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In our current climate of division and social isolation, my mission now more than ever is to bring people together. Even my motto, “Connecting people, cookies and ice cream” is painted on the side of my colorfully renovated ice cream truck.
This Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, I want to share my story and mission of my own female-led business to lift up other female entrepreneurs across Colorado and encourage them to look towards digital innovation to follow their passions.
I’ve always been a baker, but only with the onset of this pandemic did I figure out how to combine my love for baking with my desire to bring people closer together. My food truck, Lori Lynn’s Cookies & Cream, soft launched May 16th of this year at a park in Monument with about 100 friends and family. Ever since I was little, I’ve been baking cookies. My grandpa always told me that one day I’d be able to sell them, and I’ve kept my original recipe all these years. He was right. I now spend my evenings and weekends putting that recipe to good use.
Our customers choose two of our from-scratch cookies and one of our hand-scooped ice cream flavors to create a unique, made-to-order ice cream sandwich. Our gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan customers are thrilled to know they can join in the fun, too. My 15-year old daughter even designed our logo, our joyful cow that you’ll find on all of our packaging. To further help promote our mission, we provide a fun conversation-starting question on the back of each of our ice cream sandwich bags, to help you connect with those around you.
Launching a small business during a global pandemic, however, has not been without its challenges. Because of COVID restrictions we were not able to rely on traditional ways of connecting to the community. Thankfully, social media has allowed us to grow our business and bring in new customers each and every day. Every morning I post our truck’s location to Facebook, so our over 1,200 followers can see where we’ll be parked for the day. We also take to social media to promote new flavors and inform our customers of upcoming community events where our truck will be present. Their easy-to-use ad creation platform and unique call-to-action buttons allow me to see both my Instagram and Messenger comments and direct messages in the same place which streamlines my sales flow.
I love the ads because I can specify location, interests, and adjust the budget to what I need it to be. It’s also easy to preview and manage them and see how they’re doing while they are running. I can also adjust any of the specifications I set up while the ad is running to get better results.
I never would have imagined my baking skills to be bigger than just my side job. But with my passion for baking and connecting people, mixed in with a few innovative digital tricks, I was able to turn my dream into reality.
This Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, I encourage all women to embrace your passions. You never know, you might even be able to turn your hobby into a full time business.
Lori Morrissey is the owner of Lori Lynn’s Cookies & Cream.