Business Spotlight: Sweat equity meets sweet treats

Mandi Fritz has always been known among her friends as the go-to gal when it comes to baking cakes for special occasions, and last year she turned her hobby into a business.

Fritz began operating The Cake Truffle Store out of her home in Ozark in March 2010. Cake truffles are similar to the candy variety, only made from cake crumbles and butter cream icing and rolled into balls.  

“I would make these cakes and cut them into shapes and have all of this cake left over,” Fritz says. “I did some research online and found out there is a really big cake truffle craze.”

Fritz specializes in the smaller cake delicacies, which comprise the majority of her business, but she also bakes and decorates special-occasion cakes and doggie truffles and holds cake decorating birthday parties for children.

Fritz opened her business with little upfront investment, about $500, to upgrade her oven and purchase pans and cake tips. She set out without a business plan guiding her. “I know the business majors out there will cringe when they read that,” she says. “Things have just been changing and growing so quickly, I haven’t had time to really sit down and outline the plan.”
Even without a business plan, Fritz says she sold $5,000 in truffles last year, and she hopes to increase that figure by 75 percent this year.

Comfortable in the kitchen
Fritz, a Kansas City area native, came to Springfield in 1997 to attend Missouri State University, where she majored in psychology. She met her husband, Derek, who was a business major, and they decided to settle in the area.

“My husband has helped me a lot with the business end,” Fritz says of Derek, who manages the Tracker Boats plastic plant in Lebanon. “I feel more comfortable in the kitchen than sitting down with a business plan.”

In January 2010, Fritz began researching cake truffles and experimenting with flavors. She decided she wanted to initially open the business from her Ozark home, where she home-schools her two sons, Hunter, 9, and Cooper, 7.

By March, she obtained her business license and was ready to get started.  

Fritz offers nine flavors including toasted butter pecan, carrot cake, angel food cake, chocolate, strawberry, red velvet, wedding white, espresso and yellow butter cake. Some of those flavors change seasonally, and there is an additional flavor of the month. March’s flavor is lemon. “I like using locally grown seasonal flavors,” says Fritz.  

Initially, Fritz relied on word of mouth sales from family and friends, but in January, she took out a Groupon ad. “That was really the one thing that took the business from just friends and family buying to all over the U.S.,” Fritz says of the Jan. 31 offer that sold 282 dozens of truffles. “It’s a great way to advertise without investing a lot of money into the marketing.”

At the time she placed the ad, the truffles were $17 a dozen and she offered them at half price. For each sale made, Groupon collects half, and Fritz says she broke even on the deal.
Fritz says Groupon helped her make connections, and about 10 percent of her business is outside of the Springfield area.

Cooking up connections
Each month, she offers a special flavor and donates $5 of the sale of each dozen cake truffles sold to a chosen charity. In October, she offered a red velvet cake truffle decorated with a pink ribbon and donated to Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks.

“It’s really a great way to connect with the public when a business is starting out and also to give back,” says Lindsay Todd, BCFO coordinator, noting that Fritz donated roughly $100 from the sales of the truffles that month.

Fritz also has bartered for advertising with Vision Communications on radio stations 99 Hit FM and 1340 AM. “We have a program available for a number of advertisers utilizing bartering,” says Mark Hill, station manager.

Hill says the stations bartered advertising with Fritz for gift certificates and gifts during the holidays – and, in turn, she says Cake Truffle’s Facebook page more than doubled to nearly 500 fans.

“Facebook has really helped,” Fritz says. “It’s free advertising and I’m able to post specials, polls about flavors and ask our customer what charities we should support.”

Fritz says she updates the page at least every other day, more during specials and holiday promotions. She also sends an e-mail marketing letter to customers once a month and is learning to use Twitter.

A battle she’s losing is the price war on sugar. She says in the last year sugar costs have increased by 40 percent to $16.57 for a 25 pound bag, leading Fritz to increase her prices to $19 a dozen.  

Fritz says the advantages of working from home are the same as the challenges. “The advantage is that I home-school my children. The disadvantage is that I home-school my children, and I have to work around that and meal time,” she says. “I work a lot at night, and
I’ve embraced the concept that sleep is overrated.”

Fritz says she hopes to open a storefront in the future. “I hope it continues to grow, I love it, and I like that I’m showing the kids the hard work it takes to own a business,” she says.
Rayanna Anderson, director of the Small Business & Technology Development Center at the Missouri State University College of Business Administration, says any business desiring growth really should put together a plan.

“Understanding your cash position, cash performance and when you can afford to expand, along with the marketing, is a key part of the plan,” says Anderson. “Very few businesses can internally finance high growth and at some point, when a business that is home-based decides it needs space and adds to the overhead costs, a plan will be key.”[[In-content Ad]]