I’m sick of being paid peanuts.

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A cake decorator had a problem customer:

Well to be honest the lady wasn't so much a customer as a permanent enquirer of prices, which never resulted in a firm order.

It was as if she was a baker too, just trying to figure out her own price list.

And the decorator continued to spend a lot of time. Figuring out quotes, designs and prices for the "mystery non shopper." The excuse to not buy was always the same. "It's too expensive" she wailed.

So, what to do?

The decorator could ask for a budget so that she stopped wasting her estimating time. Working out complex time-consuming designs is hopeless if the customer has a lower budget in mind.

I'm willing to bet that not many decorators have had the complaint of "but that price is too cheap, I wanted to spend more"

Anyone?

Nope....I didn't think so.

But a word of warning.

I once order curtains from a bespoke curtain maker. He did ask my budget. But then when he arrived with the proposed designs and prices, it was double the price that I had suggested was within my range.

Needless to say the scheme was for my daughter’s bedroom - who got so excited at the thought of it, that I was persuaded to double my budget in order to avoid disappointing my child.

But it didn't prove to me that this decorator was very professional because no attempt had been made to adhere to my suggested budget, nor ideas of exactly how to strip the design back to cost less.

So as a reminder, if you ask a customer for their budget - don't still go off at a tangent and design what you feel is pretty and double the suggested budget. This curtain maker was lucky I agreed. But she could have wasted a lot of time putting a scheme together that was way too expensive.

This sort of query (should I enquire about their budget) from a cake decorator is just the sort of enquiry we help with inside our Cake Circle.

We help with others too. "I'm sick of being paid peanuts". How do I get more customers? How could I encourage more people to buy again from me? And many, many more...

And in fact we have a whole list of ideas to help the "my quotes keep being rejected" cake decorator.

We have a session just this week talking about discussing budgets with customers and red flags to watch out for.

Our doors open a handful of times per year. So ensure you pop your name on our list to be the first to know about our availability.