So how should Malkie the cake artist phrase her elevator pitch? She’ll want to tell customers what she can do for them in a way that gets them excited: “I’m Malkie, and I bake people the cakes of their dreams! These days, so many people are looking for gourmet cakes for special occasions or Shabbos, cakes that taste as good as they look. And those are the cakes I make.”

Brand Yourself

What does “branding” your business mean? Your brand is the way your company presents itself to the world, and the way it will be experienced by the customer. It lets customers know what they can expect from your product and differentiates your company from its competitors. (Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, has said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”) Most companies brand by creating their unique logo, website, packaging materials, and slogan. As with elevator pitches, figuring out how to brand your business forces you to bring your vision and goals into sharp focus.

A customer’s first impression is based on branding, according to Sarina Roffe, president of the Sarina Roffe Consulting Group. “Think of the Apple brand,” she says. “Their design is clean and sleek, like their products.” Your logo and other materials should coordinate to keep your message consistent. Entrepreneur magazine elaborates: “Branding extends to every aspect of your business — how you answer your phones, what you or your salespeople wear on sales calls, your e-mail signature, everything.” For example, when Sarina developed a side business, an app for kosher Mediterranean cooking, she designed the logo in the shape of a Middle Eastern door and used Aladdin-inspired fonts to highlight the Sephardic slant.

“Don’t just call a graphic artist and say, ‘Design a logo for me,’ ” Sarina says. “Take the time to write out your company values and goals on paper for her. A lot of people never do this, but it focuses you. What are your ultimate goals, beyond making money?”

You also need to account for your target audience, even conduct some market research to identify what appeals to them on a gut level. What are their needs and habits, their dreams? What do they already think of your company or business and how can they benefit from you?

For example, if you’re creating a cooking utensil line, it makes a difference whether you’re aiming for full-time homemakers, who may be willing to spend hours on an elaborate dish, or career women who want something quick and easy. Reflect that in your name and logo. Your company image should also vary depending on whether you’re a large corporation (or want to give a corporate feel), or a small retailer of personal items like food or clothing.

Malkie, who’s aiming for the kosher cake market, needs to find that intersection between her own vision of her product and business and what’s appealing to her target customers. She might take a cue from Perry Gold: When Perry started her gravlax takeout business, she wanted to brand her product as high-end, artisanal food. To that end, she bought kraft bags for packaging and produced funky printed tags for them; the company’s Facebook page uses the same fonts and has an artsy, trendy feel.

Malkie can decide if she wants to go the artisanal route, like Perry, or aim for a more heimish feel. Does she want to sell to upscale cafes and caterers, or does she prefer to bake for neighbors’ simchahs and yeshivah bake sales? If she can’t communicate her vision to herself, she won’t be able to communicate her brand effectively to customers.

How Much Is Your Time Worth?

Many Jewish women are such baalos chesed that it’s hard to transition into asking for money for the goods or services they aim to sell. “If you are not making money, you are a gemach — not a business,” declares Estie Rand, the energetic founder of Strand Consulting. “What you do is worth money. Don’t undersell yourself!”

Estie once found herself the victim of a harsh dressing-down by a potential client, who ridiculed her quite-reasonable hourly rate and demanded proof she was worthy of such a fee. “I kept my cool and told him he was under no obligation to work with me,” she says. “Of course I went home and burst into tears because he’d been so abusive, but the bottom line is that you should not back down — especially for clients who will drain your time and resources.”

In a service industry, you have the option to charge by the project or by the hour. Ms. Roffe, who provides services and consulting for small nonprofits, does both depending on the circumstances. “For a project, I estimate the time it will take me and give the client an estimate accordingly,” she says. “But I include a caveat in the contract that says the job could run more or less money depending on how many hours are involved.” She also asks for a retainer up-front that will be applied toward the price of the project. “It’s a way to make sure the client is serious, and I don’t start the work until I receive it,” she says. “After that, I bill monthly.”

How do you deal with what Estie calls “framily” — the family and friends who expect a better price because of their personal connection to the boss? Sarina labels such pro bono work “HOFF” — Helping Others For Free — and advises limiting it to no more than 10 percent of your business. “Tell people that you simply aren’t able to work for free; you have a family to support,” she says. “I get these calls all the time, both from nonprofits and people looking up family history. [She has yet another business as a Jewish genealogy expert.] After five e-mails or so, I have to start naming my price.”

How should Malkie decide how to price her cakes? First, she has to define her market: “Finding the right fit between your product and its market is the secret to successful marketing,” says Estie. “Malkie has to decide if she’s aiming for a high-end customer or a middle-class customer. You can’t sell a $400 cake to middle-class people, but you won’t sell a $100 cake to upper-class people. I had a caterer client who rebranded to high-end and raised his prices, and the customers kept coming. He continued raising, but instead of losing business, he’s now at the very high end of the field!”

Estie offers a formula for Malkie to figure out how much to charge for her time. If Malkie wants to leave her $2,400-a-month secretary job and bake cakes full-time, she should divide her goal salary by the number of hours she can work, times 60 percent, to come up with an hourly wage. Hence, if Malkie wants to work 30 hours a week, she should multiple 30 by .60 (which makes 18). Then she should divide $600 [her weekly pay] by 18, which produces a wage of about $33 an hour. (Why did we multiply by 60 percent? “You have to factor in that you’ll be spending 40 percent of your time in non-baking-related but business-related tasks like bookkeeping, sourcing ingredients, marketing, etc.,” Estie explains.) This pricing formula works the same for those who provide services instead of products, such as fitness instructors or psychotherapists.

Your hourly rate should then be added to the cost of ingredients and other expenses to determine how much to charge for a cake. “Don’t forget to add in expenses like household help, baking equipment, even cleaning supplies,” Estie says. “Take all the expenses, put them together. and triple that number to get the price you should charge in the hopes to cover overhead [minimal in Malkie’s case, since she works from home] and your salary.”

And you shouldn’t be shy to pay yourself a decent wage — or give yourself a raise. Your salary is a business expense to be factored in and paid out every bit as much as your baking supplies and advertising.

If you decide to raise your rates, give your old clients some warning, such as: “As of next month, my new rate will be $60 an hour instead of $50.” Most loyal customers won’t leave, and the new ones will never know the difference. But you may prefer to work this on a case-by-case basis: “When I discovered I was providing a valuable service and raised my rates, I realized there were some clients I couldn’t ask for more,” Sarina says. “But they were valuable to me in other ways, like providing a lot of referrals or introductions, so I didn’t mind continuing with the lower rate.” Similarly, Chana, a life coach, writes a column in a local newspaper that pays her very little. “But the column is free advertising for my practice, so it’s worth it to me to have my name out there,” she says.

Growing Pains

As Malkie’s business grows, she’ll eventually run up against another problem: Even if she can produce a high-end cake that brings in big profits, she’ll hit an income ceiling sooner or later. After all, there are only 24 hours in a day! How many cakes can one person bake?

“That’s when it’s time to scale,” Estie advises. “One option is to make more of you: to hire people under you to produce your cakes with your recipe. When you build a team, you don’t have to be there 24/7. You might even be able to take a vacation from time to time!” She gives the example of a fitness instructor who built her business by finding other instructors to work for her, using her techniques. The fitness instructor paid her employees a rate lower than her own and kept the profits.

Julie Levi suggests not only adding clones of yourself, but employees who will bring in skills you may lack: a gift for numbers, marketing, or design, for instance. “Surround yourself with people who know things you don’t,” she says. “You can’t do it all alone — you have to hire. Take an intern, a part-time employee, and educate her. Journal what you do, so you can see what’s propelling you forward.” She quotes financier Ira Perlmuter: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Another way to grow is to expand your product line. Malkie could add a line of fancy chocolates to her business, or fruit platters (“brand extension”). The fitness instructor could offer fitness-related products in addition to her classes, like energy drinks or exercise clothing.

Even a social worker could create a new income stream by writing a book or giving workshops. That’s one form of what Estie calls “bottling your knowledge and selling it.” Once you have a presence in your field, your expertise becomes a commodity. Malkie could write a cookbook or offer cooking classes. (“But she shouldn’t give away all her secrets!” Estie warns.) She could put up a blog and monetize it.

With so much great advice, Malkie just has to crunch her numbers and see if baking cakes can really translate into paying the rent. If baking is her bliss, she should go for it! After all, there will always be secretarial jobs out there. And as a wise person once said, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”