I know. There is way too much written about goals already! But Andrew tells me that I’ve set goals since I had my Easy-bake oven so it is an interesting topic for me. The #1 thing about a goal is that actions speak louder than words, meaning that you have to work on a goal every day, even if it is just something small. No action, no success against a goal. That sounds harsh but the...
The shorter days and colder weather are dragging me down – and winter hasn’t even started yet! When I feel this way, items can languish on my to-do list. With my handy-dandy Evernote app, I can move a task from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday with a simple cut & paste. But everywhere I go, there it is! A hack that usually works to get me out of this push-forward rut is this: Aim for...
Steve Gregory is a gifted teacher about sales management. Steve consulted to the bank, and Andrew and I heard his talks many times. He is the kind of speaker who paints pictures through his stories to make memorable points. One Steve story I have never forgotten is about interviewing people. Sometimes a person shows up for an interview and you know within the first few minutes that they are...
I’ve learned that flexible thinking is a great thing. For example, a few years ago, I would not have agreed to a tipping option in a bakery – and now I have one. In setting up Sticky, we realized the landscape had changed and that some coffee/bakery places include a tipping option in the cashing out process. We decided that a tip option gives customers the ability to give the team something extra...
It’s been a minute since my last post on May 17th! As I write this on July 9th, it is hard to even remember the gjillion things about the opening of Sticky on May 27th – and the weeks since then. And even if I could remember all the details, that would be a boring litany anyway. Suffice to say that the HVAC broke and then was fixed, that many deliveries were late and then replaced, that...
For most of the last month, the to-do list between Andrew and me has been like those soup bowls in comedy sketches that fill up as soon as a person reaches the bottom. But – knock on wood- the website should launch May 30th and the store open on June 1st. Yippee! This time around in opening a bakery, we are really hands-on, and in that process, we are learning so much. As well as Andrew seizing...
Our friend Peter Phoa came to the bakery last week and took this photo of Andrew. I love it. Last week in this blog I suggested just doing the next obvious thing when you have a lot to do and let me say: this is a good strategy for opening a bakery. Really everywhere you look there is stuff to do. I’m sure in hindsight a lot of it will be wrong – like when we had the brainwave before we opened...
Sticky’s Classic Banana Pudding Yep, once again, it’s been a minute since you heard from me. (It was New Year’s Eve! Who knows where the time has gone since then?) Anyway – I have news! I’ve signed a lease on a lovely space near St Clair and Bathurst for Sticky’s home, and everything is on track for opening the bakery this spring, “spring” being a perfectly vague term meaning anywhere...
A month ago here, I was discouraged, something that I’ve noticed happens a lot with goal-setting – “LOL” as they say. Anyway, I wrote that I had the “what” figured out – what business? what products? – but I was perplexed on the “where” and the “how”. Well, let me say: the Universe intervened and I have news, people, not to mention 3 good reasons to demonstrate that...
Some time back, I was having one of those weeks when nothing seemed to be going right. The best thing to do then, in my experience, is to bake. And for a really therapeutic baking experience, the best thing to bake is sticky buns, mostly because sticky buns are the absolutely best baked good in the world, plus it is hard to find a good sticky bun, and lastly, there is something about the kneading...