Have you ever wondered what it takes to trade a secure but stale career for the high-risk, high-reward life of entrepreneurship? Naomi Rose, marathon runner turned baking magnate, joins me on The Pivot Point to share her extraordinary leap of faith from the confines of an office cubicle into the heat of the bakery kitchen. Discover how she transformed challenges into opportunities and how her strategies for resilience can serve as a blueprint for your own ventures.
Embark on a journey through the hurdles of opening and scaling a new business with the wisdom and warmth that only Naomi can provide. With her café and bar, she weathered the storm of 'Savage Saturdays' and the unpredictability of the pandemic, shifting gears from baked goods to cocktails and live music with a nimbleness that is awe-inspiring. Her firsthand accounts are more than just tales; they're lessons in adaptability, the importance of teamwork, and the art of embracing the unexpected with grace and gusto.
But it's not all about the daily grind; Naomi delves into the softer, often overlooked side of entrepreneurship: self-care and realistic expectations. Learn why 'filling your own cup' is not just a nice idea, but a business imperative, and how setting attainable goals, paired with effective systems, can elevate you from being a mere participant in your business to being its master. Whether you're kneading dough or kneading ideas, join us for an episode that promises to enrich your entrepreneurial spirit and maybe even stir your passion for the art of baking.
Connect with Naomi : https://linktr.ee/bakingboss
Are you loving this show? I’d be so grateful if you like, rate, review and share with a friend!
Catch the episode on Youtube to see photos and videos related to this story.
Want to spend more time with me? Join me in my 1:1 Coaching Container https://www.coachedbyjess.com/coaching
Explore more wellness conversations with me over on instagram @coached.byjess
Do you have a story that you would like to share on The Pivot Point? Apply now https://forms.gle/hxfmFb5RNJ7VBKQQ9
Have you ever wondered what it takes to trade a secure but stale career for the high-risk, high-reward life of entrepreneurship? Naomi Rose, marathon runner turned baking magnate, joins me on The Pivot Point to share her extraordinary leap of faith from the confines of an office cubicle into the heat of the bakery kitchen. Discover how she transformed challenges into opportunities and how her strategies for resilience can serve as a blueprint for your own ventures.
Embark on a journey through the hurdles of opening and scaling a new business with the wisdom and warmth that only Naomi can provide. With her café and bar, she weathered the storm of 'Savage Saturdays' and the unpredictability of the pandemic, shifting gears from baked goods to cocktails and live music with a nimbleness that is awe-inspiring. Her firsthand accounts are more than just tales; they're lessons in adaptability, the importance of teamwork, and the art of embracing the unexpected with grace and gusto.
But it's not all about the daily grind; Naomi delves into the softer, often overlooked side of entrepreneurship: self-care and realistic expectations. Learn why 'filling your own cup' is not just a nice idea, but a business imperative, and how setting attainable goals, paired with effective systems, can elevate you from being a mere participant in your business to being its master. Whether you're kneading dough or kneading ideas, join us for an episode that promises to enrich your entrepreneurial spirit and maybe even stir your passion for the art of baking.
Connect with Naomi : https://linktr.ee/bakingboss
Are you loving this show? I’d be so grateful if you like, rate, review and share with a friend!
Catch the episode on Youtube to see photos and videos related to this story.
Want to spend more time with me? Join me in my 1:1 Coaching Container https://www.coachedbyjess.com/coaching
Explore more wellness conversations with me over on instagram @coached.byjess
Do you have a story that you would like to share on The Pivot Point? Apply now https://forms.gle/hxfmFb5RNJ7VBKQQ9
Hello and welcome back to the Pivot Point podcast, where me, your host, jessica McGahn, and my guests explore the pivotal moments that shape our lives. Today's episode is for the entrepreneurs and for the bakers. If you fit into either of those categories, you are sure to love today's episode with my guest, naomi Rose. In 2018, naomi decided to train and race in her very first ever marathon, which then, in turn, inspired her to quit her office job to follow her passion for baking. Through grit, passion, tenacity and perseverance, naomi navigated the wild world of opening and running a cafe and bar, and not just under normal everyday circumstances my word no but rather through the global pandemic. In this episode, naomi takes us through the mental and emotional hurdles she faced, the problems she solved and how she was able to be successful through it all. Today, naomi is the proud owner and founder of Baking Boss. In 2018, she opened a cafe and bar and bakery which became nationally award-winning for its homemade bread. Early in 2023, she took everything she learned and turned it into her new business, baking Boss, where she teaches online baking workshops as well as supports other bakers with their businesses.
Speaker 2:Naomi has a lot to share with us today, so, without further ado, let's dive in. Naomi, I am so excited to dive into this conversation with you. Thank you so much for joining me all the way from the UK. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good, I'm enjoying this rainy day. It feels a little bit like England here. It's a bit rainy and dark today in my office.
Speaker 1:As it happened, the sun has just decided to pour through my top window, so hence why I'm half in dark, I'm half in bright sunlight, so I can't see anything.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, well you look great from my end and I'm sure all of you have good ears, so I'm excited to dive into this conversation with you. As we talked about before I pressed that record button, there's two different kinds of pivotal moments that I've noticed. My experience and from the interviews I've had so far is that there's moments that happen to us, like the car accident or a family divorce or a betrayal, and for you in this conversation it was a ha moment of sorts, a change that came from and within you, and I've experienced these moments myself and I love hearing other people's journeys through these moments. So I'm really excited to hear this story from you.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was probably. It's really actually. It probably started back in 2017. So I'd been in a job. I worked nine to five for a long time. I headed up a digital team. I worked in offices and we did digital marketing communications. It's quite a fun job, in fairness, but I was just. It wasn't challenging me in any way, shape or form anymore and for some unbeknown reason, which I don't know why but I thought I feel like I'm going to run a marathon and I'd only run all of about five miles at this point and thought it might be an easy task to undertake, because how much further is it? It's like 26 miles. It's like five times. It was so difficult.
Speaker 2:Do you remember, like, where you were when you just had this download of I should run a marathon? Like were you at first thought? Were you watching people run on the streets? Like where did that come from?
Speaker 1:We had a run club at work and we went out after work at least once a week, just a, you know. It was either one or two, three or four of us or whoever was available and did 5K. And I kind of got into running a bit more from that and I'd done the odd 5K here and there for charity and stuff. But I wasn't a runner Runner was not my thing and I think I was just getting bored of the monotony of being in an office and I thought I really need to just push myself and just prove to myself I can do something. And it was something that I thought it kind of lurks in the back of your mind, of things you want to achieve in life, and that was one of them that I kind of like I'll be great to be able to say I've done that.
Speaker 1:So I thought, right, well, what am I waiting for? I've got a stable job, it's not testing me. Why don't I do it now? And yes, I didn't quite really anticipate how much it would take over and the training and I was fundraising as well. So I was raising money for charity, but the actual reward of doing it and getting to the finish line and achieving something quite well mammoth really for someone that hadn't really run much, just kind of. I'm the only one that's putting all of these limits on myself. Why am I stopping myself from doing what I want to do? But actually I've just proved to myself I could do a lot more than I thought, and that's when I kind of thought I just don't want to do this job for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:I've just been working for someone else for the rest of my life, and that come from completing the race, or in the process of running, or in the process of training for this marathon.
Speaker 1:The training for the marathon hurt. It was tough. I'll say that it was. It was harder than I expected and I had to really anticipate. I injured myself because I tried to over train and then I couldn't run for about a month. So I had to then, which probably in a way helped because I had to change to swimming and that actually probably built up my strength a lot better than actually doing the aggressive running as it happened.
Speaker 1:So actually really kind of rethought, but the actual when I was doing the marathon it was all I could think about for about four months. It was everything I was eating. Everything I was doing was everything was wrapped around doing the marathon. I had to really completely rethink how I did everything.
Speaker 1:So it's after I done that I kind of thought I've got the freedom to do whatever I want, because I've proved to myself that actually if I put my mind to something, I can achieve something more than I thought. So that's where I kind of got the idea of, like, I just want to be my own boss, I don't want to work for anybody else. And so it kind of went from there and I quit my job. I have been known to quit my jobs without any other jobs in the past before, because I just think, well, if I'm done in a job, I'll just leave, because there's no point in me hanging on, because I'm just not going to enjoy it, and as humans we're normally survivors, so I will figure something out afterwards, which is why I normally do.
Speaker 2:So you weren't like, you weren't secure, you had no idea where you were going next. You just knew that this job was not for you. It was not adding value to your life, you were unhappy with it and you were quick to move. You're like nope, no longer for me. I got to go. I'll find something else. Bye, Exactly.
Speaker 1:So I did, I kind of handed in my latest and my company I was working for saying would you mind just staying for one more year and just covering a maternity cover for us? And you can. But I said only on the basis that the role I was in gets filled permanently because I'm not coming back and I don't want to cause people wondering whether they're going to have jobs or not at the end of this. Basically, I'll do this and then I'm gone. So my team couldn't really understand that I hadn't got a plan. So you quit and you're not going to come back? Yeah, how Well, I'll figure it out. I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I'll figure out something.
Speaker 2:Did you have any children or dependents at this time, or were you free to do as please?
Speaker 1:I was. Fortunately, I was in a very lucky position that I could just do what I want and I didn't necessarily have children to look after. So when I got to a point where I was kind of starting to think, well, I'm going to need to figure out what I want to do, and I knew I wanted to work for myself I was thinking, maybe I'll do a digital consultancy or something like that. And that's when the building in my local town became available and it was a disused night club and it was you can imagine disused night club that hadn't been used in 12 years, Don't?
Speaker 1:want to imagine that no no, it was not nice, it really wasn't nice. But underneath all of that not-nice-ness was this beautiful Art Deco 1920s building that still had so much original history and I was like this will make an amazing cafe and bar and it needs to be brought back to life, because all of this history has been lost and it kind of snowballed from there. So I've gone sort of thinking I'm going to just work for myself, to then suddenly going I'm going to have a cafe and bar. I like baking, I've always baked and I you know everything I did fundraising for the marathon, I baked, I used to go on baking courses and I just that would be just so good to do that. I love doing that. So that's where it went, and I think my last day in my job was in the November and we'd been working on getting the building up to scratch and then we opened in December, so it had gone really quickly.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Yeah, things moved very, but it sounds to me like you were just open to all of it. You were open to receiving that. I'm a little bit spiritual and hippie-dippy, but like you were open to receiving help from the universe. You were looking for new opportunities and when they presented you with one, you were able to see it as something for you. Did you know anything about, like? If I thought about opening a shop or a bakery, I feel like my mind would completely take over and like tell me, I don't know how to run a business, I don't know how to like, where would the money come from? Fear, fear, fear. Did any of that happen for you? Or were you just in this full feeling of like? I know I will figure this out.
Speaker 1:It was a real mix of both. I mean, it was a complete emotional roller coaster. And my skill set I'm a project manager by that's where I'm happy being project managing so I thought, right, okay, I know what I need to do to get the doors open. I'm gonna work backwards and work out what I need to learn to get there. And it was a huge learning curve. I didn't know anything about building control, I didn't know anything about environmental health, but it was. It was a complete team effort and my husband mostly managed the trades coming in. So one day we had nine different trades in there because Stuff like the park. A few up flooring which was beautiful by the time we finished it it really wasn't. When we started it took eight weeks to polish that up. It was the biggest. Actually restoring the building.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness and that you know on my list. It was like God, do the marketing I've got to do, I've got to figure out how to employ people. But we figure out all the legal HR, all contracts, and I just write a massive project management list and work through it and days were like, yes, I've got this, and there are other days were like I'm in a complete planet. What the hell have I done? I cannot do this. It was really like completely, it was mad and Talk me through those moments.
Speaker 2:Sorry, but like, talk me through those moments where you just were like, did I do the wrong thing or I just want to give up, like this is so much harder than I thought it was going to be, because entrepreneurship Really does that. Like new business owners, we all experienced these moments of Wow, this is a mountain much higher than I, than I thought initially when I started climbing it. How did you get yourself through those moments of I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1:In. It was tough and it was sometimes it was a matter of taking a step back and going and talking to people, and we had to. My original deadline for getting it over was actually the 25th of November, so we'd actually started the build in October but we just weren't going to be ready. And the reason I put it at that date was because our town of the God the Christmas lights which on, and I thought that'd be perfect for open then, as it probably happened. It was much better opening when we did, which was about two weeks later or so, and we were much better prepared. We'd had a bit more time to put everything together and we could go in, even though I thought a lot the hard work had been done up until opening day I had no idea how Go opening December, but it's the month of the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was new technology, new systems, new customers. You know we're figuring out food service and we we started. You know, we kind of knew that the first day. You know there'd be teasing problems. I didn't. I accommodated for the worst case scenario of what. No one came in. I didn't accommodate for what if everybody came in.
Speaker 1:So I had to find new staff very quickly because we had a small team and my Staff doubled almost by January because it was so busy, which was great. It's a great problem to have. But I was then sort of confronted with people complaining about closed service and Different days of the week were so different in terms of service. So the weekdays were very different to weekends, where Everybody's in a very different mood and mindset. On the weekend you really got like in the week it was a bit more steady and you could manage it. But on the weekends we started calling Saturdays savage Saturdays because it was a whole different way you had to run service because it was so, so much busy and people were out. They want to get stuck done. They didn't want to wait and we were still new. We're still learning.
Speaker 2:Had you worked a little bit of a learning curve. Had you worked in the service industry at all, like as a young kid growing up like waitressing at a cafe or anything like that.
Speaker 1:I've done that about six months at my local pub, so it was a fairly. I had a bit of an inkling but it was, yeah, very much a country bumpkin kind of pub. So nothing compared to this sort of different service. I hadn't, you know my team. We had barista training. We had to learn all about the coffee. We had to learn all about the different teams, even like planning how what's put on the menu and how that actually works physically and Storing all the food ingredients, how service would work if you had multiple different things on. Again, it was a completely different way of working and, of course, all new equipment.
Speaker 2:So it was really it's all new, it seems all very new.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the team I had, they were, they were fantastic. They, we just we work very collaboratively together, because that was my method. I work collaboratively with my team because I know you that, having worked in digital, you learn that there are people like web developers that I am not a developer by any means, even though I lead digital teams and that's what I've done in the past but the developers, they have a whole different level of understanding. I just need them to do the job. I don't need to know how to do the job.
Speaker 1:So I took that approach into my team of, like you are going to know so much more than me about working in the kitchen because you've done it before, unlike me, so let's work together to figure out how this is going to work for you and for me, because there's no point in me telling you because I'm not experienced in this, but you've done this before, so let's do that. So it was a really good way of working and building that relationship with the team and you know it wasn't me making all the decisions by myself. We were figuring it out together and I think by sort of Easter next, the following year, we'd realized that we'd got the sink in the wrong place in the kitchen so we ripped it out and moved it because it wasn't quite working in terms of workplace. So there was so many different things that just adapted and changed as we grew and as we learn, and it sounds like you're very good.
Speaker 2:You're. It sounds like you're a very collaborative leader, which I think is one of the best ways to lead, like you don't. You didn't present yourself as I'm the boss, so I know better than everyone it was. You're an expert here. You're an expert here. I hired you because I trust you and I'm excited to partner with you. I think that's really beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think sometimes it can be a good thing and sometimes it could be a negative in a way, or when you have to be quite authoritative, it can sometimes work in the wrong way, but it's finding that right balance. But certainly as it was completely new thing, everybody was learning as we went along and we adjusted, we changed customers, changed. We then had COVID right in the middle of it, which also then completely changed everything. So it was we started with a cafe and bar and partly because the cafe was what I love to do I like to do the baking. My team that I employed they also like to bake, so it worked really well.
Speaker 1:Bar was gonna be gin wines, quite easy service. But we realized that everybody wanted cocktails and naively I thought there's quite a few cocktail places so we're off of something different. No, people want cocktails. So within the first four months we got cocktail bar manager in and just completely we did a whole drinks menu and it worked really well. So that way then the bar was kind of like the cash cow of the business. It was the side that actually brought in the money much more than the cafe. So they paired quite well together and we could do the live music events and all these other bits, but obviously COVID completely. We had 15 months before COVID came in, so it was then a completely different challenge and one that the whole world was in together. We're trying to figure out, then, how to go through navigating, and in the UK they changed the rules on who could be with who, who could sit with people.
Speaker 2:We had a hard time. Yeah, In Canada we both, just like, really suffered during that time.
Speaker 1:It was tough and you can feel you know the hospitality industry. Every time, like the government would change their mind on who could sit with who, or varying different rules, we would sit down and we'd have two days to figure out that a new complete operational way of working that my team would have to enforce with customers. It was kind of like a such a bizarre time to go, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I was a waitress and bartender for 10 years. It was a really great time. It supported my life, of travel and I remember during COVID being like I am so grateful that I am not in the hospitality business right now, because that industry is just getting destroyed. It got destroyed by COVID, like with angry customers and people who didn't want to wear masks, and then the government's like the distancing and then the patios and it was just a nightmare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was really tough and we in my town there was a lot of regulars and a lot of them didn't come back. So they were so. Not because they were afraid of how we are managing it, because they said the opposite, they were just going back out socially was really hard for them. So, you know, it took a little while and I, because we play, I think, in 2020, it being sort of we've been open, closed, open, closed the bar had been shut for quite a long time, which was very frustrating from my perspective. People were definitely very nervous about coming in, but there was lots of laws and drinking and things in the evening as well.
Speaker 1:And in 2021, I thought I'm not going to do delivery to start with, because we weren't set up for it, we weren't able to get stock, we weren't able to get solely things. So when we went into lockdown, we just locked down. And then 2021, I thought I might just see if people want like afternoon teas or something delivered, because we've got Valentine's Day, we've got Mother's Day, they're all lovely days and maybe, you know, people might need like a just to pick me up, because this is going on a bit and that worked really well and actually, if nothing else, it kept me myself and my team a little bit sane because we could actually come in and do a bit of work and then sit at home. So I was out delivering, they were helping me to bake stuff. We're boxing them all up in lovely boxes and it was a really kind of nice thing to do.
Speaker 1:And during that time of being sort of in the lockdown, I started making bread again, because my ethos was support. I was local so I wanted to support locals. So all of them, the majority of my suppliers, were local, and one we'd had no end of problems with was a bakery, and they'd partly because they were just struggling with staff. So we'd get bread orders arrive at lunchtime when we open at nine, and of course, one of the biggest things that we sold was breakfasts and sandwiches and we're like we're having to run out and get supermarket bread because our supply was letting us down. So I was like we can't keep doing this anymore.
Speaker 2:It's not the best way and of course the customers don't know that. The customers go. Why are you serving me this?
Speaker 1:They don't know that it's not your fault.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So I thought I just really enjoy making bread and in the chaos of kind of getting the business set up, it just had to go to one side. So I thought actually, if we're just serving bread for the cafe, I could do small batches and we'll just serve it as normal bread. And that's when people start to say, where did you get your bread from? And I'm like, well, we'll make it here. Like, can I buy some? Like, well, yes, so we started doing low level stuff and it made me think maybe my town wants a bakery, maybe this is something they want.
Speaker 1:And we had a room out the back that had been used for kind of keeping all the group bookings out the way of the main space, because in groups people tend to get quite loud and we had big, tall ceilings in our building. So just for anyone else that came in, we had a group in. It was just not a great experience. So we used to put the groups out there, but with COVID we couldn't do big groups. I'm like, actually this space would make a great bakery. And I've gone to the bank and said, could we get a small loan? They went because they were doing resilience loans, so this was a way to help businesses sort of get back on their feet again and the bank said no, because you're not making any profit. I'm like we're breaking even. Surely that's not a bad thing in the middle of COVID.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So it kind of defeated the object of what a resilience loan was. Given that you weren't making any profits, it's not really a resilience. But anyway, I thought, well, maybe I'll just. One of my friends said well, why didn't you crowdfund? I'm like in every one occurred to me. Actually, this is a genius idea because if I say to my local community, I really want to build a bakery, would you be interested in investing in what we're doing? And they say, yes, I'll know this is onto a winner and it worked. So that was quite something. I'd launched campaigns before in my past, but nothing like this, nothing where I thought I'd get the backing. We did and we exceed our target.
Speaker 2:How much money did you raise? Yeah?
Speaker 1:We had a target of 15,000 pounds in the UK. We got to 17.
Speaker 2:So we've gone well in cheerio, thank you.
Speaker 1:And we had 300 people back to us as well, which is amazing. And then, of course, they were investors. And I mean, having done the crowdfunding campaign, why didn't think of it sooner, I don't know. But actually what was great was I got 300 people that some were already customers, but some weren't necessarily customers, but then I had already me and Paul of people that were going to come into my place to pick up their rewards or engage with us in some way. Like this is a great way to start a business is have like the community behind you. So I had found it was really difficult finding bakers in my town because it's quite small and we weren't in the main city. But I found a baker who was going to be my head baker and together we saw put together the bread and I was like I'm going to have to do sourdough, which I have not got on with before because I just never could get it to work correctly. But sourdough is trendy.
Speaker 2:So yeah, sourdough like really trended during COVID yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm like there's no way I could open a bakery without having sourdough. So we practiced for two months. It was literally we had batches of loaves and I think, one the Christmas of 2022, we broke up Christmas because I let my staff have some time with their family over Christmas and it was just on the report, because we reported every time we baked something, because we were trying to work out how to make everything work really well and at the bottom it's like came out flat again, sad face and that was the best we could Like you documented, you kept like a spreadsheet or something of like what we did and whether or not it worked or not.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I'm going to close this off making something like sourdough. You have to. You've got your starter, which you have to then feed and nurture. Once you've fed it, you've got to then wait till you can use it in your bread. So there's a whole train of processes to get it to where it needs to be and it's a timeline. So if you wanted to say by Saturday, we would start it on Thursday.
Speaker 1:So again, it was quite a process of getting it right, but it just wasn't working for us. We just weren't getting it right, and over that Christmas I just played about with it. I had a, took it on like that. So I've got to go back to basics. I'm going to get my scientist hat on and I'm going to treat this like an experiment. I'm not going to keep getting infuriated by the fact we can't get the spread right and we just something just clicked. I changed. I changed how I fed the starter by 25 grams of water. That was it. That wasn't all it needed for us to get it right to what we needed it to be, and it suddenly just started to work.
Speaker 2:Baking is such a science. It is such a science.
Speaker 1:It was crazy. And so when I went back in after Christmas and we start baking, then bulking up to do the batches again, it started working. It's like that's it. We're going to open in the January. Great, so we'd opened and it was fantastic. We had the mayor come in with the whole room and kind of thing. So it was, it was awesome.
Speaker 2:Didn't you win an award for your loaf like best loaf, Was that?
Speaker 1:your sourdough loaf.
Speaker 1:Well, actually, as it happened, I'd, after we'd opened, I'd had an email saying do you want to open or do you want to enter Britain's best loaf awards? And I thought you know what I'll enter. I'm not going to tell my team, because they will, they will freak out that I've even done this, but I'm kind of thinking, actually, the local community love our bread, but it'd be good to go and actually talk to a judge and find out what we could do better, how we can improve it. Yeah, so I thought we would network with some other bakeries, get to know a few people that are like the best bakeries in the country, and we'll go to an exhibition where they have lots of different food on, so it's part of a food expose. Well, it sounds like a great day out to me and you know we get to get a bit of feedback. And so I entered into five different cash, with the white loaf being one granaries sourdough. And then there was another couple that sort of had what they call inclusions in, so these were breads that had like extra seeds added in or anything like that. So we under special category.
Speaker 1:So we did a few different categories and when I eventually told. I eventually told my team about a month to go because I thought I'm not going to tell them so they will start to panic about it. And yes, my head baker, I think, left the end of his shift to believe the take a bite. I was like what have you done? I'm like it's just going to be a learning experience. Just just take it as a learning thing and you know it'll be a nice day out. We're going to go on a jolly, we'll all go in the car together, it'll be great fun.
Speaker 1:And the judging is one of the most serious things I've ever watched. They are proper. There's about nine judges. They're all in lab coats Nine, nine and they've got hundreds of loaves. There's literally tables of them in different categories and you watch them and they're cutting it, they're pulling it apart, they're looking at the crust and discussing it. You can't hear anything they're saying because they whisper it to each other. So we're all standing there, we're trying to watch and work out what they're saying and in the end it was too much so we all had to walk away, go do something else.
Speaker 1:So I will just come back at the awards ceremony and then find out who's won all the categories and we then won for the White Farmhouse Life, which was. We were both completely we're all completely gobsmacked that we'd even won it and I think my head baker at the time said you've got to be joking. I just couldn't believe. I mean, the bread was really good and we worked so hard and I think it's just credit to how much they worked.
Speaker 1:The sourdough was, as you can imagine, one of the biggest categories, so there was a lot of entries into the sourdough. I think we came around third and it was because we just put a bit too much flour on the top. It was literally that much in it. So after all of that work, to know that we were so close to getting that, it was actually really kind of oh, we're just nearly there. So that's really good to sort of know.
Speaker 1:And it was. It was a really great event and it was fantastic. So it was such a reward to have kind of got that. And then obviously we've got the press and media off the back of that as well, for when we came back from that, which was really great. But you know it was one of those situations where we're sort of like that's, you know, we've done really well, this is going to really change a lot of things, and particularly after the last couple of years. But then we were clobbered immediately, pretty much afterwards, by the cost of living crisis. Because we had so many big problems here in the UK, my flour deliveries went from three days literally overnight to 14 days and it's not like we went for a small amount of flour. So I spent a lot of nights trying to find flour. So my bakery team that's right.
Speaker 2:There was a shortage on all of the like a bunch of like. It wasn't like the baking powder, or there was a bunch of shortage, everything.
Speaker 1:There was anything and the price is just skyrocketed. Things went up so much and including energy bills here just went from some bakeries because every bakery was being sort of hit from all angles because the energy went up from. You know, some bakeries were paying 1500 pounds a month to five figures a month and you're like this is unsustainable, how do we make this work? Because it's just so astronomical and it kind of everything sort of just kind of snowballed from there really, because customers tightened their belts on how much they were spending, suppliers were putting up their costs and it was.
Speaker 1:It was so hard and staff of course had their attitudes slightly changed, whereas over COVID a lot of people were coming in and I'd been very lucky I was still very lucky to the very end of some of my core staff, but a lot of. I went through more staff in that last year, sort of after the bakery opened, than the whole three years beforehand, because people just didn't want to work in the same way anymore and of course, as you know, service is an easy industry to be in Absolutely not. So it was. It was quite a having gone from such a high to suddenly having to deal with all of this sort of firing from all sizes really challenging.
Speaker 2:So it's yeah, I can imagine it was throwing you a lot of curveballs at the time.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was, there was a lot of, I mean, it was a lot of kerb balls, and I was, at that point then, having to cover all the gaps. So I was working ridiculously long hours a week. It was, you know, particularly because, even like the bar, staff weren't turning up to their shifts, and it was. This was a constant sort of repeat pattern and in the end I had to you know, the bar, I had to close the bar because we just weren't getting foot full. So just, and it was the same across my town, oh no, you had to close the bakery or the bar, just the bar.
Speaker 1:I had. In the end, at the beginning of this year, I had to close the whole lot because it just wasn't financially viable anymore. And it was. It was absolutely a great business idea, just at the wrong time and in the wrong place, and it was just no longer going to work. It was the last decision I wanted to make because everyone had worked so hard. But I'm like you know what we did exactly what we could. There's nothing more we could have done.
Speaker 1:This is the right decision for myself as well as the business, because I was I was pretty much on my last legs and couldn't really do much more than I'd already done. And what I'm going to do now is just take everything I've learned and turn it into the business I'm doing now. So starting again. So I've now got another business, so, which is great. So I had gotten how, how much you have to do at the start of the business. So that's definitely been an interesting role of the case. But I'm doing that now because when I opened up the cafe and bar, I did everything by learning it from Google.
Speaker 2:It was there wasn't and you too.
Speaker 1:You too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and usually all of them, but there was no one really that. There was lots of consultants that would do big restaurants or food products, but there wasn't anyone that really did small, small to medium sized baking businesses or cafes and bars in local towns. And if I'd had someone that could be meant to me, it would have been probably a lot easier, a lot smoother and I would have made far less mistakes. So that's what I'm sort of doing now is I'm teaching people how to bake because I still love baking and I'm always baking stuff here, so I don't share what I'm doing and then I'm also helping baking businesses either start up, grow their business, turn it from a side hustle, because it's a really great industry.
Speaker 1:But if you're a zone of genius, is baking, it's not necessarily business and that's a whole different ball game. So that's what I'm here to help with is to really kind of marry those two together and show that you can do something you're passionate about. But this is how you need to run. You know these are the tools you need to do to help your business. So that's where I'm kind of now. So it's definitely been a roller coaster.
Speaker 2:It's been such a roller coaster and when I really started to pick up from listening to you is that you have really amazing skills that serve you really well. I almost want to call you like the queen of flow, because and I and maybe this is just from the conversation and and there's obviously so much more depth when you're in it and and pressure, and, but it sounds to me like you were very good at listening to your intuition and your gut and observing what was going well and what wasn't, listening to what people wanted, figuring out how you can give that to them and and when problems arise, it sounds like you were really good at finding solutions and not letting the problem get the best of you. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 1:To some extent it was Certainly having to work the long hours in that last year it pushed me beyond my limits and it was very hard to see the wood for the trees because some of my weeks were 80 hours and they were on your feet Because you know, being the bakery until gosh knows what time and then I'll be up again at five. So it was long hours that physically we're demanding and you know bread dough is not like it's like you're moving around a lot. So, and particularly through that particular summer, it was very hot, so that is not the ideal temperature for a bakery and of course that you know there would be things that the dishwasher would flood. It'd be like right in the middle of service, because when else would it do it? Of course, of course.
Speaker 1:You have. You have no, really you have no time to really consider about worrying about it. You just have to get on and do it. But it pushed me to my, it absolutely pushed me to my limits and that's what I don't want other people to do, because my business became before me before everybody else and it was a matter was just trying to make sure it survived, because I felt like I owe that to my staff and my customers that I put so much trust in me.
Speaker 1:And actually, looking back on it now, I was naive to think I could actually beat a global pandemic, having not really got the cash flows to be able to do it, because it needed cash flow to survive. And I wasn't in that position because we'd, let you know, we balanced it all the way through COVID because we hadn't had enough time to really build up a supply before it went into COVID. So I think it was a it was a whole mixture of emotions and, yeah, certainly now I've come into this new business, I've kind of realized actually there are things I could do a lot differently and that's where I can help, really help people, because I've learned from what I did and they you know the business. I was working for the business, not letting the business work for me, and I should. I should have balanced that better. It wasn't always possible, but I should have done.
Speaker 2:And you get to be now the person that you wish you had by your side, like you get to be that person for someone else.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm. I'm a believer that everything happens for a reason and that life happens for us, not to us, and what I I hear even is like maybe that cafe wasn't meant to be. Maybe that wasn't what you were meant to do. Maybe what you were meant to do is what you're doing right now is helping people like you have so much experience like your. Your project management background and your love of baking allowed you to be so successful in that bakery. You had really amazing skills that could could help you in that way. And now, because you went to hell and back trying to run this bakery and it was successful and you won awards and now you get to leave that stress and leave those long ass hours and leave the bean on your feet all the time. So be comfortable in your own world and help other people achieve what they're looking to achieve in their bakeries, and that's just beautiful. Do you feel this way or is? Am I touching in the wrong spots?
Speaker 1:No, no, this. This definitely works much better for me. I know I'm not. I'm not very good at working for other people and I'll never. I think I'll struggle going back to work for other people. I'm not very good at being told what to do. Yeah, some people are just not bored that way. So I think now I'm kind of much more in control of what I want to do. And yeah, I mean, it's still. It still has a different kind of roller coaster, because some days you're like I just, I just can't see how this is ever going to work. Yeah, what am I? What am I thinking? And then other days you're like I've got this, it's now, you know, I can see the results coming in, and it lit the emotion still there. It's just a whole different ball game.
Speaker 2:I feel like every time that I have those, like I want to burn it all to the ground and like I want to give up. The universe like gives me like a piece of hope, like I get someone who books a session or I get a really amazing review and I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, okay, yes, I can keep going, but it is. It's such a roller coaster of highs and lows, naomi, what have you learned in the process of this change? Here? You're changing consistently. You're always adapting. What have you learned through this whole process?
Speaker 1:Probably the biggest thing I learned was I need to put myself first more and start. As it sounds, it was something that you know my team became. You know, anyone in my business came before me and it was the wrong way around to have done it, because actually, without me, the business doesn't work and I need to make sure that if I need downtime, it's what I need to get the job done, and it's just rethinking, putting my mindset differently. It's kind of like when I listen to different coaches they talk about I used to. I'm a musician, so my background is music and I would work in a theater and I would see the riders that would come in.
Speaker 1:So these are all the they like to call them, the demands that the artists have, but actually what they're doing is they're setting themselves up to give them the best performance possible.
Speaker 1:And who are we to judge that?
Speaker 1:Because if they know what they want and they're clear on what they want, however random that might be and there was some really random ones, but you know who but they go for great performance on stage, that's what you need to do your job. That's what you need and that's the one thing I think I'm learning to be comfortable, what I need to be able to do, what I do now, and not something I really did when I was necessarily at running that business, because sometimes you just had to forget you know all your needs and put the business first, because that's how fast you had to move. You didn't really have much of a choice, you just had to put a pin in what you felt and get on with the job, and it wasn't ever going to work like that long term, because all I end up doing is burning myself out, which doesn't work. So that is definitely the biggest lesson that I needed to be realistic on what I needed, not realistic on what other people needed. So that was definitely my biggest learning, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have to fill our own cups. If we're givers and we're doers and we're giving so much, you have to be giving to yourself at the same time, or you will learn out like rest, yeah, is productive, we all need it. If you don't sleep for a couple of days, just watch how crazy you go. Like give yourself the rest that you need. And if, and some days especially for us women with our cycles there are days where I can give 150% and there are days where the best that I can give in this day is to watch one YouTube class or do one take talk video or advertise on Instagram or like or read a chapter of a book, like it varies in, and it's okay, because if that's what you need, give that to yourself so that you can keep moving forward and keep doing what you really want to be doing, which is running your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. What do you hope the listeners take away from this story? What would be your message, especially to the entrepreneurs or people looking to start their own bakery? What would your message be for them?
Speaker 1:I think the biggest thing is just to, like I say, to make sure the business is going to work for you.
Speaker 2:Work for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not you for it, it's got to work for you. Work out what you can. You know what realistically you can manage, because if you're unrealistic and I am that person that is unrealistic on how much I can achieve you just you won't be able to deliver and be happy with it. So just be really honest with yourself about what you're wanting to get out of it at the end of the day. And actually, even if it's just, you know, financial goals is it personal gain goals? What are those goals? Just be really open and honest with yourself about that, because then your business will be really successful, because you'll know where you're heading and you'll be really realistic on what you can do to achieve those and allow yourself to have that downtime.
Speaker 1:Because, again, it's a physical job. You're on your feet for a long time and particularly when, if you're, say, in a wedding cake industry or something like that, you can deal with some quite demanding customers at times. So again, you have to allow yourself the time to be able to deal with all the customer queries, all of those little bits that you sometimes forget. Packaging, Packaging is another one that takes far longer than you imagine. I can't imagine Just yeah. So it's just just be realistic with what you can achieve and what's possible. There's always a way to do things. There is always solutions to do things. So if you want a bigger business than the one you think you can do, there's always a way to work it out. It's just matter of making sure that it works for you.
Speaker 2:So make sure that the business works for you and get clear on where you want to go. I feel like people so underestimate the value of goal setting. I work with goal setting a lot in my own coaching practice. It's so important to know exactly where you want to go. It's not enough to be like, well, I just want to be successful, I want to make money. Those are so fluffy. You're actually just going to be driving in the abyss Like what's the number, what's the profit you're going for, what's the? You know? Be specific as possible, naomi, if someone.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was just going to say the other thing with the goals is making sure you've then got the processes or the systems to get you there, because people set. It's very easy to set a goal because you know sometimes goals get set by like I want to achieve this, and sometimes they are guesswork, because you can't always work out everything, particularly when you're new. What you're going to do to get there is put the right process in place of set by step Doesn't have to be complicated. But if you've got a step by step plan to get you there, which will inevitably change because that's what happens as you grow then you've got more chance of getting to those goals. So again, this helps you be realistic of what you can do.
Speaker 2:Amazing Naomi. If anyone listening is listening to this and like wanting to learn from you, wanting to get your recipes or want to receive coaching from you because they're starting their business, what is the best way for the listeners to connect with you?
Speaker 1:So I've got my website where you can get all my recipes. You can read my blog, so, bakingbossnet, it's also got links to ways you can work with me. I do free discovery calls, so I like working with people on a one to one level as well, so you can book a free discovery call. If you're just not sure how I can help you, or you're just not sure what you're trying to achieve, we can talk for a few ideas and then we can work out how I can support you, and I'm about quick and easy wins. Things don't have to be complicated. I like to keep it simple because I think you were more likely to succeed. And yeah, I'm on the socials Instagram, facebook and I'm also on Pinterest as well.
Speaker 1:So I am bakingboss and I've got the podcast. I've got the food secrets Sorry, bakingboss kitchen secrets podcast, where I just talk about basically my experience of running a cafe and some of the things I've learned along the way, some of the stories I've got on there and things that I think people might find useful. So come and give me a listen, for all the links are on my website. You can see him going. Grab me there.
Speaker 2:And I will have the links in the episode description as well. So if you want to connect with Naomi, you don't have to guess at all. You can just go find the link that you're looking for, click and connect with her immediately today. Thank you so much, Naomi, for being vulnerable, sharing your journey, allowing us to see a little bit about what this has been like for you and your expertise on how to build a baking business even through the harshest of times. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Oh, thanks for having me. I love being on the show.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider liking, subscribing and letting us know your thoughts in the comments below. It truly means the world to me to hear from you. New episodes will be available every Saturday, both on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts, and if you would like to learn more about my work as a coach today's guest or have a story that you would like to share on the pivot point, check out the episode description for more information. Now time for the legal stuff. This podcast is presented to you solely for educational and educational purposes. I may be a professionally certified coach myself, but hosting a podcast is not coaching. This podcast should not be used in substitution of working with a licensed therapist, doctor, coach or other qualified professionals. Copy that Amazing. See you on the next episode. Nothing but love, yes.