"In my opinion, people should go into business to be of service and add value."
Lisa Shepherd was born and raised in Germany. She has a degree in Transcultural Communication from the University of Vienna, Austria. Volunteering in the Galapagos Islands she met her British husband. They traveled the world together before settling in Leeds, UK. She has two wonderful children who are not only her pride and joy, but also her greatest teachers. Together with her friend Saskia Roskam, she founded Bloom Bakers, an online business that specializes in personalized and branded biscuits.
The real product however is kindness. Not only do they help spread kindness in biscuit form, they capitalize on kindness in all aspects of the business – from the way they interact with customers and staff to the impact they have on our planet.
Their vision is to introduce more female qualities to the business world, remove the stigma associated with working mothers, and run a purposeful business that enables women to combine a career with motherhood – without the guilt.
Check out more interviews with entrepreneurs here.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET FEATURED?
All interviews are 100% FREE OF CHARGE
Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Lisa Shepherd: Bloom Bakers was founded by Saskia Roskam and myself in 2016. We met at a digital marketing agency in Leeds, UK, where Saskia looked after the Dutch clients and I worked within the German team. We became friends and bonded over a shared loved of sourdough and missing the bakes from our home countries.
We were both new mothers, and used our baking sessions to carve out some time to ourselves. It was an outlet for our creativity and a space for just us amidst the busy family lives. We started selling cakes and biscuits, baked to family recipes, at local farmers markets. Our professional background in digital marketing allowed us to create online visibility, so that we quickly started to receive enquiries via email.
Since we still had our jobs and the kids to juggle, we could only bake small batches from our home kitchen at night-time. After a while we decided to focus on biscuits only, and to personalise them, so that people could send them in the post as gifts. Our current business idea was born. With every enquiry we increased our skills and today we predominately bake branded biscuits for businesses.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Lisa Shepherd: The reason why we thrived when others struggled is that we had an online presence. Our rankings were good, people find us organically. We are a small business, meaning we are agile and can implements changes quickly, allowing us to adapt to new circumstances and catering to our clients’ requirements. We have a clear set of values and base our business on those – many of them are aligned with current demands: a creative product, a personalised service, great customer care, a nice price point, eco-friendly packaging.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Lisa Shepherd: In my opinion, people should go into business to be of service and add value. They don’t have to re-invent the wheel, but bring their personality and their story into it, and make things that are already out there better. Not cheaper, not faster, but better. And that now means more sustainable, higher quality, more meaningful, something with the future in mind. Running a business is a massive leaning curve, an exercise in personal development, it is not for the faint-hearted. My advice would be to work on yourself and always question what you do, how you do it, and who you do it for.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Lisa Shepherd: During the pandemic we saw a 400% increase of our letterbox gifts. People were not allowed to meet with friends and family, so they spent money on bringing them joy in new creative ways. One of them was personalised biscuits, and we fitted right in. We launched new products like a “Happy Lockdown Birthday” box or a “Get Well Soon” box. The sudden influx of orders forced us to streamline our processes more, and to become clearer on our margins. It made us realised that our idea had legs, and we took a leap of faith and quit our day jobs to focus on Bloom Bakers.
We took risks, but they paid off. We moved out of our home kitchen and rented a unit. We hired three members of staff so we could work more on the business and less in the business, which in return led to more business.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Lisa Shepherd: I wish I had known how much we would grow so I would have quit my other job earlier. Juggling two jobs and two kids in lockdown was no fun!!
We intend to further improve our processes in 2022. Another massive project we are working on is a re-brand. We are hoping to have a new name and brand new website with much improved user experience by the start of 2023.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Lisa Shepherd: From what I see and hear, working remotely is here to stay. Shopping habits have changed forever, and the next generation to come is used to convenience, instant results and digital solutions. Whilst machines are the future, my hope is that we find a way to be more human again. Until you can bake biscuits remotely we will require our team to be on site, but we do offer as much flexibility as we can within that set-up.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Lisa Shepherd: Too many,,,We operate school hours only, so all work part-time. The nature of our business and product is very hands-on, so we do get breaks from the screen to get creative, but a lot of our day to day tasks as business owners involve a screen. I find blue-light filter glasses help me switch off better. I also try not to use a screen in the hours after school, and between 8pm and 8am (but I don’t always success, it is 10:27pm as I type this!).
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Lisa Shepherd: In the first instance I connect with my team. Whenever anything isn’t going as it should, there is an underlying reason for that. A sleepless night, a sick child, a conflict in the family. Rather than telling my team what they did wrong, I ask how they are, if everything is ok, if they need support with anything. I trust that they always do their best, and when that isn’t up to standard, there is always a reason. By treating them like human beings, we don’t only live our ethos, we also build a team of committed individuals who want to do well because they feel seen and appreciated, and part of something.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Lisa Shepherd: The challenge I can see all around me is that we currently live in an employee’s market. Especially the hospitality industry is experiencing a real staff shortage. Remote working is almost impossible, but people want to have that option at least and opt for jobs that can guarantee this. Then there are rising costs and constantly adjusting pricing, expenses and margins to not fall behind.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Lisa Shepherd: I am personally most interested in tangible real-life issues that especially women face that have not been solved. Equality in the workplace (and everywhere else!), maternity leave and childcare solutions that work and don’t drive women to leave their careers or go bankrupt, ways to more sustainably combine work and having a family, how to bring more female qualities into the world (of work). As an employer what I am keen on learning more about is leadership and inspiring others.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Lisa Shepherd: I do think that many employers are not very self-aware. That they have not worked on themselves enough to see that the other side is only ever one part of the problem. There is a huge lack of empathy in the workplace, which might be a result of it being an environment shaped almost exclusively by male values like self-assertion and competition. As an employer however, I now understand the other side as well. Things are often more complicated than an employee might appreciate, but it is precisely my job as a leader to translate and communicate this to my team. To see and hear them, and to leave my ego by the wayside. It is not about me. Who am I without my team? What is my business without my team?
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Lisa Shepherd: I would choose to be more of a risk-taker. It is am aware that this a quality entrepreneurs need, but it does not come natural to me. If I could choose a business superpower I would like to take risks with ease, take lots of them, and not be afraid of failure or consequences. I would hire people who are too expensive, I would move into (or buy) the most amazing premises, I would give more generously. I am sure it would pay off thinking about it…
On another note I would really like to be able to fly, but that isn’t really business related…
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Lisa Shepherd: Success for me is to live a life you enjoy living. This has always been very important to me, and it even more important to me now I am a mother. Life is precious, and I don’t want to do things that don’t either inspire me, or take me to where I want to be.
A successful person to me is someone who is happy where they are, someone with a great vision and mission, someone who is at peace with who they are, someone who is surrounded by people who love them. I do consider myself successful by my own definition.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Lisa Shepherd for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Lisa Shepherd or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
