The art and cringe of self promotion

If we don’t believe in our own work, how can we expect others to? A few tips to get over the cringe.

Even though it’s been 4 years since we closed our bakery business, December can still give me flashbacks to the insanity that is the holiday season for business owners and retailers. It’s the kind of sleep-deprived existence where you run on ever-diminishing fumes of adrenaline as the days tick down until Christmas. I don’t know if I’ll ever experience that same level of chaotic exhaustion that we lived through during December holiday orders, but once in a while, I’ll see or hear something that triggers those memories of long days filled with the repetitive tasks of hand-crafted manufacturing: roll, cut, bake, wrap, ship.

I’ll be honest—I never enjoyed being behind the table at holiday markets. I was also really terrible at selling. Mark always managed weekend markets himself, but during the holidays when we used to do a string of consecutive market days, he would spend the weekdays back in the kitchen baking in order to keep the inventory restocked. This left me with the job to sell, sometimes with my laptop if I was working against design client deadlines. Nothing like approaching a vendor with their nose stuck in a computer!

How not to sell your products

I was a sucker for regularly rounding down prices (who does that??) and if a friend or a blog reader stopped by our table, I would inexplicably give them a very steep discount or hand back way too much change because I would get too flustered to do math. Not that they ever asked, but I felt some weird obligation to do so, like an apologetic reflex for some reverse guilt as if I could sense pressure from their end to buy something from me. I’m sure you know the feeling of stepping into an empty store, greeted by the hopeful face of a shop owner, only to sheepishly exist the store quietly, empty-handed.

The most awkward moments, however, came when customers were on the fence and you could see the wheels turning in their heads, having an internal debate with themselves about the purchase.

In turn, I would have my own internal dialogue with the customer as soon as there was a pause after the first transactional moment:¹

Customer: “How much for these package of cookies?”
Me: “Those are $8.”

Silence.

Customer (thinking to themselves): $8? For one package of cookies? That is really expensive.
Me (thinking to myself): They’re handmade. By us. With love. And hard work. And this week, with blood, sweat, and tears.