Keera Brooks, Founder of Wholesale Sugar Flowers
Name: Keera Brooks
Founder: Wholesale Sugar Flowers
Who is Keera Brooks?
Keera Brooks acquired Wholesale Sugar Flowers in 2018, after nearly two decades in corporate America. As the company’s CEO, Keera is passionate about contributing in a meaningful way toward customers, partners, employees and the community, and she has a personal mission to empower other women through partnerships and outreach programs. These efforts have helped her expand the Wholesale Sugar Flowers business and track fast growth in both the B2B and consumer markets, helping everyone from professional pastry chefs to aspiring entrepreneurs to at-home hobbyists elevate their celebrations and enjoy “the art of decorating.”
In less than three sentences tell us about your company and what you do.
As the leading provider of quality sugar flowers for more than 20 years, Wholesale Sugar Flowers empowers established confectioners to elevate their creations and inspires at-home bakers to turn their visions into a reality. While known for their sugar flowers, they also offer high-quality icing decorations, dragees, nonpareils, sprinkles, confetti, edible glitter and more, acting as the virtual pantry you didn’t know you need.
What does BEING a FoundHer mean to you?
It means inspiring and empowering other women to look outside of the box, and recognize that not everything goes according to plan, in order to achieve their full potential. I spent 16 years in corporate America before leaving to find my true calling – the opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way towards the greater community.
How do you support other female founders and women in business?
I have made it a priority to hire and promote women within Wholesale Sugar Flowers, and to contract with and partner with other women-owned businesses for third-party support. But most importantly, I am focused on supporting our female customers by offering high-quality products at reasonable prices and evolving our business model to help these women capture additional profit and manage cash flow. For example, we don’t require a minimum order quantity, like many of our competitors do. We also prioritize giving back – during the height of the pandemic, we donated free marketing materials to many female-owned businesses. The confidence that women gain from advancing their individual businesses spreads within their families and communities, allowing others to dream bigger for themselves. This is really my ‘why’ and what drives me every day.
What is something you do differently from the industry standard?
We are different than most wholesaler/distributors because we do not require a minimum order quantity (MOQ) and we offer per piece pricing, thereby removing the bulk quantity purchases typical in a wholesale model and giving small businesses and individual bakers access to our "virtual pantry." Since most of our customers bake custom, one-of-a-kind creations, they are not making the same cake twice. With Wholesale Sugar Flowers, they are able to better manage their business and offer their clients much more than if they had to purchase everything. Let us hold the inventory and when they are ready to purchase, we are here for them – down to the last leaf.
What are three strategies you use to market your business, grow brand awareness and generate bottom line growth?
1. Digital Advertising: Since we are an e-commerce company, we must advertise on the relevant social media platforms and search pages to be seen. We have seen such a significant lift to our business just by introducing our company to the market.
2. Corporate Sponsorship: This is a great way to establish your company as an industry leader. We invest in sponsoring both philanthropically, with a non-profit that is heavily aligned with our industry (Icing Smiles), and more commercially, with a global media partner (Cake Masters Magazine) who has very far reach in the industry by sponsoring two prestigious industry awards centered around our flagship product, the sugar flower - Cake Masters Awards & the American Cake Awards.
3. Unparalleled Customer Service: We are nestled in a very large but also very small industry where everyone knows everyone, and people talk. The way you serve one customer could result in an exponential return on referrals and recommendations. And the best part is that this one doesn’t cost a penny. We go above and beyond on our same day shipping, returns, express overnights and satisfaction guarantees. Our customers know they can count on us to have their back, so in turn, their customers can count on them.
What was an obstacle you overcame to get your business where it is today? Please share the story behind it.
As a global business with customers around the world serving the food & beverage and hospitality industry, the Covid-19 pandemic presented a significant obstacle for us from the start. I purchased the 15-year-old company in 2018 and had just over a year under my belt before the pandemic hit. On Friday, March 13, 2020, my business revenue evaporated completely, and I had very little cash in the bank to float through the uncertainty. I was initially paralyzed thinking that I just invested a significant amount of money into something that would inevitably fail. But that moment didn’t last long because I’m a born problem solver and I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. I also had a dear friend going through the same thing with her business, so we were able to lean on each other as we entered uncharted waters. I had to make really tough decisions, like temporarily laying off my entire team. During that time, I was running the business by myself and served any customer that happened to place an order. If I wasn’t first, I was second in line for the first PPP loan, applying at midnight when the website opened up. I had every document and signature requested, turned around in lightning speed from the time the loan officer asked for it. I got the loan approved and funds deposited within two weeks. The first thing I did was hire my team back and we got to work.
From April to June, we had very few orders during what was normally a very busy time for us. But we used our time to focus on remaining relevant and supporting our customers who were still working at limited capacity. Through this effort, we opened our business model to offering piece rate pricing so bakers could hold onto more cash and still take on jobs. We expanded our product offering of sprinkles, nonpareils, and custom mixes – using product that we already owned but creating new combinations that were interesting to customers. We offered free marketing materials so our bakers could run a ‘buy one, give one’ campaign in their local communities. And we started advertising on social media so the at-home bakers could find us.
In August, we ran ‘The Big Thank You’ sale and cut the price of all of our products by 33% to try and help our customers capture greater profits and pull cash from our business through inventory reduction. By the end of the year, we had clawed back all of the money we lost in April through June and ended the year ahead of 2019 revenue.
We leveraged the support the government was able to provide and were responsible about how we used the funding. The decisions made early on helped position us for the success we enjoyed in 2021. Our business soared and we almost doubled the size of the company in one year.
If I wasn’t facing such a critical situation, I may never have opened my eyes to thinking bigger/differently about the company. It opened a new window of possibilities for Wholesale Sugar Flowers. From extenuating circumstances, a new business was born, new customers and service offerings were gained, and new products were discovered. I wouldn’t change a thing.
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