The Stabroek Business’ ongoing journalistic interventions into the ‘goings on’ in the lives of the proprietors of many of the country’s micro and small businesses continues to reveal that even as the business environment changes some of them are falling back on past pursuits in order to see themselves through the current challenges.
Some years after hanging up her apron, so to speak, Sonya Benn–Jordan is back in the game, doing what she loves best, baking and cooking. So too is her trading name, My Gifted Hands.
She runs the resurgent Gifted Hands enterprise from the Kitchen of her N Half Lot 1, Den Amstel, West Coast Demerara, turning out a variety of pastries and cakes, challenging her customers to take her word for it that she still has what it takes to ‘deliver the goods.’ On the basis of customer responses Sonya believes that she has passed that test.
2020, interestingly, the year when the COIVID-19 pandemic decimated a host of small businesses, was the ‘comeback year’ for My Gifted Hands. Sonya says that the portents arising out of patronage that she received last year were more than a little encouraging.
If pastry-making is not her only talent it has been, in the environment of the pandemic, a Godsend fallback. COVID-19, she says, had upended the Cosmetology enterprise which she ran previously. Fortunately for the 42-year-old mother of three boys, her pastry and cake enterprise has stood its ground. During, last year, a period when much greater thought would have gone into food consumption which, previously, might have been underpinned by a higher level of less than caring indulgence, Sonya sold more pastries and cakes than she had done during the previous year. It is an achievement of which she is understandably proud.
Throughout the period of the pandemic Sonya was consistently receiving between four and five orders each week. In December the numbers increased significantly. Those numbers required her to bake every day. Christmas was beckoning and the Black Cake orders were beginning to come in too. Seasonal Black Cakes orders are an undertaking of an entirely different magnitude from assignments that have to do with birthday parties, weddings and anniversaries of one sort or another.
Sonya attributes her ‘blessing’ to her steadfast commitment to the highest possible standards, an unyielding effort to ensuring that she produces and delivers the best in both taste and creativity. “I want to ensure that all my customers are satisfied with their orders, so I try my best to produce cakes that are delicious and creative” she says.
Last year, Gifted Hands expanded its customer base. That pleases Sonya. She believes that she has proven something to herself. Perhaps more significantly Gifted Hands have sprouted wings, extending itself beyond Den Amstel, into Hague, Stewartville and Leonora on the West Coast of Demerara, Mocha, Grove and Diamond on the East Bank Demerara and in a more limited way, into Georgetown. It appears that news of good cakes and pastries travels fast.
Small businesses like My Gifted Hands inevitably face challenges. One of those has to do with the risks involved in verbal contracts not being honoured. There have been occasions, Sonya says, when, having gone to the cost and trouble of ‘baking up a storm’ in response to a particular order, the ‘customer’ simply never showed up. Those experiences pushed her in the direction of requiring a 50% non-refundable ‘up front’ payment. At least that way you do not have to bear the full brunt of the ‘no show.’
Orders are done, by and large, via WhatsApp or Facebook messenger. This is, after all, the communication technology age. The technology makes for clarity and for efficient record-keeping. The system also makes for avoiding misunderstandings and controversies that might otherwise arise.
As yet there is no delivery service. That, hopefully, will come later.
Sonya values the support of her husband, Welton, a joiner and two sons. They ‘double up’ as tasters and critics, usually the first to say if she might have ‘come up short.’
The demands are growing…not just in terms of an expanding market but a more demanding one as well. Increasingly, customers are requiring the infusion of higher levels of creativity into their cakes and pastries. She therefore needs to keep up with what is ‘trending’ in the world of cakes and pastries and acquiring the various pieces of equipment that are required to enable her to ‘stay in the game.’
Sonya has also tried her hands at other pursuits. Gifted Hands was created in 2018 after the closure of her ten-year-old graphic design enterprise, SMB Publishing. The Vreed-en-Hoop business had to be wound up in order that Sonya might pay more attention to caring for her ailing mother.
Nor has her life, up until now, been anything less than interesting. The former Dolphin Government School student went straightaway into the Carnegie School of Home Economics to pursue a course in Household Management. That accounted for some of her earliest exposure to baking and cooking. Afterwards, her life assumed an upward trajectory. An aunt who resides in the United Kingdom invited her there. Her six-year stay yielded a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology from the New Hemp College of Further Education in East London. Upon, her return to Guyana she worked in the private sector as a graphic artist before getting into business on her own. In 2009 she established SMB Publishing, offering services in areas such as the decorative design of Invitations, Programmes and Calling Cards. The company also offered typing and photo copying services.
The transition to entrepreneurship she says, was pretty smooth. She is, she says, a quick learner. The journey, however, has not been without its hiccups. A complete absence of repayment challenges in relation to two loans secured from a local commercial bank was not sufficient to secure her a further loan. Her third loan application was denied. Perhaps understandably, she has become somewhat queasy about engaging the banking system.
Prior to returning to her Gifted Hands pursuits Sonya re-entered the Carnegie School of Home Economics to pursue additional courses in cake and pastry-making. She believes that she is all the more comfortable for what, these days, is her additional experience.
