Top 3 Things To Do Before Starting Your Small Bakery Business

I’ve spent this year doing research and putting together valuable information on how to start a small baking business successfully. It’s been quite a welcome challenge, as well as being very insightful as well, I’ve loved every minute (well most of the minutes, except the ones where I felt like I had writers’ block when finishing the book ^_^). This is what has inspired today’s post, I will share the top three things that I believe you should do before starting your small bakery business. More detail in the book of course, but this is just to share some valuable tips to start you off in order to increase your chance of success.

1. Research
I cannot stress enough how important this is; it can determine how successful your small bakery business will be the first six months of operation. If you seriously want to be a successful bakery owner, research is a must. There are important aspects of your small bakery business you should research on:
• Your niche – the type of bakery and products you will offer in your business.
• Your target customers – based on your niche, the perfect customers for your products.
• Your competition – who already has a bakery business offering the same types of products you will be offering and what can you improve, innovate or offer more effectively.
• Your location – whether you are home-based or starting a bakery shop, get to know your target location.
• Your business name – it’s good to search out the top three names you intend to use for your bakery business before you register the name, it helps you be authentic and unique as a bakery business, without looking like you’re copying another bakery business brand.
• Your recipes – practice and test your recipes more than three times, this will assist in making sure they are marketable and customer ready. This will also help you come up with a standard recipe which you can cost.
2. Plan
Once you do your research, the next step is to plan yourself. The first step that most startup bakery owners fail to do; but is very important, is to write a basic business plan. This will help you get a real sense of what you want your bakery business model to be. It will also give you the financial, labor, management and marketing requirements for the bakery business. I also recommend as you plan yourself to have an activity plan or worksheet with timelines (or if you will – deadlines), to help you actually do what you need to get started. So to recap, you need to have the following plans:
• Basic Business Plan
• Financial Plan (included in Business Plan)
• Management & Labor requirements (in Business Plan)
• Marketing Plan
• Activity Plan

3. Start
As simple and almost silly as this sounds, you need to start. In my classes and bakery business training that I’ve done, I noticed a trend with some of the students I had. A large percentage of them have been thinking and some even planning on starting small bakery businesses, but never really quite get to doing it. This is a fear that we have as individuals on getting started on a business that is new and the thought of taking the risk can be quite scary. As many seasoned entrepreneurs will tell you, I’ll tell you the same – just start. Be courageous and start your bakery business. If you have done your research and planning, that is the next step. If you don’t take it, you might regret it; someone might think of your idea and implement it later and you’ll always regret never taking the first step of just starting. As a bakery business owner, you will adapt as you observe your business growing and adjust accordingly. Success comes over a period of time, just keep learning and doing what makes your customers happy and satisfied.

I hope these three important steps will be helpful to getting you started with your small bakery business.

If you want detailed information on how to successfully start a small bakery business, make sure you buy my book “How to Startup a Small Bakery Business Successfully”and I guarantee it will give you a higher rate of startup success. Click on this link to find out price and details on where to get the book.
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