IAM1118- Entrepreneur Designs the Most Sought Out Cake Decorations

Bria Taylor is not your average buttercream queen. Her graphic design-influenced cakes make her one of the most sought-after cake decorators in the DMV. She continues to surprise us with her amazing flavors and cake designs, but it is her perseverance as a young entrepreneur that keeps her going. She hopes to open a cake studio and classroom in the future to bring Killa Cakes to every baker enthusiast's home.

• CEO Hack: Writing everything down
• CEO Nugget: It's hard when people don't like your work
• CEO Defined: Being your business

Website: http://www.killacakes.com/

Instagram: @killacakes

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Transcription

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00:08 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share the valuable info you're searching for. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:36 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the IMCEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Brea Taylor of Killer Cakes.

00:44 – Bria Taylor

It's great to have you on the show. Hi, thank you. I'm really excited to be on and talk about some business stuff.

00:49 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. You're doing so many phenomenal things. So super excited to have you on and see how you've been able to kind of build all the awesome things that you've been doing. Before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Bria so you can hear about all those awesome things. And Bria is not your average buttercream queen. Her graphic design-influenced cakes make her One of the most sought-after cake decorators in the DMV. She continues to surprise us with her amazing flavors and cake designs, but it is her perseverance as a young entrepreneur that keeps her going.

She hopes to open a cake studio and classroom in the future to bring killer cakes to every baker enthusiast's home. And what I love about Brea is she's kind of like the definition of entrepreneurship and being able to kind of fuse together different ideas and creativity is definitely evident in her business. And if you check out her Instagram, make sure that you have like a lock on your phone because you could definitely take a bite out of everything that she's creating. So Bre is super excited to have you on The Show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:46 – Bria Taylor

Yeah, I'm excited.

01:48 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:56 – Bria Taylor

Yeah, OK. So I got started with Killa cakes because I went to George Mason University for graphic design. I love graphic design. It was a great way for me to, I guess, include like my art, my artistry that I really love, the entrepreneurship of being able to, you know, control what clients are using. But I got hired right from my senior show and started to work for just a company in Arlington. And I hated it, I hated it. I loved the people, I loved the environment, but there was this sense of crippling, just uncreativity of working for somebody else working within the DC sector of companies, which is mainly government. It's, you know, business, it's boring, it's gray.

And, you know, I loved the company that I worked with because you know they were like we see that you're different, we love your colors, we love your strong branding, but you know a lot of these companies are not going to love that so we need you to tone it down, still push them, but and to hear somebody tell me that I have to like to dim my light down, you know, I was hoping that you know, oh, it'll make me a better designer if I can kind of control the different aspects, but it didn't. It made me very sad. And I started maybe 6 months before that, working on killer Cakes and just exploring a more creative outlet for my artwork. And I loved it. I grew up cooking.

That was one of my big factors. I was obsessed with the Food Network channel, so much so that my mom banned me from it when I was like 13. She was like, okay, that's enough, we're done. You're talking about food way too much. And I guess it kind of picked up while I was at the studio I was at and I remember the director Joe was just you know we see you're making these cakes I love it like to pursue that it's very clear that you are much happier doing that than being here and I wouldn't say that to anybody else, but you know you have something special go pursue that.

And you know I appreciate it from an entrepreneur to another entrepreneur of just having somebody who took the time to care about me as a person and to see that creativity and to push me towards doing my own thing instead of following his aspect. And I thank him greatly for that because you need that support within the entrepreneur community. And to have that so young was so spectacular. And, you know, if I didn't have that support, I don't really know if I would have pushed it as soon as I did.

04:58 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And so I wanted to drill down a little bit more in here, a little bit more on what you're doing at Killer Cakes. Can you take us through exactly what you're doing and how you work with the clients you serve?

05:07 – Bria Taylor

So I am currently kind of confining what I do. So I am big on ideas, Just different things I did. Last year was kind of this turning point where I had much more time on my hands than I normally do with the pandemic and people not going out. I was still getting a substantial amount of orders, which I think, you know, everything for, because I know a lot of businesses did have a hard time during the pandemic. Fortunately, I was not 1 of those people. I made it through. Just, you know, people still want to throw parties, whether you can have people around you or not. So I just happened to be within 1 of those businesses where it's, I was like a non-essential essential person, where, you know, you're in the food industry, the food industry is essential.

But you know, not everybody needs birthday cakes, but people didn't have, you know, anything to really spend it on. So they're like, let's do a cake. So I tried out bite boxes, which were a subscription box that I did that I loved but was too much for me to handle as 1 person. I did basic batch cakes for a while, which was like a standardized type of cake where it would just be a message, some really fun piping, and was just a way to get cakes out there for people. But as the pandemic was coming to a close, again, I needed that creativity aspect. So, you know, I stopped doing the bite boxes. I stopped doing the basic batch cakes and I just wanted to focus on my actual craft.

And that's kind of where I'm at now is, you know, focusing on learning different buttercream techniques, better streamlining my different flavors. I have a bunch. I have like 6 different flavors on my menu, which is great. But again, because I'm 1 person I've just realized to work harder not smarter not harder because I work hard I love what I do but I am great at making things way more difficult for myself than I need to. So it was streamlining to taking 6 flavors back down to 3. And there are 3 most popular flavors that are really the only ones that get ordered anyway so I was like no brainer right there. But it's just been creating these out of these world cakes, moving that into the wedding industry.

There are so many different aspects of the cake world that I think are so wonderful you know, you have great birthday cakes. I love them. The wedding industry is taking a change of people just not wanting the black-and-white weddings. They want colors, they want themes, they want fun cakes, not just stacked cakes with flowers on them. And to be a part of and see that kind of movement. When I first started my business. I just didn't think I'd be able to do wedding cakes. I was like, you know, I don't think people want the cakes that I want to do and I'm not going to create boring wedding cakes just to be within that business, I can make money elsewhere.

So to go from that to being like, I could become a leader in, you know, the newer form of weddings and people wanting terracotta and flowers and disco balls. And I actually did a disco wedding shoot for Baltimore weddings a few weeks ago with some fantastic vendors. And I can't say much about it because it's still under wraps. But it was an amazing shoot to just be around like-minded people who have that same artistry. And it's so cool to see how cakes have just changed throughout the past couple of years, let alone how they changed after the pandemic.

08:52 – Gresham Harkless

And so would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? The thing you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique is your artistry and to be able to lean into that and stay true to that. Do you feel like that's kind of like your secret sauce?

09:04 – Bria Taylor

That is my bread and butter. Yeah. When I created killer cakes, I think at first it was just having super cool cake flavors that not a lot of people experienced. And then as I kind of continued to do it, when I first started, I did not like baking, I hated baking, and I still hate baking. I think there are times when, you know, more of my hatred of baking just comes from my procrastination and my ADHD. And the fact that you know, I can't just draw it out in 10 minutes flat, you have to wait for cakes to cool.

So there's a procrastination bit in there of just me being like, I wish I could just pop this out and just call it a day, but you know that's not. The biggest thing so with learning that you know baking still is not my thing as much as I want it to be the artistry became more of a focus. And just using crazy colors, incorporating my graphic design knowledge into my cake. So a lot of times I will design things or hand draw things onto wafer paper and use that within my business.

10:18 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

10:32 – Bria Taylor

I think for me, it's writing everything down. I think that comes mainly from me having ADHD. And I think the biggest thing that I've also learned this year just on the personal side of it is that like growing up I always thought my ADHD just affected how I learned, which it very much does. But I think the other part of it is learning how it affects me in my everyday life, how I run a business, and making sure that you know just things are staying organized, especially because I'm 1 person. I do emails. I recipe test. I deliver. I, you know, do everything and everything in between what it takes to own a business. And it would be great for me to hire other people. But realistically, don't have the money for that. Don't feel that it's necessary to spend on that right now, especially because my business is still growing.

11:28 – Gresham Harkless

I love that hack. And I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. He might have already touched on this, but this is more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice or something you might tell yourself if you hop into a time machine.

11:42 – Bria Taylor

So the biggest thing for myself that I've actually had to tell myself this past couple of weeks, I've had some really hard time with, you know, orders of just customers coming back and not fully enjoying them, or maybe the design of the cake wasn't exactly what they were expecting. I had a cake just melt on me because it's so hot. And I just remember I came into my room and I just broke down crying. I was like, I can't handle this. I've had like 3 cakes in a row that I've had to either fully or partially credit, which you know, it's not necessarily about the money like that sucks. It's frustrating.

But I think for me, it was having this just feeling that people did not like my work. And you know that disappointing feeling that you have when people don't like your work. It's hard I think people often are so consumed by these companies that are multi-billion dollar companies, where if you don't like a doughnut, they'll refund it. They don't care. They have the money to do that. But I'm 1 person. This is the artwork that I'm literally handing to you that took me 6 to 8 hours just to do. And it's not necessarily that I don't get that time back, but that it equally breaks my heart that you don't like it.

13:04 – Gresham Harkless
I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're open to different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Bria, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:14 – Bria Taylor

It's being your business, being every aspect of your business, caring about every aspect of your business.

13:21 – Gresham Harkless

Brea, truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

13:36 – Bria Taylor

Absolutely. So yeah, my biggest thing is you can follow me on Instagram. It's at Killacakes. You can place orders on Killacakes.com. I have a lot of really exciting projects for not only you know this summer but also this year. I'm possibly working on starting a cookbook so I'm really excited to possibly you know start that adventure. It's something that I've wanted to do for years now. So to have that opportunity I think would be amazing. Otherwise, if you are a business owner, keep pushing. I'm excited for you. Get out there and do what you want to do. And if you're a customer, support businesses, support local businesses. It's the best thing you can do right now, especially where we are right now as an economy and kind of as just people.

I think there's just more self-care. We need to take care of the people around us not only in a nice way but also by supporting the people around us and our community and yeah just business owning a business is great I think it's great if you are thinking about wanting to start 1, do it. It's an adventure. It is definitely hard at some times, but it's fantastic at other points. It is something that I would highly recommend to everyone to do at some point. You learn so much about the inner workings of a business and how things run. And it just gives you so much insight into other things in the world that you can connect to.

15:13 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I would definitely echo that. And we will definitely have the links and information in the show notes and I appreciate, you know, you, you know, trying things out and testing things out. I think that's 1 of the great things that I love about everything that you do as well too because I think so many times we get stuck in a, I guess box for lack of a better term and not try out different things. But trying out things, sometimes I say those shoes fit at that time. Sometimes they're going to fit maybe a year or 2 down the line, but being able to kind of try those out and learn those things is kind of the way that you create you, you be, you can lean into your creativity and go into your success. So truly appreciate that, Brea. I appreciate your time again, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

15:54 – Outro