The cake person is doing so well at her own business that she's got more customers than she has time to serve. I'm sure many women with little sidelines like this would love to have the same problem!
Raising the prices to reduce volume while increasing the profit per unit is the obvious solution ... though perhaps not obvious to someone whose degree is in psychology or social work.
I agree, all sounds great at this point.
I’m just tossing out a cautionary and skeptical hmmmmm, since I smell warning signs of possible problems.
In many jurisdictions, such food preparation, if in her home, would make her home classified by the local government as a retail food establishment, and either subject her to all the local regulation imposed on restaurants or be outright illegal.
IMHO, she should be fully aware of all local laws and regulations if she is a business owner and wants to be successful. In many industries there are fly-by-nights that operate under the radar successfully until they get enough sales that they start annoying the legitimate businesses in the area. It only takes a phone call to then cause the fly-by-night business to end.
This also makes me wonder if she is following all other applicable law, i.e., has she set up herself as an employee of her business, is she doing it as self-employed - is she reporting her earnings, etc.
I’ve seen a fellow operate a business where he went into debt to buy equipment, and he had sales and was making payments on the equipment, but was kidding himself because there were required things that he was not paying, and the possible revenue could not really support what his operation realistically would need. He wound up with debt.
Often with “under the radar” side businesses, you have a lot of customers because your prices seem low, but the only reason you are charging that low price is because you don’t have so many other costs that normal business have. If she had a bakery shop in a rented space - would she still have all those customers, even if she had to charge more ? Then, after her business got done paying all the expenses it would have, would she still find the resulting profit to be enough to make it worthwhile ?
She may have an arrangement with someone who has a commercial kitchen, I’ve personally known someone who did that quite successfully with their employer.
Of course, it appears that she does not want to have her own commercial kitchen and expand the business as necessary to support that. I can only assume because she does not want to leave the safety net of her school pay, benefits and most importantly, probably, school pension.
Based on my experience, sounds like a typical sideline occupation, not a real business, where the operator is in over their head in terms of general business and specific industry knowledge.
Of course, if the person made the effort to learn (so they don’t make big mistakes like unwise financing, so they learn about a realistic business p & l, marketing, local competitors, anything else they need to learn for their particular business, etc.) they could make the jump, give up their job and operate the business for real and have a chance at success. Sounds like she doesn’t want to, but I just wanna be fair, nothin’ says she couldn’t try. And hey, if she’s operating under the radar, that’s her choice, if she can make a few bucks on the side, more power to her. There can be risks to that, however.
I’m sure you are well aware of all that with your background, so please don’t think I’m trying to tell you anything you don’t know !
:)