Cake Decorating Business #9: Dealing with Passion Killers: Criticism and Burn Out

Part #9: Dealing with Passion Killers: Criticism and Burn Out

In a high emotion-based industry such as cake, it can be very difficult to deal with criticism. In the moment that the client tells us our cake didn’t taste good or that it did not meet their expectations, our heart drops to the floor and we just feel terrible about the whole thing. We don’t remember the hundreds of compliments we got, we instead focus entirely on the one person who was not happy with us or our product. As artists we put so much love and energy into our creations that we take it very personally when people are not happy with what we have given them. Sometimes the criticism does not come from clients but from people online who are just looking at a picture of what we’ve made. It’s an unfortunate side effect of social media and the internet that along with the compliments come the unkind comments – both from complete strangers. Nothing makes you want to quit more than getting some negative feedback! Similarly, if we have been dealing with the cake from hell, or we’re struggling to have a life, or we’re just not making enough money, we reach the point of burn out and we just want to give it all up. Feeling like it’s all too much work for too little reward also makes us want to quit. I don’t think there is any way to entirely avoid either of these scenarios, and unfortunately they may happen several times in the course of our careers. However, there are a few ways to deal with these situations when it seems as though all the joy has been taken out of the cake experience.

Both of the experiences of criticism and burnout require us to just stop for a minute, take a deep breath, and take stock of ourselves, our business, and the situation. You need to look at a few things including: what brought you to this situation, what the options are for moving forward, and how you’re going to prevent this situation into the future. Let me give you an example. One of the things which often leads to burn out is desperation – we are desperate for the money we get for orders, so we take on every order we possibly can. Then when it comes time to do those orders, we become overwhelmed by the work involved, and then desperate to get them all done. That feeling of overwhelm makes us question if the stress is really worth the money, and then we start to feel resentful that we are still (even with all this work) not earning enough money. So in this case, one option available to you might be to raise your prices. Of course this means some people will not book in with you, but that’s exactly what you want to happen because it means you can learn the same amount but take on fewer orders.

Another option is to scale things back a bit to give you some space to re-evaluate. So ‘close the books’ for a week or two just to give yourself some time to think without having orders which have to get done or deliveries which eat into your rest time. When we run a business we spend so much time working on current orders or trying to get new ones, we rarely take time off! Sometimes burnout is simply a matter of working too hard for to long without any time off. You don’t need to tell clients anything other than you are already full that week. I actually suggest doing this at least a couple of times a year, because it has the added bonus of teaching them to book in early if they do not want to miss out. Taking the opportunity for a breather is exactly what we need to gather our energy to jump back in again.

A third option is to think about diversifying your business offerings. It can get exhausting to do the same thing week in and week out, so why not offer something different? Perhaps a brand new line of flavours, or offer some classes. Look at what you’re currently offering you clients and see if there is some room for creativity there! If you already do classes, can
you offer some ‘Girls Night In’ packages just for fun? If you make cookies, can you come up with a new line of ‘gourmet’ ones? Just doing the same style of cakes over and over can get really old, really quickly – so look around at your business and see if there are things which you can offer your clients which will also ignite a spark of enthusiasm in you as well. Perhaps participate in a local event, team up with another company and create something together – just take the time to find an opportunity for innovation.

In the case of the unhappy client, at the very least you need to resolve the issue for them and take away some lessons from it. Sometimes the lesson is just how to deal with unreasonable clients, but sometimes the lesson is that you really do need to tweak your ordering process or your recipes. There are always lessons to be learned from every client interaction even if the interaction is not a positive one.

My last suggestion is to return to something I discussed earlier in this series of articles and it can be applied any time you are feeling like you want to quit. Remind yourself of the purpose of your business and why you are doing it in the first place. Go right back to basics – and if necessary, pull out an old cookbook and get your hands dirty! You probably got into business in the first place simply because you loved the craft and it was fun, but as you got more successful it became a little less like fun and a whole lot more like work. Make a cake for the hell of it, try out a new (non cake!) recipe – do something which gets you back in touch with your soul and reminds you of why you got into this in the first place.
Look around at your business and your life and see the positives it has brought you – the praise, the money, the experience, the confidence or whatever else you have gotten out of the experience thus far. Criticism and burn out happen to all of us (sometimes several times) and we can just want to throw it all away in that single moment of high emotion. Next time you find yourself in that situation, think back to this article and try some of the techniques within it – hopefully you’ll be able to talk yourself back into a place of calm where you can then evaluate things a little more clearly.

Written by Michelle Green 2014, Copyright The Business of Baking