Professionalism

As business owners an unknown yet known feeling that you often second guess yourself about is "professionalism." Just the word makes you wonder...does that relate to business etiquette itself which includes behavior...personality...etc? Or does that mean just the manner in which you do transact business? Hmm? (Pondering) It's tough these days as to whether you can question people's motives when they put themselves out. I wonder what people think when they see us coming. I wonder if it is... "oh no, here they come" or "yeah!" It doesn't matter because I think we bring out a different type of moment when we walk into their working world and present little goodies. I think they are relieved that they did not have to seek us out and blame themselves for the extra calories they are to consume but, instead feel they are contributing to local sellers. For a second they don't care what kind of "professionalism" is needed to pick a scone or brownie out. I for one want them to feel "lucky" and "excited" like we once did when the ice cream truck came around when we were kids. We have been lucky to serve the businesses we have been. They have been supportive and delighted to have us. Santine and I enjoy spending time together driving and getting to know what other businesses do and how some of our personal friends are "professionally." If you would like us to come around please feel free to call or email us at thestartupmoms@gmail.com. ~Jamie

Biz Connect - "Buying Local."

I am a part of a "leads" group that nonetheless passes leads to one another. We meet every Tuesday morning at the YMCA located in Sherwood at 7:00 am. This week I was the speaker and decided to do something different by leading a discussion versus just speaking on a topic. The subject - buying local. What makes one decide to buy local? Money? Product? Quality? Support? The input was awesome. The group was very open and honest. This was a very productive meeting and I felt like I accomplished much with an open forum type of talk. I came away with two thoughts. One, it seems as if the ones making comments about buying locally grown foods or made foods are either those who are also growers/producers or are educated about what they are eating. Secondly, money was a big driver when it came down between convenience and health benefits. One of our group members grew up on a farm and had a thorough understanding of what it meant to buy locally grown or made goods. The other men in the group spoke mainly of buying the closest to quality without breaking the piggy bank. Nice, I thought.

I like getting input from the group. I value their opinions and take their suggests to heart.
The Pastry Cart was awesome today. Looks like the rainy weather played well on our side as we practically sold out of our pastries that we brought around.

~Jamie

Profitability

Most things have an expiration date on them and pastries are no exception. Buying enough inventory to make all your goods are like a time bomb ready to blow if you over buy or do not sell fast enough. It really hurts your bottom line when you are throwing away food/inventory and have to buy the same staples to replace the expired ones. Ahh... sales are at a slump as they all tend to be during the early fall season. We're getting into our rainy season now in Oregon and Santine and I are hoping this will help push more pastries with their coffee/tea in the mornings. The pastry cart is doing well with new customer's weekly. We're finding that the dental offices have been our biggest fans so far. Who would have known? Actually we shouldn't be surprised at anything...we both are a shock to our own community as weekly go around as the "pastry cart."

Santine is doing great with her selection of pastries. I find that selling scones to those who haven't seen our brand before is a bit of a push but, they still find themselves buying them after they've tasted it. I've started to bring around coffee and that seems to be working in a couple of locations. Yeh!

Keeping things going is the first challenge for myself. Running a full time tea business, part time software business (Quasitime.com) and raising a family is nothing short of obstacles and lack of enough time. My family is healthy amongst the many that have the flu...atleast for today. That I am grateful.

Crossing my fingers for a more profitable month. It's the 20th of October and it's looking very slow for the business.

-Jamie

Gaining Momentum with the Pastry Cart

This week was a little challenging in a couple ways. First, I spent 8 hours in total at the hair salon to fix a problem with my highlight, time that I could not spend to prepare my baking for this week. Monday and Tuesday, Dick was in California for work, so that makes life busier for me anyway. Tuesday, Hank felt UP the stairs at school and busted his eyebrow, luckily I was still at school so I was able to help him. The rest of the week was pretty hectic. Wednesday it's Dick's guitar lesson day, so we have several students coming to our house. I babysat two kids this week after school. We had piano lessons and Youth Group, and home work and play dates.

Friday was the home coming game, a big event with a parade and then the football game in the evening. Saturday was home coming dance. We had six teenage girls in our house getting ready for this big event. It was their first official dance and they had a great time. And... after waiting for almost 6 months, our chickens lay their first egg. That was pretty exciting.

Business went very well this week. I got a call from a dental office with the question if we were able to bring coffee to go with the pastries this week. And a call from someone who had a staff meeting and was wondering if she could get a plate with different pastries from the Pastry Cart. This all happened before we headed out that Tuesday. Later that day, a doctor called with an order for Dutch Apple pie and Dutch Almond Buttercake.

On Thursday we went to some new businesses in Sherwood. One of them is owned by the State and is not allowed to buy from us, but the other business liked the idea of the Pastry Cart very much. We definitely go back to them. It was the first time I sold 20 pastries with the Pastry Cart.

Per Jamie's suggestion, we made a flyer from the De Roover Bakery with the option for businesses to order a variety of Dessert Trays for their meetings. I left those flyers while we were visiting those businesses with the Pastry Cart. That same morning I got my first order for a Pastry Tray! A little scary, because now you have to make your promises come true. With buying this weeks' ingredients and 100 baking boxes, I spent almost $100 dollars. But still with all those new orders I was able to make more profit than the week before. I feel like we're gaining some positive momentum here with our new venture. By the end of the week I got one more phone call from the editor of the local newspaper. More about that next week :)

~Santine

Business vs. Life Plans

As I settle down after the morning of business organization meetings and get into my already settled in Tuesday and Thursday Pastry Cart routine with Santine, I reflect again on my priorities for the day. 1. Make scones 2. Prep food for tea house 3. Get the tea house ready for guests the list ends up being a mile long. Wait - I tell myself. I haven't even factored in my family priorities yet. Oh my goodness...I have not even begun my day and yet, I am not sure how I am going to accomplish all that needs done. Okay - business plans are for the business. Life plans are both? Maybe life plans can be compared to umbrella insurance coverages. They encompass many plans with the intention that it is unforeseen. But, it's planned.... humm? Anyways, keeping with my sales goal I prioritize my day accordingly and cut out what cannot be done today. It may be a small list of things but its better than a mile long one that is close to impossible. Family life is hectic enough. The many family needs are endless and I am not sure what kind of plan I have for dinner.
In any case - as a team Santine and I have picked up a couple of new businesses to sell pastries to in the morning and we felt great about the response. We normally spend about an hour or so doing this, these two mornings. We are definitely doing well. It looks like we are going to have to figure out a way to divide and conquer as we start to do more and more. These trips are fun. And we are definitely getting the hang of it. ~Jamie

Well, it's Tuesday, Sept. 22nd. Before I can focus on the Pastry Cart, I have to focus on my kids first. Just to get them out of the house by 7.30 am is a job in itself. To be on top of weekly activities, I have to process my week already in my head when driving to school. Somehow, every week I think we have a pretty low week and by Tuesday the whole week is swamped. This week we have Doctors and Psychical therapy appointments, several play dates after school, guitar- and piano lessons, Curriculum night for the four boys, Growth group training at church, a scentsy party at the neighbors, getting a dress for Nynke's homecoming dance, serving time in church and practicing and playing in the worship band on Sunday. Pfffffffffff................luckily I did 'Hot by 6' cook group with friends last weeks, so my dinners are ready to go until the end of October.

Talking about balancing life....... And then now I have to think about the business planning for this week. I baked for a couple of hours yesterday, so I have my pastries ready for the Pastry Cart. I have to send an e-mail to two coffee shops to promote my pumpkin muffins, they turned out to be so tasty. I tried for days to find the right ingredients for the perfect muffin. They sent back an e-mail that same day with a order for 2 dozen of muffins. I needed the extra orders this week, after spending almost $60 for ingredients (ouch). Some items like butter were more expensive this week. This week with the Pastry Cart we were able to sell quit some pastries. The nice thing about it is that we are selling our pastries for retail price, which is more than selling it for whole sale prices. With those extras, I had a little bit of profit. Jamie told me I should advertise with dessert trays with a variety of bite size pastries. Businesses could order those trays for business meetings, training days, or staff meetings. So this weekend we will put that extra service on my website. You can check it out on http://derooverbakery.com/Dessert-Trays.php. And then for the next Pastry Cart, I will bring some flyers with that information for the local businesses. Jamie has a good eye for marketing, what helps me so much while developing my business. I really enjoy doing the Pastry Cart. It gives me the opportunity to get out of the house, and meet new people and learning to sell my pastries. We even have a new friend at the police station. He hunted us down in Sherwood on our day off from the Pastry Cart, to get a couple of chocolate chip cookies. He will leave money at the police station every Tuesday an Thursday for a couple of those cookies :) ~Santine

"The Pastry Cart" - Seizing an opportunity.

It's Wednesday afternoon and we decide that we should just get out there. As crazy as we are, we decided that the next day seemed good as ever. So, here we were, I wanted to make very fresh scones for our first trip out. So, there I was 6:30 am and they smelled fantastic. Orange cranberry & pumpkin scones. So, off we were with our baskets of baked goods. Without a polished sales pitch we ventured out...nervously. I knew we were going to get rejected before we sold anything so, I prepared mentally for this. Santine - was just about to get her first big dose of it. I hoped she wouldn't feel like quitting after this. After getting her first odd rejections from the local vet store and investment offices we got our first sales at the local police station. Yeah! After that a few more sales and rejections - we made up a name for our partnership called "The Pastry Cart." The name was to the point and somewhat generic. "Okay" we say and by the end of our escapade, our Tuesday and Thursday morning partnership was forged. Now, if you want us to stop by with our goods, call or email us at thestartupmoms@gmail.com or call 503.625.4479. We would love to stop by...locally of course. Can't wait for next week. ~Jamie


Today around 8.00 am I went by the YMCA to deliver 48 muffins, and to the Coffee Co. to deliver the Almond butter cake. At 9.00 am I met with Jamie at the Tea house. We prepared our baskets with a variety of pastries, made some fliers, and asked a blessing for our little business adventure. In the car we prepared a short speech. We stopped by five local businesses and asked if they would be interested in buying a pastry. Five times we got a NO. By the way we filmed our self while talking and being rejected. You can watch that footage by the end of the month on You Tube.
While we were driving to the local police station, a new plan formed. We decided to call our selves "The Pastry Cart" providing fresh baked pastries to local businesses. With that we came to the Police station. Ten minutes later we left and had sold 12 pastries and had an invitation to come back again. We were so exited!!!!! Then we stopped at Avamere the assisted living facility. And they liked the idea of the Pastry Car very much so. We can come Tuesday and Thursday in the morning with a "real" cart and sell our pastries to the people and staff there. Also an eye care clinic and dentist would like for us to come back next week. This ended to be a great successful morning. I felt a little scary and silly in the beginning when we approached our first business, but with determination we could see new doors opening for us. ~Santine

Blogging our experience

As we go about this yearly challenge, we're going to video tape it and blog, tweet whatever you call it so, our readers ("followers" as it is called) can witness first handedly what we are going through and inspire those who want to start their own business during this rough time to "GO - for it!" Santine I find is much more photogenic than she leads you to believe. She is the typical tall, blond and blue eyed woman with the exception of baring 5 babies come from her own womb, looks amazing. If you knew her like I do, she not only looks beautiful, her personality makes it hard to hate her good looks. Right away - I think she is going to be our spokeswoman. She definately looks the part. I'll be the ruthless go getter that nobody will really see. When I tell Santine this...she laughs and says she will be hiding behind me. We shall see. We both have our strengths and weaknesses. And what I love about working with Santine is that - she is the most humble person I know. This to me, is the first rule of leading a successful life. "Humbleness." So, I say to myself...we can do this. ~ Jamie

The Meeting

We met and discussed our goals and business plans together tonight. I brought over a bottle of wine to celebrate our first meeting, only to find out...Santine doesn't like wine. Great. Funny thing is...she does drink liquor. Chocolate liqueur over ice. Dick, Santine's husband, instead drank the bottle of pinot blanc and brainstormed over ideas of our blog. What a start so far. By 1:00 am we were tired and felt that we understood our direction and will depart knowing what we needed to do next.

Or so we thought...

A couple of challenges we knew we had right up front. We both were computer illiterate. We both had family, school & church responsibilities we took very seriously. Now, when were we thinking this was going to happen?

Hmm...brain storming for a few more days after our first meeting we decided to start calling around to see if we could get some press on this concept of ours. Right away, our prayers were answered but, in a different way. More on this later. We just wanted to get up and run with it. So, we did.

Where do we start?

Good question. Okay - so we have the main idea down. Open bakeries. Now, for those of you who know us, I took over the Lavender Tea House about a little over four years ago. This was where I met Santine when she asked to come during an off hour with her father, who was visiting from the Netherlands, for tea and scones. We didn't quite have a bakery since it was a little victorian cottage just barely big enough to house a refrigerator, a freezer and a 3 compartment sink. Not much really. By our third year we knew we had to expand or move. So, I did the bravest thing and decided to renovate this 1892 Queen Victorian cottage to make it into a bakery with a beautiful kitchen. In the summer of 2008 we did just that. We closed for 4 1/2 months and renovated it. By November 2008 we reopened and started to sell scones as if they were on fire. Well, that was the plan atleast. By September 2008 it was getting obvious that we were starting to see a turn for the worst in the economy. Gas prices were at an all time high. Food costs were following very close behind. Just to give you an idea...I bought a 1 lb stick of butter for a little more than a dollar a stick right before I closed for renovations. By the time I reopened butter had skyrocketed to over $2. That was only 4 1/2 months. Another main ingredient was heavy cream which also took off and unfortunately has never since come back down. Back to the economy - yes, by November we were sad to hear of layoffs, job cuts & business closures all over the state and nation. Boy, something we did not plan for. Fortunately we were going to open at the height of the holiday season. This was to help get us back on track since we opened behind schedule. Unfortunately ~ a big arctic blast from the north kissed us with two weeks of ice & snow leaving our neighborhoods paralyzed from normal business operations. Portland and the surrounding neighborhoods closed. Yes, CLOSED! We were in trouble. Our hopes to recover from our closure was now gone. What were we going to do?

During this time, we started what we called the "bakery consignment program" where people would come in and bake and lease our kitchen to produce baked goods for us to sell out of our shop. Although, it was a great concept people were scared to invest because they were scared to try anything during this so called recession at the time. It was a tough program to implement no doubt. During this time, I brought in Santine to oversee this program. She did awesome. Very on top of things she was. I enjoyed working with her. To make a long story short - she started her own bakery and we both came up with this idea (before the movie Julie & Julia came out mind you...) of how we could tell the world about our experience to help boost our sales and get people to buy local. Baked Dutch pastries & Scones. Two unique yet different baked good concepts.



Great - but, where do we go from here? Pondering...

What's a blog?

My name is Santine de Roover. I'm a mother of five, and a month ago I had no idea what a blog was. Well here I am writing my first blog. It's a little harder than I thought it was. For one thing I'm NOT computer-savvy. As a matter of fact I just sent my first email last week. Jamie's mouth practically fell open when she heard this. This will be good for me!

I might not know how a blog works, but for a fact I do know how to work my mixer. I love to bake, especially my Dutch pastries. I have been in the United States for twelve years and love everything about it, however, more and more I feel like I want to keep the Dutch culture alive through my baking.

Back to my question...what is a blog? My answer would be that it is a story. A story told in short form yet very personal. This blog is about me and how I face my daily challenges in starting my very own bakery. Here you will get to know me and my family and how we face these challenges together.

Come with me on this journey as I document through this blog and through our video blogs you will soon find on YouTube.com. Share your thoughts and enjoy!

~Santine de Roover, Owner of the De Roover Bakery
(http://www.derooverbakery.com/)



My name is Jamie Yang. I have three kids, one husband and a business. What does that mean? It means I have to balance a family and a thriving business at the same time. I actually do know what a blog is but, my problem is that I am a horrific critic of my own writing and therefore do not blog...up until now. My story starts off at this lovely tea house I own which is called the Lavender Tea House. Here I have specialized in one particular product. The problem is... I am not the typically English tea proprietress you may expect to make this product. It's called a "scone." Pronounced "skon" in Scotland. A very European pastry made by a very south eastern asian woman. Typical? No. Delicious, yes!

This journey that Santine and I are on was started in a parking lot at our local YMCA. With the sun beating down on us and time flying away...we brainstormed on how we could get the word out about how to get the word out on our fabulous pastries that we make. In the end, we knew we were up to an excellent challenge. For one year we were going to document, Start-Up Mom's. We thrive at challenges and this is just the beginning.

It's going to take a lot of sweat, guts and an excellent partner to get through this. But, together we are willing to face these challenges as we promote and sell our unique pastries.

~Jamie Yang, Owner of the Lavender Tea House
(http://www.lavenderteahouse.com/)