Welcome to the fifth episode of Sustaining Craft the Podcast, a series that features those making a living with their craft. Sustaining Craft is a project of Hew&Weld Writing, story-based marketing crafted for local business. Listen below or keep scrolling to read the article about Suzanne Godbold and her work with Three Best Bakery!
Suzanne Godbold and her two best friends, Sara Long and Chelsea Cook, were growing apart.
Longtime friends, they’d all graduated college, got married, and started having kids. While other friends might have committed to a girl’s night out once a month, the three decided to go bigger.
They started Three Best Bakery in 2016, a home-based bakery that serves Little Rock and the surrounding areas with their signature decorated sugar cookies, traditional cookies, cookie cakes, traditional cakes, and cupcakes.
“We went to college together, and we were pledging our sorority together, so we’ve been friends for a long time,” explained Godbold. “We were brainstorming about what we all like to do, what we could do together, what would be fun, and that’s how the bakery was born. We all grew up baking or cooking or being crafty, and it kinda was a good fit. We decided to just go for it.”
They started with sugar cookies, creating their own recipe and tweaking it until it was perfect. “At that time, there weren’t a lot of bakeries that were doing just decorated sugar cookies, so we thought that was a good niche to go into,” Godbold shared. “We really tried to focus all our attention and learning on sugar cookies and how to decorate them and grow.”
A self-taught baker, Godbold discovered a bit of a learning curve.
She’d worked as a clinical respiratory therapist for six years before deciding to stay home with her children. Her technical background came in handy when she started baking. “When I first started baking though, I was not good at it,” Godbold shared. “I could never get the measurements right. That’s why Chelsea took over baking at the beginning. I wasn’t precise enough.”
Then she discovered an alternative to measuring cups, which can vary the precision required in baking. She started to weigh her ingredients, a standard practice outside of the United States. “I decided to be super precise one time,” said Godbold. “I was super precise, measured it the right way, and then I dumped it into a bowl and weighed it. I started converting all of my recipes over to weight-based recipes instead of cups. So now it really is down to a science. I know the weights I need. I know I need 200 grams of sugar every time I do a batch of cookie dough. It’s quicker that way and it’s more precise and I get the same results every time.”
When Long moved to Florida, Godbold and Cook divided the remaining responsibilities. While they at first tried splitting the baking and the decorating, they found the workflow wasn’t efficient. Cook, who has a degree in business, took over the finances, taxes, and practical business needs. Godbold took on all of the baking, decorating, social media, and marketing.
Along with refining her baking skills, Godbold learned that her customers weren’t on Instagram or Facebook. “At the beginning, I was trying to do paid ads and do all these things and market on Facebook but that really doesn’t sell for this market,” she explained. “Most of my customers didn’t find me on Facebook. It was word of mouth or they tried our cookies at someone’s event. Once I figured that out, it took a lot of stress off of social media. Social media is just fun. It’s a fun case to showcase our art and product and meet people.”
Referrals turned into regular customers, and they also started selling cookies at the Me and McGee Market, a stand dedicated to local produce, meats, cheese, products, and crafts.
“When we first started marketing, it was a little bit of a struggle trying to find who our customer is,” shared Godbold. “Who would appreciate what we do and who is looking for what we were offering because we’re not trying to compete with Walmart. We’re not even trying to compete with some of the other local storefront bakeries. You can’t call me up on a Tuesday morning and say, ‘Hey, can I have three dozen decorated cookies by this afternoon?’ It’s not going to happen because I need at least three days. It took a little bit, but once we really found our customer base, who understands us, they understand what we put into it. They know that I’m a stay-at-home mom and that I do this from 8 pm until midnight or sometimes later during the week. They appreciate our work and are willing to pay for what we’re offering.”
The little bakery has grown over the past two years, and Godbold hopes to move into a commercial space soon. The bakery operates under Arkansas’ cottage food laws, which allows home bakers to sell their goods with a few restrictions. “We can’t ship,” Godbold explained. “Can’t sell in retail locations, so I couldn’t supply any coffee shops with cookies for them to then resell. One of the benefits of moving into a commercial kitchen would be that it would open up a lot more opportunities and venues to sell.”
Godbold advises those considering a creative business or bakery to practice. “Practice, and practice and practice some more,” she shared. “One of the biggest parts for us is the taste. Your product has to taste good or else you can’t stay in business. I think that finding a good recipe, a recipe that is your own and not someone else’s recipe is also very important. Someone who has offered to share their recipe is very kind, but you can’t make money off of someone else’s idea. Taking a recipe and really tweaking it and making it your own and then spending a lot of time practicing decorating.”
She also suggests just trying. “Do it scared,” Godbold said. “Even if you think it’s not going to turn into something, just do it. Just try it.”
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There is MUCH, much more in the episode not covered in this article. Take a listen below:
Order cookies online, visit their Facebook page, or check out their gorgeous cookies on Instagram.