Here is the transcript to the above presentation
You ’re about to discover eye-opening findings derived from conducting research with over 350,000 brides. These findings gave my team and I crucial insights and answers for how and why brides choose the bakers they do.
(This presentation was recorded in 2017. Since then, over 200,000 more brides have been involved in our research. Your advantage for using ESTC
over LTPP has grown from a 4 to 1 to a 5 to 1 (as of May 2023, it is 6.5 to 1) margin. We believe the reason is more millennial and Gen Z brides are getting married today than 4 years ago. If there was ever a better time to use an ESTC method, this is it.
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Hi, my name is Ed Otto; founder of the American wedding cake sales academy and your personal adviser and coach.
I’ve taken the answers brides gave us and turned them into cutting-edge strategies, tactics and tools, so you can transform your wedding cake business into…a gold mine.
Plus, to ensure your competitive edge and bright future, it’s my mission to elevate your wedding cake marketing and sales skills up to an expert status.
In this presentation, I’m going to reveal a discovery which has a targeted effect on your ability to sustain as well as increase the amount of your orders. As a bonus, you’ll be able to command extraordinary prices for all your wedding cakes.
This discovery is called “ESTC” The acronym stands for “Educate, Serve, Taste and Convince”
ESTC is a revolutionary methodology for selling wedding cakes based on using our proprietary research findings coupled with the principles of relationship building techniques and proven sales psychology.
Before we begin, we’re going to examine “HOW” we arrived at the revolutionary ESTC finding.
I’ve found if you understand “HOW” an author or researcher arrives at his or her conclusions, you’re much more likely to understand “WHY” you can trust the findings and then utilize them for your “MAXIMUM” benefit.
So, let’s review “HOW” we arrived at this remarkable discovery. Within the context of doing our research, we use a psychological principle called “Preconceived Expectations.”
To explain preconceived expectations, I’ll use a couple of illustrations. For example, when you go to see a movie, you have the preconceived expectations of being entertained and having an enjoyable time. If the movie doesn’t meet your preconceived expectations, you leave disappointed and let down.
As another example, wouldn’t you agree, most of us have preconceived expectations about who we decide to have as our significant other?
Sometimes the relationship fails because our special someone falls short of our preconceived expectations. Whether that person turns out to be lazy, is not romantic enough or a host of other preconceived notions, we become disillusioned. Therefore, we end the relationship.
That is where dating has a direct correlation to selling wedding cakes. Your brides also have preconceived expectations of what they expect from their relationship with you as their wedding cake baker.
Knowing this, we can conclude, when you fulfill your bride’s “Preconceived Expectations”, it is highly possible your relationship with your brides will result in a wedding cake order.
If you don’t fulfill your bride’s “Preconceived Expectations”, there is a good possibility your relationship will fail.
Let’s explore this a little further. I want you to think about how you first began selling wedding cakes. It’s very likely the method you began with and are still using is a preconceived expectation for what you think brides want and expect based on common sense or perhaps advice from others.
It’s probable you will offer a consultation that includes a discussion about designs, taste testing, and a calculation of price.
Then, you hope and pray they choose you. Through our research, we identified that over 9 out of 10 bakers use that very same sales approach! We refer to it as “Look, Taste, Price and Pray” or LTPP for short.
In addition to the LTPP issue, there is another factor that’s often overlooked, but important for you to recognize.
It’s your Millennial bride. She accounts for around 70-75% of your orders. Millennial brides have compounded every baker’s Look, Taste, and Pray approach, because our research has shown a millennial’s preconceived expectations for buying a wedding cake are immensely different than the last generation of brides.
In fact, we used the data derived from the “preconceived expectations” of millennial brides to formulate the Educate, Serve, Taste and Convince” platform.
Let’s look at 5 reasons why a millennial bride is different than brides of 20 years ago, and couple this with our research findings to see how her preconceived expectations have also changed.
- Millennial brides are getting married at an older age.
We found they have more self-confidence in ordering a wedding cake due to more life experience. In turn, they expect better value for their money.
- Millennial brides are more educated.
We found they didn’t like a salesy approach. They expect you to educate them about ordering a wedding cake and lay out a process for doing it. Plus, they want more educational information on your website since they use Smart phones and tablets to do research on the bakers they choose to visit.
- Millennial brides reject business as usual.
Which means she is less likely to accept the “LTPP” approach. She wants you to stand out from the crowd. She wants a higher level of overall service. She expects to be “served” instead of being “helped.”
- Millennial brides expect a lot of flexibility.
This is another downside of the LTPP approach. She or he expects you to make exceptions and have customer service that is second to none.
For example, the taste of your cake for millennial brides matters. You need to carry an impressive number of flavors, fillings and frostings to please her. Or, be willing to make what she wants.
- Millennial brides are encouraged to aim high and not settle for mediocrity.
Your Millennial bride believes most bakers are good cake artists. So, she doesn’t want to settle for a mediocre baker. She or he insists upon convincing reasons for why she should choose you beyond your ability to create a beautiful and tasty cake.
When you add up how 9 out of 10 bakers are using outdated preconceived expectations and a LTPP sales approach, can you see how brides are basically receiving the same sales techniques from every baker?
Does it now make sense how ESTC will help you sell more wedding cakes and at higher prices?
Although the system resulted in increasing my bakery’s average number of orders from 6 to 18 per week, at 20% higher prices, I wanted to validate the research for every region of the country, before it was released to you.
We began by training 1 baker in each of 12 markets. Then we created a strategy to track the results of a long-term 21-month study:
While we began our tests with bakers in 8 markets, we finished our tests with bakers in 12 markets. Altogether, 1083 brides were involved from the beginning of 2015 through December 1st 2016. The study proved brides overwhelmingly chose the bakers using an ESTC marketing approach by 4 to 1 [that advantage has grown to 6.5 to 1 as of May 2023].
If the study revealed a 50% increase, that would have been news in itself. But a 400% is something that makes you stand up and take notice.
In light of these remarkable results, I’m inviting a limited number of bakers to join me in the extraordinary success of the same ESTC method I’m using.
Let me finish with a message from long-time wedding cake baker Kathy Arreola, who has converted to the ESTC method.
“You’re probably a lot like me. Even though I’m happy with my sales, it made good business sense to find out what research with 150,000 brides revealed to Ed and his team.
I needed to know what I could be doing that might improve my bride’s experience, increase my sales or help me finally get prices that are worthy of my time and skill.
Even though I’ve been making wedding cakes for 15 years, it had never occurred to me to use sales tools like Ed’s guarantee, the brides first dialogue or the bakery buster questions.
They are amazing and work as advertised.
Another wonderful feature of his training is his use of sales psychology. In many of his training presentations he explains why certain techniques or sales tools work based on the principles of psychology.
When you hear his explanation for creating a website based on psychological influences or why you should have your own wedding cake advice book, based on psychological factors, it makes you realize how he was able to triple his sales and is able to get (much) higher prices.
Let me say one last thing. When I clicked the add-to-cart button, I had some reservations. I just wasn’t sure if Ed’s course would make that much of a difference.
Not only was I wrong, I wrote this letter to be sure you don’t second guess your decision.
Thanks, Kathy. I am truly humbled.
Please, check-out my ESTC training (Cracking the Secret Code) [now "Wedding Cake Sales Guru"] by clicking on the button below.
[NOTICE: There is no button. This same video from above was used on the original purchase page for the training.]
If you have any reservations, you’re welcome to contact me for a FREE 30-minute consultation by calling 402-968-2758.
It would be my pleasure to answer any questions, as well as help you with any marketing, sales or general business issues.
