

at our dare to dream question.

I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.

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

This is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable Heights

that you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What is inside your box?

Donors, lots and lots of donors.

If we did not have to worry so much about where

our funds were coming from,

all of our team could be focused on serving and just

delivering these cakes and creating these memories for the kids.

Especially my time being used,

trying to figure out where are we going to get this

funding? I don't have any personal goals besides being able to

serve and live comfortably.

So if I could just get these donors in the door,

then I could spend my life serving.

There You go.

More cakes and out to the world.

You got it.

Fabulous. All right.

So I am quite sure we have a number of people

who'd would be interested in how they might be able to

get in touch with you,

either for a cake or to be on the list,

to be able to make some cakes and just become part

of this wonderful organization.

Can you share with us how people can get in touch

with you?

Absolutely. Well,

a lot of the information that you would need can be

found on our website,

as long as it's not hacked and that's icing smiles.org

on there,

you'll find volunteer applications as well as applications to get a

cake. I also can be reached through the website.

If you're looking for personal contact information or I can be

reached@tracytracyaticingsmiles.org. Wonderful.

And I believe you've also given me information already for your

Facebook page.

Yes. Facebook,

Twitter, all of that.

So gift biz listeners.

Remember you can jump over to the show notes page.

That's available at gift biz,

unwrapped.com. And there we'll have all the links,

including the ones that Tracy's just shared.

So you can connect up with her in any way that

fits you best.

Thank you so much,

Tracy. This was so informative and such a great look behind

the scenes of a nonprofit and specifically your very unique way

of helping people.

I really appreciate everything you've shared with us today and may

your candle and all the candles on all the icing styles,

cakes always burn bright.

Thank you for the time to Learn how to work smarter

while developing and growing your business.

Download our guide called 25 free tools to enhance your business

in life.

It's our gift to you and available@giftbizonrap.com

slash tools.

Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for the

next episode.

Today's show is sponsored by the ribbon print company,

looking for a new income source for your gift business.

Customization is more popular now than ever grander products.

Have your logo or print a happy birthday.

Jessica Griffin to add two again,

right at checkout,

it's all done right in your shop or across studio in

seconds. Check out the ribbon print company.com

for more information.

Would you like to be on the show or do you

know someone who can provide valuable insight from their experiences?

If so,

we'd love to hear from you.

All you need to do is submit a form for consideration.

You can access the form@giftunwrapped.com

forward slash guest that's gift is unwrapped.com