We recently caught up with Bets – finding out the ins and outs of starting her own cakery, launching a best seller and the social pressures that are involved in the process. Have at it.
I’ve always been into baking, my parents have always baked. My dad owned a health food shop, milled his own flour, so I guess I was just always around baking. At school I always took home economics.I just loved being in the kitchen.
I always had the thought. I loved the idea of having my own place using the best ingredients. When I was 22 I worked for these women, I was inspired by the way they never baked as a get rich quick scheme. I wanted to have a café, not necessarily a sweet café, just a café. But I definitely took the sweet route, and I like to think I’ve stayed true to the inspiration I got from them.
You have no idea how much I spend on vanilla (laughs!) That’s the biggest thing! Vanilla bean and vanilla extract. It's like $280.
Everyone sees Magnolia Kitchen as starting when I opened the café, when it was actually one of those ventures that you speak of. When I set up Magnolia Kitchen it was the end of 2011, at the time I was still working fulltime, I then started a family, and proceeded to have two children. And of course following the rules, I didn’t do that. I got in lots trouble for not doing that. It’s all part of the story, all part of the journey. Even if it was stressful, and dramatic at the time, those can be directly linked to the successes I’ve had.
Yes, definitely, but it’s not like I make these conscious decisions, I just go through life and do it. I call it, flying by the seat of my pants. It works for me. I know it’s going to work out and be fine, hopefully.
A lot of people when they go to have kids and start a family, they’re like, “I want to have a house first, and have a successful career..” – It’s like people are just going to keep coming up with reasons why they can’t do something. Just do it. What’s the worst that can happen. I think that rings true for every aspect of my life.
It’s something people often ask, “why Silverdale, why not Ponsonby or somewhere closer to the people?”. The way I think my café has been set up, the people it attracts, it does lend itself quite well to one of those hip areas, without trying to make myself sound old (laughs). Before we even found the café, the premises I knew I didn’t care much about the location and foot traffic. As I had faith in my customer base and fans online. I knew I’d have people willing to hop in their car and drive. Any kind of local foot traffic is a bonus. When someone pulls up to my café, they’ve driven there. They’ve committed to it. They’ve driven there to enjoy what I’ve created. Especially when they’ve driven straight from the airport – and they’ve come from Miami or the UK. It’s kind of mind blowing to think people are coming to visit from all over the world.
I try to source locally where I can. It’s not as easy when you’re running a business where there’s certain costs assigned to things. But, going back to the vanilla extract for example. That’s a local company, Equagold, that I use, I absolutely swear by them! I’ll never stop using them. They also supply all my cocoa, along with coconut oil.
I’ve always wanted to do a book. It’s always been something I thought would be really cool to do. It was when blogging first took off and people were sharing everything for free, on the internet. But I was kind of selfish, I wasn’t wanting to sharing any of my recipes, or my techniques. I would tell myself I’m going to write a book one day. I wanted to have something a little special that was sort after and that wasn’t really watered down because it was on google.
It’s been crazy! I guess I’ve always had faith in myself and my business, but I’m aware I’m still, or was.. still very unknown on the New Zealand market. It’s been so eye opening to New Zealand, to have mainstream media pick it up… “Like Oh my god, Magnolia Kitchen”.
Ohh I always have those moments. I don’t notice it so much when I’m doing the act of it. It’s when I interact with someone in person. It’s not like I’m a different person when I’m on social media. But it’s me being a webtravert – a new term being throwing around – typically I’m an introvert, very shy. I shit myself in social situations. A party. My wedding. I hate being the center of attention. Which people are like, What?! You have over 190k followers on Instagram, and you’re infront of those people every single day! I’m like, it’s fine, I’m just looking at myself. So now I call myself a webtravert. I’m very social online, but it’s very interesting carrying it over to the real world. It actually takes a lot of work. As people who follow me online, when I meet them in person, they’re expecting that same exuberance in real life. But what they don’t realise is what they see on my Instagram story is only what happens in a 30minutes of my day in any given 24-hour period that they see. Imagine if I was like that 24/7. That’s exhausting!
It’s is! It’s not like I’m forcing myself to be something I’m not. But nobody can be on that much, all day, every day. I struggled with it a bit last year when I was wondering where I’m taking the business. I thought I needed to be the person that’s here for them. Then I got over it, and realized if I’m having a shit day, I’m going to be grim. I think it’s something that should always be mentioned in a conversation when talking about social media.
Exactly!
I’m really excited about growing the brand. What’s next is my online courses. I’m making it easier my international following, I’ve spent a bunch of time to produce a series of videos. I’m looking to hopefully set up a full kitchen, specifically for recording. Maybe host some thing. But in the meantime keep an eye out for Magnolia Kitchen Podcasts.