How to open a pastry shop: personal experience

My path to the discovery of confectionery is not trivial: I am a lawyer and served more than 15 years in law enforcement. And besides, I'm a mother of three children. At some point I realized that I just could not combine the care of the family and service: because I had to participate in operational activities, to sit in ambush... and at the same time to control the children. And I have decided to turn their favorite hobby - pastries - in business.

Share tips that helped me a lot.

To get started - learn

I have an excellent pupil syndrome: I think that you can not do what has not been studied. Therefore, along with yesterday's high school graduates, I became a student of the college food. For excellent performance, I was sent on a six-month practice in Moscow confectionery, where all the chefs, including chefs were French. I am truly inspired and began to understand how to use their knowledge in practice.

Do not be afraid to start learning from scratch. It was back to school can "recharge" have a much better motivational seminars. You will feel confident in their chosen field, will get a network with professionals and like-minded people. This will help create a real

business plan and stick to it, and not in the clouds.

My example shows that you can learn in state institutions without sounding name: there you can not get Only an excellent academic foundation and a state diploma, but also the unexpected possibilities, which was my training.

Find your main advantages

Search facilities for production - business equipment. More important, fundamental question for confectionery - find distribution channels. To understand who we can deliver products on a regular basis, I spent competitor analysis.

On the one hand - a large confectionery factories, which can not react quickly to changes in demand and market requirements. Their products will be irrelevant for cafes serving trendy young visitors. On the other - home bakers: they are free to do, but are outside of the legal field. And we just can offer fashion trend desserts packaging and cooperate with restaurants and shops without any problems.

Look for its advantages and use them. Seemingly obvious advice, but many people forget about it, trying to repeat someone else's way, and going nowhere.

Do not skimp on customer

I chose a popular and dear to me the concept of using only natural ingredients and environmentally friendly packaging: no plastic! Obviously, it is more expensive way. But I realized that to save on their principles and the client can not comfort.

Of course, there are some tricks that allow you to cut costs.

For example, we use the back container - reusable packaging. It is cheaper. We recommend our clients (coffee shops and cafes) to explain to customers that they can become part of a larger movement for the purity planet (as it were pathetic as it sounds), if they return the glass jars, get a nice discount at each of the following buying.

Look for an opportunity to save on rendering services, but do not skimp on customer service.

It is important not to hurt yourself by trying save. For example, often confectionery try on their own to issue documents necessary for work: sanitary-epidemiological and others. I can say with full responsibility - it leads to greater spending. Engage intermediaries. So you really can save a tremendous amount of time and nerves. For example, acquiring, we also offer through a special company - provider of payment services - which acts as an intermediary between us and the bank. This model works for Russia still new.

The same can be said about the purchase of the equipment. Attempts to save with b / a technology - it is a complete failure. You will receive an infinitely unpleasant surprises in the form of hidden defects, breakdowns and other things. You want to reduce costs? Buy new equipment neraskruchennyh brands. It is better to buy a new planetary mixer unknown firm and obtain warranty service, you spend effort and money to repair the old equipment and spare parts order to it.

Look for experienced people

Team - this is one of the key components of any business. Our team consists of nine people.

We now have five working confectioners. No special life hacking I used: looking for them on specialized sites to find staff. But based on the experiences made several important points on which attention should be paid when applying for a job in a pastry shop.

Do not hire just the chief technologist or pastry for a big payday. One-time call in a specialist to design routings and creating samples. Better direct efforts on the selection of the team of the good, professional and experienced confectioners.

For key positions take people with experience in the workplace. Decided to "gain experience on the shop floor" young professionals and "home" confectioners - it's a huge loss of your time spent on training. As a rule, people who have never worked in the industry, have a very remote idea of ​​what everyday life pastry - this is not a magical flutter around the stove in a cloud of vanilla and cinnamon, and quite heavy, sometimes monotonous physical work no room for error.

We are faced with the fact that people are not ready for such work, simple maintenance, could not stand.

When we understand why this is happening, we formulated the principles of selection and were able to form a strong team, which is now up and running.

In addition to the employees in the production and courier, we have, of course, there's management team. In it, I enter, a specialist in IT and management, which deals with the organizational moments. The three of us have known each other and joined together to create our common cause. In my opinion, it is very important for small businesses - to be like-minded and strive to perform a common task.

Do not forget about promotion

We promote themselves mainly through the Internet. This contextual advertising and website, as we are actively developing account Instagram. It just deals with our specialist IT - it really is an expert on all things related to the Internet, including on promotion.

Of course, we do not neglect the classic and marketing. For example, we offer free trials and use sets of products mentioned above otstraivanie from competitors.