Budget 2025: time to pull my big girl pants up

It's come as no surprise that today's embarrassingly leaked Budget announcements have done nothing to alleviate the worries of small and micro business owners. We find ourselves in an increasingly hostile environment.

After having a wobble last night, I've spent today pulling my big girl pants up.

Because to be perfectly honest with you, a lot of this is my fault. Yes, it's also Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin, and Keir Starmer's fault, but it's mine too.

For some, today will be a confirmation that their small business ownership journey is at an end. Whether it's this side of Christmas or April next year, it may be time to stop. For some, continuing is not a viable option, either economically, physically or mentally. And for those of you I have the utmost respect. Winding up your business baby has got to be one of the hardest decisions to make, for yourself and for your customers.

However, I know beyond doubt - and so will many of you - that this isn't the end for us. It's another bump in the road, and we're not done. The question is, how are we going to handle this? Are we going to suck it up, squeeze our margins more, pay ourselves even less, cut staff hours and carry on as a shadow of our former selves?

For me, no. I'm going to own what I've been avoiding for years: that I haven't properly costed our products, I haven't kept up with my records of what our overheads are, and I've made some huge financial errors that have got us in an even worse mess than Brexit did. I haven't looked after the business as much as I've looked after our cupcakes.

Having had my arse kicked (in the best way possible) by a new business coach earlier this year, I came to the realisation that I was completely out of touch with my business finances. Since about 2024, the way I've worked out profit margins is just to see if we're in the black at the end of the month and guess at most of our pricing. Spoiler alert: we're not in the black, and with two maternity leaves plus a lot of increased wages impacting on us this year, it was time to face reality.

It's taken me a long time to tackle this, precisely because of the hot water I've got us in meaning that we have way too much work to do and not enough money coming into the till, so it's been very tricky for me to remove myself from the production long enough to get time to sort this stuff out. However, I've clawed it back and I'm now nearly at the end of an extremely illuminating and hilarious process of figuring out why we aren't really making much money.

Here are the headlines:

• Our counter products do make money

• Our bespoke wedding cakes do make money

• Our Ready for You! range loses us money

• Our bespoke Celebration Cakes lose us money.

More specifically, we've been losing £30.41 on a 10" size 'The Mess' signature cake. We've been making £5.89 profit on the 5". All our base prices for bespoke cakes are out of whack.

I had not even remembered to input our Kitchen Porters' wages into our overheads, forgetting that they aren't direct product labour cost. I don't think I'd even properly costed pensions or holiday pay.

In a flourishing economy, these mistakes could perhaps be absorbed. But in the current situ, there's no leeway. Our net profit margin currently stands at 7% and the same goes for most of the hospitality sector. We're going to have to be better.

Despite our prices being too low for us to survive, we also get a small, but steady, stream of criticism for how high our prices are (which you may have seen recently). Despite my best efforts, this does make me afraid of pricing our stuff properly. But what I've learnt throughout the last few weeks is that a Three Little Birds cake is absolutely top notch and top dollar for a reason. It's made of the best ingredients, by the best bakers, using the best techniques, the best buttercream, and sold through the best customer service. There are a million bakers out there (probably literally just in Keighley) who offer the mediocre version and people can go there if they want. If they want to come to us, they want quality, and that costs more.

I'm not going to lie, part of me's crapping myself at the new prices that are gradually going up on the website and in our marketing. But the other part of me thinks sod it - even if we get a quarter of the orders at least we know we're making money on them. I'm done with being too busy all of the time and still having nothing to show for it. I've broken my metaphorical back driving prices down, making efficiencies and gaining marginally on a weekly basis, and it's time to deal with this from the pricing end as well as the costing end.

I always set up this business to be for those who want special - who want luxury - who want something different than the everyday. And instead of trying to stifle that, we're going to lean into it.

Yes, the government is making some stupid decisions that won't at all stimulate growth and the economy. But we've got to take ownership - and either throw the towel in, or determine to make it work with what we've got. We've got to have each other's backs and keep shopping with each other and cheering each other on - because we get it, and they don't.

I know I'll have more wobbles. I know some days I won't be as confident as I sound writing this. But our heads have to catch up with our hearts - our hearts will always want to make people happy with what we make and do for a living. But the only way we can carry on with that into the future is if our heads govern the business behind the experience.

So while my big girl pants may slip from time to time, I'll keep pulling them back up. And I'm gunning for all of you to do the same. Because we are WORTH it.