Founder Of The Frosted Nightingale: Stephanie Gorre-Ndiaye AKA The Cookie Boss – S2E15 (#43)

S2E15 – Stephanie Gorre-Ndiaye – powered by Happy Scribe

OK, here you.

Got to realize he’s going to get out earlier. I just come right on it like five minutes, too.

Yeah, I was just. Oh no, I’m available. So I was jumping all. How’s it going?

Good. Knowing what I do. I mean, I train you to record this cause this chord here hit record over here and. All right. Three two one. And we’re welcome. Welcome back to the Boss Uncage podcast. On today’s show, we’re going back to the old school where one I like I to go back since, like high school literally. But the journey of her business is what I really want to talk about, which is crazy, right? Because she was a nurse right then. She was like a chef then she now she’s like a nurse, but she’s a chef. I don’t even know how to explain it. But she’s she’s one and the same. She’s running the business and she’s helping people on the front line at the same time. So, Stephanie, the floor is yours. Give people a little bit of who you are,

folks. So my name is Stephanie. I am Nurse Turned Baker. And that’s really what my passion is. I’ve always loved been a nurse taking care of people. I still enjoy that. But this cooky passion is just another way that I can kind of impart joy into people’s lives, if you will. So I kind of fell upon this two years ago, almost by accident. I took a class with a friend of mine because she wanted to do it and I loved the class. And so I kind of binge watched Netflix for a minute, kind of figured out how to do some stuff. And it’s all pretty much self-taught.

OK, so what you got to do is give people just a little bit more about like like a background like I mean, obviously you’re a nurse, right, by trade. But you also you went to chef school as well, right?

I did. So yeah, I actually, at a high school, went to the culinary arts program at the Art Institute of Atlanta, and I did that. I don’t think you notice I took that I was doing that program and I kind of was kind of midway through it and I stopped liking it. It was just parts of it that I just didn’t enjoy. And we actually went to a movie where we used a movie and we were at the movie before the movie credits start like the previews start and it was advertising before going to nursing school. That’s what made me actually do it. And I always wanted to do it. I don’t know why I didn’t. I just did it in. I left school from culinary arts and went to nursing school. That’s kind of the story behind it.

cool, cool. So, I mean, obviously, you’re you’re in the mix between both of them. I mean, is is one that you like or love more than another

Cookies all day. Yeah. The problem with nursing for me is that it’s gotten so business like is is such a business. It’s not to me. I don’t feel like you really get to take care of people the way you want to, the way it used to be when I when I started doing it and where you hear old school nurses talk about it. I’ve been a nurse for. Forever, 17 years. Can’t believe it. 17 years, I’ve been a nurse. It’s always a lot different than it used to be. And so you can’t really take care of people the way you want to because it’s it’s all about numbers, really. At the end of the day, what the government pays, the hospital has to perform for that. You got to perform for your for your bonuses. You got to perform for your raises. You got to perform to progress into it all. And it just doesn’t you don’t get to take care of people. And that’s what I don’t get to enjoy. So this is something I like. I enjoy this more. If I could leave nursing to do this full time, I certainly would do it. And I’m on my way to do.

So. I mean, what that you say is that nursing pretty much became more of a corporate environment. So was it more so you wanted the freedom to do whatever you wanted to do or you just wanted to have the freedom just to create? I mean, which one was it? Or was it a combination of both?

Hmm, I like the freedom to create. I really don’t like to. Have to do something because you said, I have to do it. I don’t like to be pushed into corners. I don’t like to be held to account for things I don’t enjoy that it frustrates me. Sometimes it pisses me off and. I want to have more freedom to do these things, like I don’t as far as cookies are concerned, like I don’t enjoy making characters because I’m just copying something. What I like to do is when somebody gives me, OK, these are the things I like, these are the colors I like and do something. That’s what I enjoy doing. I enjoy doing people’s logos. I enjoy doing stuff for people’s birthdays. I really enjoy it. More stuff for me because I always like to eat. So having something cool and not on my smashing it, I mean, that’s what I like to do. We do we get pushed in the corners a lot and I don’t, I don’t like it and I feel like. Even with nurse and we get pushed into doing certain things, you know, doing something at a certain time, we got to make sure we perform in a certain kind of way. But it takes away from the care that I could actually give to a patient. So, yeah, I like the freedom to create. I think, you know, that’s the bottom line of thinking about it, as you’re asking me.

Mm hmm. So with the the first night, I mean, like, how did you come up with the name? Like, what’s the meaning behind it? I mean, Frosti kind of comprehend that as being the but the Nightingale part.

All right. So Florence Nightingale is who we all in nursing school learn about as the pioneer of nursing. She is the one that’s credited for modern nursing. The way we do things right now, obviously, things have changed since then, but she’s the one. And so I kind of took a play off her name, put a little bird on there. So it was just a play on me being a nurse, kind of, you know, in the suites.

Got you. Got you. So, I mean, talking about a little bit about your history. Right. So it’s funny. Kind of like I know a lot of different people and some people are like they come from criminal backgrounds, some don’t. But your mom is like the biggest hustler on the damn planet. POW, pow, pow. Like, she’s like one the only woman I can say I can see her selling water to a well literally right now. So, I mean, coming up, growing up in that environment, do you think that that was like a side effect, that you kind of starting your own business and wanted to become an entrepreneur?

You know what? I hadn’t thought about that, but. Probably, I mean. I never understood, like, why my mom never worked a nine to five, like I never got it. Like, I don’t get benefits. You get you know, you got a guaranteed paycheck, essentially. I never understood why she wouldn’t do it. But we had this conversation maybe about a year ago or so. And she said something to me, Anonymizer, that she has a freedom to do what she wants. Now, she might not necessarily know what it will take her, but mama pay our bills and she eats that much. I know. And I get it. You know, I recently had a really, really good friend of mine whose mother passed away on August 1st, and she’s from Wyoming. So she left, of course, went to her mom, take care of her fears for her family. And I got a flight to go out to Wyoming and I asked if I could be off on it Friday. My boss knows she’s a co-worker also. So but I was told, no, I couldn’t go because we didn’t have enough staff, you know, to work and we didn’t it like I get why my boss let me. But I couldn’t go to my friend’s mother’s funeral because I couldn’t get off work. Like, that’s the kind of freedom my mother has. Right. She gets to kind of do what she needs to do. She want to pay for a plane ticket. She don’t make the hustle a little harder, you know, that kind of stuff. And I think there’s some, like, legit freedom. If she gets out of there, like she might be necessary. I don’t know if she does, but she may not necessarily know what is wrong. But she got to make sure what happens if she knows where where she can work to make things happen for herself. And maybe I got a little bit of help from her. I mean, I think or some dinner or some cookies or something like that because she’s had plenty of cookies.

Yeah. Yeah. Could you understand me like like seeing your mom hustle, like coming up from my high school. I mean, she was candy lady from the block. Yeah. That that would mark up Candy when you really think about you, when you see the revenue in that. But I mean obviously supply and demand. Right, exactly. And it’s kind of like she instilled in us without even realizing that we was in that environment. To your point, she didn’t work for nobody. She made her own hours. So, I mean, so given that you’re in that space, right. I mean, obviously, you’ve had a lot of successes in the cookie thing and you may not know as well. That’s why I kind of like nicknamed this you’re kind of like the humble chef nurse. Right? Right. So, I mean, what kind of successes have you had since you’ve been doing the cookies? I mean, you’ve been on like, what? TV, radio? I mean, but

No. So no. Well, I was on the news by happenstance last week. There was an article or what a story write a story that came on and my cookies were on his platter by this woman who she’s the one who actually did it right. She asked me, invited me to do it. It was super last minute, but I was like, let me go ahead and make this happen for her, because we’ve done some collaboration before. So I went ahead and did it and guess what? That’s what happened. I don’t even know that she necessarily knew that either. But yeah, that’s what happened with that. I’m actually doing an interview tomorrow for a local magazine. I’m looking forward to that. I’m a small little magazine that those things were like families and kids. So obviously I can I can give my stuff towards that. So I’m looking forward to that interview as well. Successes to me, mostly because I have not had that story where you kind of have your friends and your family who don’t support you. Like, that’s not my story. Like everybody, like backs me up one hundred and ten percent. Most of my business that I got the first year that I did this, I started this last year, February. All of it was my co-workers start. You know, I haven’t had my family asked me for OK, I haven’t had any of that stuff. If I do, it is because I want to. I have small kids. My youngest just aren’t three and like. The balance for my kids and like the support that my kids get, like I still come home, I try to make sure I spend time with them. But you see, my kids are home and nobody’s in here know. We’ve had to we had to talk like, you know, don’t bother me. So I get a lot of success from that. To me, that’s huge to have my family, my friends support me. And there have been my biggest cheerleaders. I mean, how I got into this was a friend of mine. I literally was like, hey, Stephanie makes cookies. I have made a single cook like a big nut that she hadn’t tasted nothing. But I did the class with her like two months ago, and she forced me to basically force me into it. And I sold my first order for some Christmas cookies from a chick that didn’t even know. I never even bake them before. So that’s kind of how it started. So I kind of had a support to me. That’s a big win. Gordon then like, you know, the news and things like that. I like this. That’s big, of course. But, you know, I appreciate you’ve been able to have the support of everybody around.

So with that being said, I mean, you’re also in an environment where you have a couple of friends that are like entrepreneurs, gung ho. Yes. Die hard. I mean, you got like Tiffany Tower was obviously on this podcast before and myself. So you’re kind of like in this trying triangulation of like die hard entrepreneurs that would run through a brick wall to make it happen. So, I mean, that was affecting to you as well.

So I want to say yes, because it was inspiring, but I never had my life thing right. I never was super passionate about anything, to be honest with you. Like, I never had a real hobby or, you know, something that I could do, you know, that I woke up in the morning to go into like I never really had to. I just kind of I just kind of enjoy life, have fun and kind of, you know, how cool people around me and kind of cleaned off of that. But I always see you guys doing that or see my friends doing that, like legit having this passion for something. And I never got like I never wanted it, but I never had it right. I could see it, but I never found it. So now that I have this thing is like, what am I what can I do to do more? What can I do to to be better? What can I do to, like, make this full time? What can I do to leave my off? And that obviously is lucrative and it can work anywhere in the world. Like I want to leave that alone to do something that. I enjoy that, I’m good at it, and it makes me happy and that’s what I want to do. Like, this is the passion that I like. I would take a pay cut for this, right? Like was one of those things that you would do for free, but you’re not going to do it for free goes, you know, going about that but yeah, you know,

I think you alluded to a little bit about like the family life. So, I mean, this is kind of one of those things, right? I mean, you’re a full time nurse, obviously. I mean, I asked you this question earlier. I mean, how many cookies have you at this point? Just roughly. I know it’s kind of hard to estimate, but,

yeah, I did try to like, add this up. So if you want to buy individual cookies, I typically sell about a dozen, but I’ve probably done. About five cookies, like if you want to like individually doing, because I’ve definitely had my big orders, as a matter of fact, have ordered a big set for me. I think she ordered like two hundred or something crazy like that. I’ve definitely done my three hundred orders. I’ve done large orders for people. Most of the time I get like a couple, a couple of dozen orders from people. So yeah. I mean if you want to do it individually, something like that. And

you so you bake five thousand cookies is pretty much.

Yeah. From scratch in my house with my own ingredients with my hands rolled out the dough. Yeah.

So I mean think about that. Right. I mean there’s a there’s a bunch of cookie manufacturers that started like that, you know, you have like what’s his name. The famous. Was it famous. I forgot the guy’s name is Amos. Right. Right. You’re like the cookie factories you have like the cookie like warehouses that are inside the mall. So you have all these people that essentially started their business pretty much exactly where you are currently right now, where you ever see yourself growing into to where you could potentially be in the mall or being Publix or, you know, be in Wal-Mart, for that matter.

Now, I don’t I’m going to tell you what that stuff is. I mean, like, yeah, famous Amos is cool. You open up the package. But how long the thing was it on the shelf. I mean. It is not only quality, like real talk, like I know you could go to Wal-Mart and you could buy a gingerbread house or even even make cookies where you can just put your own ice stuff on air, you know, 15, 20 bucks. If I did, it is going to be 20 by 30. Right. But you know what? You get a quality ingredients. You get something fresh, you get some custom-made. Custom cookies cost more than that. But it just is just not good stuff, right? I mean, I guess it tastes the right Sotos, but as it turns out. Right. You got stuff this from somebody’s heart, from passion. And I don’t think you can get that if you manufacture it. I know you can’t.

So you don’t think you could particularly scale it is what you’re saying?

I mean, not not in not in cookie manufacturing. Like, now, if I only sell products or something like that to help people who want to create on them, we might be talking about some different. But, you know, the people who do this like big time cookie, people like either either they don’t make cookies anymore. And I do like tutorials all the time, like they don’t do custom orders for people. I do like a bunch of tutorials to sell a product for those materials. Right. Or like people that do like big time to do it for like celebrities and like fashion houses and things like that, like that’s their primary customer. They do branding and things like that, like. Just because it doesn’t happen, I’m not saying because it hasn’t happened, I mean, I can’t do it, but, you know, I can’t say, you know, out order for cookies. And it’s taken me, you know, two days to make it like I’m not going to make any money off of it. You know what I mean? So I guess unless I let go of some creative control, for one thing, or you want to give people your recipes and show people how to do it, you know, that’s the only way I can think of being able to bring it up to a level. But there are some people actually who do this and they scale it up, but their product suffers because of it.

So you think it’s more so like once you get into, like, industrial kitchens where they’re going to particularly cut corners on a recipe to kind of cut costs or but I mean, obviously we see sharks, right? And in Shark Tank, I mean, they’re always influenced based upon the value of the product. Right. To kind of keep it. So, I mean, if you decide you want to step on the shark tank and you say, hey, I sold five thousand cookies in the past, whatever time frame, I could particularly scale this. These are great cookies here. Try them. Would you be willing to step into that space and say, hey, I’m willing to go to scale, go to market as long as I don’t lose the creative edge of my recipe?

Yeah, I would do that. I don’t know how. And I guess it’s not for me to know really. I guess. But like, how can you how can somebody come to me? You come to me and say, I want my logo on a cookie. How can someone say, you know. I am you know, I love golf, I love this and that, or just throw out some stuff because I literally people throw me like every single thing you could think of. And I have to pull something out of that and create something that makes them like, how can you do that on a industrial level? I don’t know. Can it be done?

Well, that’s well, that’s that’s custom versus like man would be if Harry Potter decides to come out with a new book tomorrow. There’s that product will sell all day. All night. Right. So,

yeah, but but but see, here’s the thing is, how long is it gonna take you to make the Harry Potter book right? You’ve got to put those details on air, you know, those kind of things like this stuff. It’s time consuming. That’s the thing is, is is very time consuming. And even though I do this after I get off work, like I’m back to work on a cookie order for six cookies to somebody, and that’s what you want to pay for and I’m sure she pays more money for cooking when she does it that way. But, you know, what does she want to do? Well, I’m probably gonna spend. Maybe like three, four hours, only six be right because of the details at this particular order is right. And so if I’m going to do if I’m gonna spend that kind of time in it, how can our. How can I do more for it? How can I how can I now do one hundred and fifty thousand cookies? Is there going to take the time? So unless I get like a bunch of hands on deck and people got out, if I’m going to do something like that, like you have to have this procedure, you have to do this right or I’ll push you out the way because I can’t have you touching my stuff with my name on it. You’re not doing it right. So I don’t know. I don’t know. Like I said, people who do this, there’s one chick I know of that does this and everybody loves her stuff, but like her quality of her product is suffers like, yeah, it looks like a dog, but I could have it that way better, and you know what I mean, make it look nicer. But she’s doing it for the masses, though. I mean, stuff suffers because of it, at least with this, because it’s a handcrafted thing. Right.

So, I mean, how do you juggle your work life with your family? I mean, you’re juggling being a nurse. You juggle being a chef in a kitchen. You just alluded earlier that, you know, the kids are not in a room. You told them not to be like, how the hell you juggling all these things?

So I try to I try to plan a lot of stuff out. I cannot be very smart about it, like I have to, like, look at my borders for a week, for example, and I have to say, OK, this is going to take this much time to do this is going to be really quick. So what order do I want to do these things? And let me talk to my husband, tell him, look, I’m a stay of late tonight and I’m a stay of late that night. So can you get the kids for me or let me make a whole bunch of food tonight? Since I don’t have an order, let me make a whole bunch of food so I can eat for a couple of days. I have some lunch, you know what I mean? So it takes a lot of strategic planning for me to be able to do it. I don’t do bedside nursing anymore. And so it’s a little bit easier for me to plan my day like I know what I’m going to leave and I don’t have to think about my job when I leave. So sometimes it’s just getting creative with that. Or like I know a week I’ll have like a ton of busy orders and then Monday and Tuesday, I’m just not really roll around on the floor with my girls and just play with them. And so they get some attention a day. So because I know the next couple of days I have my head down, I really try to work through it. So I think it’s just really for me planning and it’s this kind of difficult when you’re married to somebody who’s not. We’re busy, right? We have four kids total and we are teenagers and we have a toddler and a five year old, so it’s kind of crazy where we got so much bouncing that we have to do sometimes. I’m just up late night and afterwards everybody goes to bed. So it’s going to be a long night because I got to get up in the morning to do it. But, you know, it’s just what it is. I mean, it’s just it just varies depending on what’s going on.

So, I mean, you touched bases on your morning. So what are your morning routines look like?

You know, now that my kids are actually face to face today, I’m getting up at four thirty. When I were doing remote, I get up about five thirty. The first bit of my morning is just to myself. I try to find quiet time for myself. That doesn’t always happen. Sometimes I’m getting up with just enough time to get myself together, but I usually get up. Most mornings my family eats a hot breakfast. That’s just something that I want to do. I don’t have to, but I do. So I get to my breakfast in the morning. I mean, even potatoes, sausage and eggs and cinnamon rolls like they eat a whole breakfast. Jesus. Yeah, but that’s just what I that’s just something that I feel like. I going to have that, you know what I mean? So if it’s crazy to give some cereal, they can’t eat a bowl of cereal. But typically, I would say four or five days out the week that you have breakfast. So I kind of do that in the morning and I go out to work. My husband is typically home. He does computer stuff. So he’s working from home and he’s on a balcony and kind of getting the kids situated. That’s kind of how our life is right now with all this stuff. I’m trying to remember how I was before I took the kids on a bus, dropped the girls off at daycare and and I went to work. That’s what we were doing. So is like go like you up and go. Honestly, I spent a lot of my quiet time on my right to work like that, like 30 minutes that I get to work like this, my quiet time. That’s about all I get, because when I get off, work is catching up with phone calls and that kind of stuff.

That is definitely pretty interesting, so did Covid affect either one of your businesses? I mean, obviously, I think on the nursing side, right. Right. But how did that affect your your your cooky side, man?

I have been the busiest I have been during like, it was real crazy. I wasn’t even a speck. Of course, I had, like, those covid orders that got canceled. Right. I was super slow this year, like the beginning of the year and. I remember doing an order for some cookies because. I just want to make some cookies that have orders, right? And I did some nurse cookies, like some thank you cookies for like health care workers, front line people. Right. Those are just some for me to do with my kids and my husband. And after that, the next week, I had to order from some chick that went like seventy five cookies, like for her for her front lawn team, you know what I’m saying? And you just went from there to there to there. I felt like people probably wanted cookies because they wanted something fun and they wanted some joy out of something. Right. And I felt like. I was sold like July was ridiculous, like for me, I made the money I made in July, I made last year. Like, it was crazy because

as far as what you made last year and cookies you made in July this year, in July, right.

And it’s like that was my peak in a sort of slow down from there, but like it was crazy, like I was turning people away, like it was really ridiculous because I think that was right when George opened back up his door to open up orders, orders, orders, orders, orders, like people was like, I’m about to get out this house. And I feel like that was something that people could do. They could enjoy. They I had a lot of people, because my cookies come individually, feel like people did things crazy, like graduation parties would ship the cookies out to my family and I open them up together, you know, just just it was a part of people’s lives like that was sold out to me.

Are you capturing that? I mean I mean, obviously, that’s something that’s not every cookie can see that that happens, right? Like, of course, Oreo. I mean, Oreo was kind of let it off, but you bite into it. So you’re talking about like lifelong memories that you’re creating through your cookies. Are you capturing any of that content or are you, like, having like maybe people send those videos, those images back to you?

Yeah. So I don’t really get them. I just get the comments on a post kind of thing, but I haven’t gotten the videos back. I did get one. I mean, it was just a picture of like the graduate that they particularly did that we like our mom sent me a picture of her and I think I posted her with the cookie or something like that. But yeah, I haven’t gotten any videos back from it. I’ve done people done I was like drive by baby showers and I gave the cookies. I don’t drive by weddings. And they were part of the wedding thing, but they haven’t sent me back pictures for. But they’ll just comment on it or just tell me that’s what they’re doing with it. That would that would be pretty cool.

So if you don’t like this is where I like my marketing side is killing me right now. So like if you don’t mind, like just looking at the packaging, it is obviously a sealed. Right. Yeah. It’s probably going to cost you less than a fraction of a penny to do black and white labels. Right. OK. And put a layer on top of the cookie on top of the bed. On the right pace and on the back of the bag, you could have hashtags, the website Coupon’s QR codes, scan this when you take your picture. I’m just saying, at least that way when you have people that are taking this Spartacists with, you got people that are working with this product. Right. And on that scale to where you have somebody at graduation and you’ve got 20 family members across the US, all of them posting that image with that hashtag, all this becomes a movement versus just them eating a cookie at a graduation. So I’m just saying that that one little thing put a damper sticker on the back on it.

It is funny that you say that because it seems so stupid, because I’ve done it when I know that it’s like a business thing. Right. I did some cookies for this thing called Jack and Jill in my label in the back of all of them, my Instagram and stuff on it. I do that for everyday people. Don’t move forward.

Yeah, you just got to you’ve got to keep keep keep the brand consistency. I mean, branded brand of hell out of everything. I mean, to the point where if you can get a damn iron, burn your damn logo in the back of every cookie. Got your brand right handed. So yeah. So definitely right. So where do you see, like your business 20 years from now, where would you like it to be 20 years from now?

I would like to be able to. Keep it local, right, like I love working with like regular people or even small business owners and stuff like that, like I, I think it will be cool to definitely get my hands. It’s like a celebrity or something like that. Like this for sure. But I really love like creating something special for like regular people, if that if that makes sense. So I would love to be able to do that, to be able to get the volume up, like to be able to do a full time where I can have like a bakery, I’ve had different ideas about maybe having like a studio space because there’s a lot of people who would like to do arts projects and things like that. I want to have a room or space to be able to do that. So maybe some kind of space where you can make money, I can make money off of it and there’s little room out. Let them have whatever they want to do, whatever kind of art project they want to do or food or whatever, because Michael’s make a killing off of it. Let me just tell you that. And it’s not even worth the money that you spend. But, you know, but, you know, maybe something like that, maybe a shared kitchen, maybe products. You know, there’s a lot of these things that, like I saw like different websites, different vendors that I like, small businesses mostly that I like, maybe put all that stuff in one space so people don’t have to they can just come to me and get everything that they need for this. But as a business, not necessarily cookies, but, you know, maybe baking things, but mostly for cookies and cakes, you know, that type of stuff. I love to have a storefront, but I would prefer to have e-commerce.

So how far are you from? I mean, right now you have a website on your website. You’re taking orders, right? Yeah. So what do you mean by e-commerce? You want to have, like, Onex on purchase or.

you want to buy some difficulties here, cumbersome. You want, you know, different products, different things that we go we use. I don’t necessarily use them a lot in the industry. You people use stencils all the time. People use certain, you know, like pigments and we use airbrushes. And, you know, every day you will use if you were doing a canvas, we use the same thing in a reform, you know, maybe having some products like that that people can just come to one place because we definitely have our go to places. Right. For individual things, but maybe some something with it all together.

So, I mean, obviously, you’re talking about I mean, like, that’s just Tally’s network right there. Right.

And I know I need to talk to that. She already got from me. And I have let me tell you, she’s already like I’m an open book. Come talk to me. She already told me.

I mean, yeah. I mean, she has everything from distribution to the shipping down pack. And if you’re talking about art and colors and supplies and like, yeah. Could literally overnight have you set up an online store with three or four products selling them for 50 bucks by tomorrow. So this is one of my things like what the hell you waiting for kind of moment.

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I already have Sally on. She’s already there. Somebody just holler at me and I’m like, OK, well, it’s tonight. She’s like, just call me, OK? It is me. It ain’t even her, like, real talk. I just haven’t made it sound right because I guess we make it sound for anything once. I haven’t made it sound like have quiet like one hour of sex up and up. Everything finally gets me right and I need to make it my business to do it.

I’m a year when opportunity is this, like when I should be on a podcast with the same thing. I think to be honest, you I think there’s some fear factor in. And that’s why I kind of wanted you to have you on a podcast, because you’re on that on that that at that point. Right. And any entrepreneur in the system can kind of see it like you’re at that verge of that explosion, that group. And I wanted to catch you before you expect would you explode? It’s gonna be difficult to get my hands on. So understanding that you’re at that verge of that birth, you got a fear factor, right. And you just got to kind of offer this opportunity. Knocks Tarle says she’s open, sees opportunity. I told you to come on the podcast. You came on the podcast. You’re going to do another speaking engagement. Where are you going? To be doing an article tomorrow. Shit is happening. The world is talking to you, stop running from. You say it like opportunity’s there, run into it, then make it happen. All right, I’m not going to preach anymore, stop, preacher, stop, preacher. Where do you think in general, what’s the best tool that you do for your business that you wouldn’t be able to do without? What do you talked about? Some of the things you’re talking about, Pince. I mean, what tools do you use on a day to day basis?

So right now I’m opening up some stuff I just got in the mail today, so. This so a lot of people use like jail clothes, I think everybody seem like these edible dyes or whatever. So this company called the Sugar are like these people make this pigment powders. This is all you can’t see it, but they’re all powders and all these colors. So for some things that we do, it takes a ton of jail color, for example, or black, like these deep colors like that take forever for there. You got to, like, put the gel color in it, sit overnight. So I get like this all this stuff right here. This is a truth. I’ve been seeing this stuff and I finally jumped in about it. So I just bought like a whole bunch of stuff like and I got some more stuff over there that I bought. So I’m about to jump in and try to switch over to these, like, fully for all my colors. They’re just better, like I said, picking the powder like you offer any art project. So, you know, the colors are going to be deeper. They’re going to be more vibrant. So this. And. I have a little cheat. We have we use these little scribes, right? They’re like they’re like a metal toothpick, if you will, like, they’re really long. And that’s what we kind of move our eyes in around with. And, you know, we get all these fancy ones with bees and shit, I mean, stuff all on them. And and I got a little cheap one that was like in a little kit that I had. And like, this thing is the best thing ever. Somebody found out where I got that because I can remember. So like that like like my my dad’s and my father and I am I and my Scottsville and my meringue powder that I use my eyes like this. I don’t think I could do not without any of those

got it. So I mean is it like a trade secret to like I mean like what’s the process that went into this? I mean, are you talking about hand drawing these or. I mean because some of the stuff you do.

Yeah. So it depends on how detailed like a lot of us use like projectors. Like I have a projector that I use. That’s our secret. Right. So I have this like Wickett, like a projector, this arm that like, you know, can go any kind of way. This bad boy is like one hundred twenty five dollars what it is. And the project is like, I don’t know, a couple hundred can’t do not without this, but I didn’t have this vision. So if you look at like anything that I did prior to like. Just straight up, I have my. But it was stressing me out like big time, but now I can I can do a logo like yours and use a projector and then go through it. That way I can get more precision. But if you see, like. Some of my I don’t know, some of my characters that I did way back, all that stuff with all my heart and crazy projectors are nice to get more precision and to do things repeatedly.

Got you.

OK, so that’s that’s the secret that we use. A lot of us I don’t think is a secret, but people don’t necessarily know we do that. If you follow any cooky person, that’s what they use and they use the predictors for that for everything, like a little project out on a cookie.

And so would you recommend that to say. Words of wisdom for a young guy or girl growing up in the space or somebody probably go into coronary school and they’re trying to figure out their way. Well, word of advice would you give to them to step into that business where you are right now? You know, I think we always want to say, oh, follow your dreams, follow your heart, you know, blah, blah, blah, I guess you know, that’s true, but.

I think it’s got to be a little bit more gangster for this is right. You got to like. So fuck it, you know what, this is how much it’s gonna cost you to get this. You want it. You want it. You don’t like, I think anybody whether you want to do cookies or not, but especially what you said you’re talking about could be specifically like such a price, like set your price, my prices. Are OK for Atlanta, right, but there’s definitely people who charge double what I pay, what I charge, right. And I’m I’m going to get there. But there’s still people who want to do amazing work and they charge nothing. You know what I mean? So get your price set by your price, know your customer right. And know who your customer is and know that you charge something with value. Like, I don’t use cheap products. I’m I’m paying for expensive vanilla bean vanilla bean paste. I use of my cookies, for example. I use real butter. I use good eggs, you know what I mean? So I’m not spinning. It might not be a lot of dough, but I’m still spending a lot of time and making sure I can have a quality product. I took the time to get license. I took the time to do it short. And most bakers aren’t, to be honest with you,

to stop for their license and what exactly.

So I’ve had my kitchen inspected by the Department of Agriculture. So they come into your house, they tell you what these rules are. They don’t they don’t come into our house like they do with a restaurant, you know, whatever routine it is. But I took the time to do that. And I pay money to have my stuff license so that I could come in and make sure I have legit like if Food Network wants to call me, if I come and do Marceau’s, I got myself together right in. A lot of bakers don’t. And that’s OK. I mean, whatever. Nobody asked me. I think I’ve had one person ask me like, are you licensed? People just want cookies. Right, OK, but. I think people need to just really know their words for whatever product they have right, at such a price, and if they don’t want to pay it and that’s not a customer and move on like I don’t I’m not going to drop my price for you now. I’ll try to work with your budget and make you can’t I can’t do that. But I can do this for a lot for my lower price bracket. But I’ve totally walked away from people and I have people walk away from me and I have to be OK with it because I think we always want to just sell the product. On. But I think you dumb down your product when you do that, because I’ve definitely had a person tell me notice too expensive and a same person in two hours went back and said, OK, I want two dozen. Right. So I think you just need to stand by whatever it is that you’re doing as a business person, you know, screw all the other stuff they don’t want to pay for. Somebody will as long as it’s worth it, right? I mean, as long as it’s worth it. We’ve all paid for something that we wish we did well academically.

I just scoffed this disjoined down like the past 60 seconds here. This is the first time you’ve had one your cookies. Right. And I’ve been waiting all day. I’ve been twitching like a crackhead all day and into the cookie jar, my way to the Picasso, just biting into activities, like you said, the butter, the vanilla. You could definitely taste that. And the icing. It’s not like the not the Wal-Mart, but it’s not like the Sam’s cupcake icing that you get, like that menthol. We kind of I don’t know what it is. It’s food coloring. I don’t it’s Korean. I don’t know. This is not that by no means. It’s definitely, like you said, high quality product. Definitely.

So you can eat, it can look good, it tastes good.

I come from. So if you could spend twenty four hours with anybody dead or alive, uninterrupted, who would it be and why?

Lucille Ball.

What the hell?

That chick was a gangster with business. She was she was like the first female. Anything in production in TV first everything ever. Our show, she was the first woman to be, like, pregnant on her show, like stuff like that. She had a Hispanic husband on her show, like, come on. Well, if you ever. Yeah. If you ever look at like her her story of her life, like this chick with gangster with everything, and she demanded quality, she demanded to be making decisions like she wasn’t gonna step back, like she was the Ruth Gater, Ruth Bader Ginsburg of TV, like wherever, wherever they were going make decisions. She was going to be right there, even like her kids. Even now, like they hold a lot of this stuff real private, like they not going to just let you do anything you want to, but that’s your business was crazy, like she was so like a hit a hard time, even way back then,

so she was like before Dolly Parton took over everything pretty much.

Yeah. Yeah, she was. She was she was a crazy business man. So as far as business, they probably will probably be her.

Yeah, I didn’t see that that came out of like I mean, how do you explain that? I totally get it, but I didn’t see that one coming. I was just like, well,

yeah, I’ve been a fan of hers for many years, ever since I was like 12. I’ve been a fan of hers.

Wow. Wow. So I hope people get a hold of you. I mean I mean, obviously, you have a Facebook Instagram, which you handle.

Facebook is the first Nightingale. Instagram is frosted underscore Knightdale and website for us tonight. New .com cool, cool. When you go to my website.

Oh I just got let me take a picture with them. Go ahead and don’t even look at it.

You just start over from scratch.

No, no, no. You brought it up. So this the beauty of podcasting is I can go ahead and just bring this sucker up. Frosted Frosted see now

frosted nightingale. I know I’m typing it. That’s the beauty of editor. Edit all this up do we. And this is was it like 97. I stop editing the spell. Check the catch it.

Yep, pretty much.

Oh, my God, look at you, I just start from scratch.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Pineapple on apples. I could just type it in. Right. Maybe that’ll that’ll help night. And that’s this is one of the drawbacks to long names, is that now you’ve got to type it and figure it out. It’s loaded.

I actually thought about that name as far as that was concerned, but I stuck with it.

All right. So let me go ahead, Sheerness.

Yes, ma’am. I think that’s what happens.

It goes from a podcast to a an episode. Real quick.

All right. Now, what about the paper?

Pretty much. Let me go ahead and get this.

I don’t need you to talk to me about. I just need you to do it.

I just want to look it over. I’m sharing it one second.Hello. Hi. So. It’s like a new feature to the podcast now. You see my screen.

I can say yes, right? Can I say this?

Oh, yes, it’s going to be live on the video. So I mean, it’s it’s part of the show.

I had, like, a full face, like, being done so really quick. So what’s the objective of this website?

Oh, just to show you. Well, not just to show you to work just so you can place orders from there. Doesn’t know something about me. That’s just I and I really kind of did it because I felt like I should have one. I would like to like I say at some point, maybe get e-commerce something on there. I prefer to have my l ike Instagram like upload like Instagram pictures and stuff like that. That would be so you to see, like, updated stuff.

Yeah, so, I mean, that’s easy enough. So that the one thing that that I think most business owners and even myself, the one time and I forgot being ahead by so many different coaches over the past decade, the first and foremost thing of any website that you want to have upfront is a call of action in the sense that you want to collect data from someone. So this is like this. Welcome to the Frosted Nightingale. That’s right. They’re really big and bold. If they’re on your website, they really know where they are. So this space and region, you probably want to give them something. So on your website, what I would do automatically right now, I would put a form and have a first name and email address and say, hey, guys, sign up for my my list. And on that list, maybe you’re giving out some recipes. You put that on your website. Now your list is going to like it’s going to grow overnight because now everybody’s like, oh my gosh, she’s going to give out a recipe for whatever kind of cake or whatever kind of cookie or whatever it is, and then just start talking to the community. I mean, right now, you’re doing a good job of posting content, taking pictures. But imagine rolling that into emails and saying, hey, look at this. I just did four for John and Susan in Alabama. Look, look what’s going on up here. Here’s another recipe. And just keep them in the loop to what’s going on, because after they come on your website, they may not ever come back. But if you have an email list, then you could always target them. All right. So that’s that’s the first thing right off RIP that I would do. Right. In addition to that, this image, this image doesn’t do anything for your brand. So I would essentially put something that’s more so the product like, you know, you got a little pink flamingos down here. I would move those up and make them bigger, like the flour and the butter is novel, but your product is custom. So you want to showcase that custom product and then you want to request their email and then give them something. If you just do that, hands down, send traffic to your website. I guarantee that things will be a lot different as far as the traffic and the conversions on your website.

OK, noted, noted,

I’m done. I’m done with that. I’m not going to chop up anything else acceptable, anything.

We’ve got time for you to have it.

Yes. Yes. So this is part of the podcast where I like to, you know, give the microphone to my guests and you could ask me any question that you would like.

Oh, OK. OK. Let me think of the question I want to ask you. What do you see yourself in 20 years,

20 years from now? I kept saying for the longest I always wanted to be in the shadows. I didn’t want to be in the limelight. And unfortunately, at this point in time, I’m in that space to where 20 years from now I may not be a household name, but I would potentially have a legacy that I could leave behind, that my son could look back and be like. My dad did achieve something. That’s where I want to be personally, as far as business, it’s got to be a well oiled machine. I’m really big into systems and, you know, obviously I’m looking to create enough wealth that I can give back and still have my family, my legacy, you know, live on forever, not necessarily on my wealth, but they can use my wealth to do good.

Are you into like any large charities or anything like that?

I’ll give back in my own way, I mean, obviously, you know, we kind of do some of the charities and go out and help here and there. But I really want to get to the point to where I want to establish something. So what does that look like? Like a five one, C three that’s going into middle school, high school and helping kids understand business and even giving them competitions to compete in business and then fund their business coming out of school. So whether that’s like ten thousand dollars to start up an online solution. If that kid is worth that ten thousand dollars and you give him a jump start at 18, that’s a 90 day difference, it’ll change his entire life forever or for sure.

I like that when you sign up for it. When you start having let me know.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, right now I’m still on the climb. Yeah. The brand development clout.

So. OK. All right. So how do you find balance in what you’re doing?

There is no balance, not equality in what I’m doing. Is this kind of like in the household that I live in right now? I think that everybody does kind of understand that everything I’m doing is for the greater good of us. And by doing that, I kind of bring them bring bring everybody with me. Right. So, like something that just passed, we had a photo shoot for one of our clients that we’re creating her book for her book release. And she’s pretty high profile in her own right. But it was an opportunity for us to bring the kids to the photo shoot, you know, so everybody was significantly there at the shoot. And, you know, we’ve always been grown up in that environment. If I’m doing a meeting and I could bring them out, bring them in the meeting when he says he was like five years old, he would sit and listen. You got to the point to, like, even when I was like really big into the financial sector, he would be reciting some things that I would be reviewing or watching on video. So, you know, just putting them in that space and putting an environment. They understand that, you know, in order for us to do what we want to do, like recently we had opportunity to leave the state for I think it was like three or four weeks and we just left and went to Florida. Everybody was remote, but just to be able to do that, you got to have the mindset to be able to do it and you’ve got to have the money to be able to back it. So they definitely reap the rewards. But at the same time, they see me busting my ass on a regular basis.

All right. I’m gonna ask you something else about. Oh, so as far as kids are concerned. Right. Like, how do you, like, teach there? Like, what do you leave behind them even if they don’t want to necessarily pick up your business? Like what kind of what kind of thoughts you give your kids or even like youth around you. Like what do you give them to like. Not work a nine to five, like because like legit like who wants to fucking clocking in every day, like, you know what I mean? Like I’m so over it. I’m so over it. Like, how do you get them to not even start.

That it’s that goes back to the balance. Right. So if I was working a hundred percent a time and there was no quality time, then it will be there will be a despite of that work time and they’ll grow into hating that opportunity. So for me, I kind of try to make it to where, OK, let’s work and bus our ass. But the hell, I’m going to buy a sailboat. Just go sailing.

Right. What do you think? There’s there’s a reward for it.

It is definitely a reward. So, you know, it’s kind of funny because like Delarue Kois, it’s interesting because he was younger. He was way more. Easy to mold into the opportunity, the big vision, but he’s a teenager, right? He kind of he kind of he says something sometimes I understand he understands the principles the principles have and left him. But he’s a boy. He’s a teenager. So it’s just kind of like I can’t wait to like three or four years go by. You kind of get out this stage in this phase. But I think he definitely understands that the opportunity and I think he understands that he doesn’t live in a regular household because our conversations are usually general conversations, but they always lead back to business like he’ll ask for something. I’m like, so like, what’s the value of it? Do you just want to spend ten dollars? So you have ten dollars that mean you have 100 dollars in your bank account? Are you just going to spend 10 percent? And here’s his response. Nowadays it’s kind of like, well, not everybody believes in that principle and philosophies that two weeks ago by two weeks ago by and I’m like, OK, let’s just go pick this up or whatever, and you’ll be a smart ass and be like, well, is that 10 percent of your value? So at least I know that he’s been a smart ass, but it’s sticking in there to where he can lease rebuttal back later on.

All right. He can use it later. He’ll do it later for sure. Like, you know, when it when it really matters, when you really work for that thing, it’ll matter to him in a different way. So.

Looks like we got a little frozen hiccup. Uh. After the further interruptions of technical difficulties, we shall return back to the show. All right.

You’re going to announce.

So I guess the last part we ended up with, I guess we are just answering that last question, you know, any questions for me?

I don’t think so. I was like a little girl right there for.

You were you were spitting in that hot fire, that dialogue. But, you know, technology does have the side effects from time to time. But I just wanted to before we could kind of cut off, I just wanted to say thanks for coming on the show. I mean, hopefully it was a helpful show for you as well as is going to be for a lot of other people. That’s listening to the podcast as well. This is where I cut. Move this peace forward, could you hear me now? You mic on me. Hit a beeper.

I know this is ridiculous. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. All right, so how long?

Yeah, yeah.

So I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to come out on the podcast. And I mean, hopefully the episode was as helpful for you as is going to be for the people.

Absolutely, it was for me.

Well, I guess so when we get a call to lighten it up.

I hope you can hear me.

I can’t stop people being here.

You hear me?

Yep.

All right. So, like, I appreciate you asking me to be here. I didn’t have any expectations whatsoever for this, but I’m glad I did it. I appreciate being a part of the crew that we’re out here and look forward to see what you’re doing later on.

I appreciate it. Well, I guess you got some cookies to bake, so have a good one S.A Grant over now. All right.