Today we’d like to introduce you to Brette Hawks.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My love for baking and business traces back to when I was a kid, blocking off my mom’s kitchen to set up bakeries and cafes. Growing up, I always found a thrill in the creative challenge that is baking. However, it took me until I was 24 to connect the dots between my passion and the possibility of transforming it into an actual career path.
I was about 6 months pregnant in my senior year at Brigham Young University when the logic finally clicked into place. I realized my dream was to run my wedding cake bakery! With a pocketful of recipes, I began the journey to hone my baking and decorating skills. I was desperately trying to understand all that went into building a business legally, financially, and strategically. I googled my questions without much luck. I emailed several bakers near me looking for advice, answers, and guidance….to no response.
So I set out on my own to figure out how to build a baking business from scratch! I made a promise to myself that someday, I would become the resource for starting a baking business that I had so desperately sought in those start-up days.
It took three years of trial and error, quitting four times, and a lot of learning before I officially licensed and launched my home baking business: Hobble Creek Cake Company, named for the beautiful Hobble Creek Canyon in Springville, Utah where I lived at the time.
Two years after being in business, I started making a sustainable full-time monthly income as a home baker. Now, I’ve delivered hundreds of cake orders. I helped finance our first home purchase with the revenue from my business. I’ve been featured by big brands like Wilton, Cake Masters, and American Cake Decorating Magazine. I’ve taught at international baking events such as The Bake Fest.
And the best part: I haven’t had to sacrifice the home and family-centered lifestyle that I love to do. I had a radical empathy for other bakers trying to make it work in business. I didn’t think that success belonged only to the lucky few- it’s for everyone! I could see fellow moms and bakers struggling with the same pieces that I had finally deciphered, which had led to my success. And true to my word, I was going to do everything I could to be a guide and a resource for them to get to success faster than I did.
I began a new chapter of my business by starting The Out of Home Baker, a community where I could teach and share the behind-the-scenes process and strategy of starting a baking business. I began writing little e-books, patching together courses, and teaching live on topics like pricing, marketing, and customer service.
I didn’t have a lot of technological skills when it came to designing, filming, and producing my courses and e-books, but I never let that stand in my way of getting the information out there. To me, the content was more valuable than how shiny my video editing was. Turns out, the key to creating professional-level content is to make the amateur, rough versions first- that’s how I learned! That’s how I improved the delivery of my courses. I’m so proud of myself for trying and letting it be messy in the beginning.
Today, I have a complete online business program called the Business School for Bakers with over 100 incredible students enrolled. I published my first official hardcopy book this year, called “Keep The Orders Coming” and sold over 300 copies in the first few months of its publication. Private coaching students have flown in from all over the continent– Alaska, Vermont, Oregon– just to spend the day learning from me.
I am always in awe of how much my story and knowledge have inspired and encouraged other women, and grateful for the incredible ways I’ve been able to make a difference in the baking community. It’s an amazing, loving, outstanding community to be a part of.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ve had my healthy serving of challenges and tricky spots along the way in building my businesses. I used to think they were a sign of failure.
They used to make me quit I did quit several times. But once the dust of a chaotic experience had settled and I had cried my tears, I would square my shoulders, look my shortcomings in the face, and think, “What do I need to learn and change so that this doesn’t happen next time?”
I don’t believe in failure anymore. It’s all progress. It’s all stepping stones. It’s how you learn! I’ve had a wedding cake fall over. I’ve had customers unhappy with their final product. I’ve been down to the wire trying to deliver orders on time.
Life doesn’t end when those things happen. It feels sucky for sure. But I commit to serving my customers the best I can and fixing the situation to the best of my ability when things don’t turn out right. And then I learn from it. Wedding cake falls over? I will give you a full refund. And then I’ll go learn how to structure my cakes better so it never happens again (and it hasn’t!)
Customer is unhappy with the final product? I listen to their complaints honestly and validate their concerns. I find the gaps in my communication process with customers and I fix them so miscommunication about design doesn’t happen again.
Too many orders down to the wire? I say a prayer, push through, and then double down on my discipline to fine-tune my production process and keep myself on schedule.
One of my biggest struggles as a mom running a business is trying to navigate the guilt that always seems to creep in about whether or not it’s hurting my family and my kids for me to be spending time on this. It used to keep me up at night. It was the main reason that I quit so many times- when things got hard, I would assume that was God’s sign of disapproval of my business.
I’ve long since unraveled that ridiculous notion.
My kids and my husband are everything to me. Baking and business are a part of me too. They both bring me to life and give me purpose. I’ve come to love the phrase “work-life harmony”. The idea is that two interweaving melodies support and enrich each other. Sometimes one part plays a little louder than the other, but that’s the key to creating a beautiful symphony.
That mindset has eased the mom’s guilt struggle.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
The Out of Home Baker is my coaching & mentoring business for other bakers. It’s an Instagram community of almost 74K beautiful souls who are all trying to learn how to grow their successful businesses. I’m always thinking of these bakers and asking the question, “What do they need next? What can help them get to the next level of success?” and the answers fuel my course creation process.
I try to be very genuine and transparent on social media about how the messy, imperfect actions of a mom running a business can still have a huge impact and create a reputable cake brand. I feel like that transparency is what most draws students to my programs. I want them to know that I’m not some gorgeous pastry chef in a shiny Instagram-worthy kitchen who just got it made. I’m a mom with a messy bun and two crazy kiddos.
My best-selling online course is called “Pricing Mastermind” and it teaches bakers how to understand the math, logic, and strategy behind pricing products. It’s helped some of my students even triple their incomes as bakers.
My most valuable program is The Business School for Bakers, a complete online business program that walks students through what I call the 7 Ingredient Recipes to Success in Business. In the program, my students follow a curriculum that covers entrepreneurship, marketing, finances and pricing, customer service, and more.
Running The Out of Home Baker is currently my main focus, but I also still take orders through my cake business Hobble Creek Cake Co. I specialize in beautiful painted floral buttercream cakes that taste as good as they look!
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk-taking.
It’s funny, I don’t think the word “risk” is in my business vocabulary. It’s not a concept that I dwell on in my business. I think I just have a different way of perceiving and interpreting the process of putting yourself out there even when you’re uncertain of the results it will bring.
I find a lot of excitement in the process of trying to figure out the game of business. It’s like a puzzle. When an offer or a product or a business venture doesn’t land quite the way I thought it would, that’s when the detective cap comes on and I analyze why it didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped.
When a product flops, it’s not rejection. It’s not personal, it’s feedback. It’s data. And you need that data so you can adjust and make it work next time. If we want to talk in terms of risk, to me the true risk is being too afraid to try something and missing out on the adventure that could’ve been.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.outofhomebaker.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.outofhome.baker/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1eyfjlUzNi9QnmxSKj4AYA
Image Credits
Katie Redhouse Photography and Rachel Smith
