MEET BART SMITH
"THE COOKIE MAN"
I’ve been baking chocolate chip cookies since 1988, when I was a freshman in college at the University Of Georgia (Athens, GA). I went there on a full-ride (hurdling) track scholarship back in the day (35+ years ago). Well, I remember sitting alone in my apartment living room, before school started up in a couple weeks, wondering what I was going to have for dinner that night. Then, it hit me ...
"I'm living in my first apartment at college (August 1988), I've got a full kitchen, an oven, and I'm living 2,254.4 miles away from Mom! I could have ANYTHING I want for DINNER! NO ONE WILL KNOW! Let's have COOKIES!!! Specifically, I want freshly baked CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES (CCC) for dinner! I can just picture it, a dozen (or more) cookies, hot, right out of the oven in a bowl!!! Yeah, c'mon, let's go get the ingredients!"
So, I hopped into my slick black Laredo jeep, drove down to the grocery store, got the ingredients and I baked my first batch of cookies in August 1988. They turned out rich and delish, as expected, and it was a scrumptious dinner, let me tell you. I even called my mom after I devoured my bowl of cookies to tell her I had ruined my appetite (for dinner). She said, "What happened?" I said, "I had cookies for dinner!" We had a nice laugh about it all. Of course, I kept baking cookies and I just never stopped.
Over time, I was giving them away to anyone who wanted to try one where I lived. Then, in the fall of my sophomore year, I decided college wasn't for me and I dropped out. YAY! Well, I went to work for a variety of companies in the early 90s (all throughout Coastal Orange County, CA) through a handful of temporary work agencies. What was cool was even though I was a temporary employee at these companies, they still invited me to their pot luck parties and ask me to bring something. Well, I always brought my cookies, naturally.
Well, what's interesting to know about this little fact was I brought my cookies to several dozen different company potluck parties over the span of 2-3 years. This essentially meant dozens of "blind taste tests," as in, each company had never had them before, and got to try my cookies for the very first time. What I then witnessed, over and over again, was that everyone (and we're talking upwards of 500+ people across all those different company potlucks) were all reaching into my container of cookies before the KFC bucket (or some other main course/meal) if you know what mean. Interesting, isn't it? My cookies were taking off way back in the early 1990s. That's 30+ years ago!
Then, around the mid/late 1990s, I became a freelancer/consultant. What I started doing was sending cookies to clients whether I wanted their business or I got their business to say, "Thank you!" Then, over time, you come across clients who have a hard time paying you or they pay late, right? Well, I never threatened them with small claims court or nasty phone calls or emails from my attorney, no. I would just mail them a follow-up invoice AND COOKIES! Boy, did I get paid FAST!!!
"Bart, thank you for the cookies. We're so sorry about paying you so late. We've had to wait for some money to come in to pay you. Thank you for your patience. I'm writing the check right now as I chow down on one of these most delicious cookies of yours. Did you really make these? The check is in the mail tonight! These cookies are excellent. You've got yourself a new business if you ever wanted to go into the cookie business. Thanks for calling to see if we got the cookies. We're all so happy to have received them."
You see, they just felt so guilty for not paying me. (i.e., crunch, chew, yum and “the check is in the mail, Bart!”) Ah, how the "power of the cookie" was starting to manifest itself 30+ years ago! And? Would you believe? I'm still sending my clients cookies to this day! Just ask them; ask ALL of them. They've all been offered and if they declined, it was usually for dietary reasons, or they would come right out and say, "My mailing address is ..." and I would mail them cookies to say, "Thank you, for your business!"
Then, over the next ten years or so, on into the 2000s, people started telling me, “Bart, thank you for the cookies, but I want to pay you for them.” So, I built myself a killer website back in 2010, having registered the domain name BartsCookies.com in 2002, hooked up a shopping cart, a payment processor, and the rest was history. The website was launched and I got my first online cookie order on Monday, February 7, 2011. I never promoted it hard and heavy at all, because I didn't want to be slammed with too many orders I couldn't fulfill. So, I just let folks randomly find my website, order and I'd bake and ship the same day. That went on for quite a few of years. All word-of-mouth marketing, search engine search results for "best chocolate chip cookie mailed to you," among other search terms that might bring cookie customers to me from all over the country and the world!
Well, fast forward, and to date, 35+ years later, I estimate I’ve baked close to 250,000+ cookies and on a PART-TIME basis; NEVER FULL-TIME, which would probably put me close to having baked 1 MILLION+ COOKIES by now. THAT would be A LOT of cookies, wouldn’t it? A MILLION COOKIES? By ONE PERSON? All right, well, I’ll settle for 250,000+ baked so far … and counting!!! Remember, I haven't stopped baking! I still bake for fun, friends, family, clients and for any excuse I can come up with! On several occasions, I'll open my big mouth, talk about my cookies and obligate myself to baking for the staff at some restaurant, company or whoever.
I’ve also shipped cookies to 1,000+ cookie customers all across the United States of America. So, I have a lot of experience with shipping thousands of cookies, building my own BartsCookies.com website, hooking up the shopping cart and payment processor myself, creating/using digital coupons and discount codes, purchasing ingredients in bulk to bake cookies en masse by myself, purchased all my postage online via USPS Click 'n' Ship to avoid standing in line with boxes in hand, baked, boxed and shipped cookies nationwide with a few international orders to Canada, Germany, Australia, India and the Middle East.
I even baked during all those busy holiday seasons, which usually generated an increase in cookie baking and shipping volume. One Christmas, I baked 800+ cookies in a 24-hour period. I'm sure that month, I must have baked some 2,500+ cookies, but then, who's counting, right?
One Valentine's day, back in the day, I made 14 batches (by myself) in ONE day to fulfill those holiday orders, which was the equivalent to baking some 560 cookies (in a single day), with quite a few hand-made heart-shaped cookies in the count to go out as well. I remember when I was baking those 14 (Valentine's day) batches that I sampled 2-3 tablespoons of cookie dough from EACH BATCH! That means I must have sampled some 30-40 tablespoons of cookie dough THAT DAY! Who needs lunch or dinner when you can eat cookie dough all day, right? You see, my cookie dough IS THAT GOOD! Yes, you can eat it all day long AND NOT GET SICK it's so perfectly made!! Granted, you'll need one heck of a sweet tooth to consume that much cookie dough, which I am overqualified in that area, for sure.
I’ve sent out digital coupons and discounts codes via eMail to my list of starving cookie customers during those years. I ran specials, designed banners and website graphics and buttons for such promotions. I'd design them in my graphics program, upload them into the eMail broadcasting system, then send such offers out to my customer list from time to time to generate instant sales. Here's what some of those promotional images them looked like. Why send just boring text when you can create advertisements as beautiful and as attractive as these:
In all the time I've been baking over these past 35+ years, I've never changed the six (6) chocolate chip cookie flavors I've offered, and still bake to this day, which are:
For quite a few years now, and to date, I haven’t offered my cookies for sale to the public via my website (BartsCookies.com), because I had other business projects I wanted to pursue that consumed my time. There’s only so much time in the day, right? What’s more, I don’t have it in me to be a BAKER (for a living) per se, no. I’m a MARKETER first and foremost. BUT, amidst all the years I baked and shipped my cookies (and after I stopped), I did manage to write 30 books in the genres of self-help / non-fiction, personal development, relationships, romance, coaching, self-publishing, networking, recidivism, social/cultural issues, ... and more.
From time to time, I like to speak and train and conduct webinars and workshops and I get interviewed a lot on podcasts and I've got my sights set on TV interviews very soon to help promote all that I've got going on, including my cookies and my plans for bringing my proprietary chocolate chip cookie recipe to the public this year.
As a 30+ year seasoned website designer, self-publisher, speaker/trainer, marketer, audio recording expert, and consultant, I have acquired a wealth of skills and abilities, which I share with those who have a desire to learn and increase their own skill level and income-earning potential. For example, just check out the bevvy of FREE training I have for you over on my main website, BartSmith.com. Oh, by the way, the value of web work done on BartSmith.com alone is valued at around $100,000+ worth of web work, copyrighting, training modules, articles, sales pages, graphic design, video, audio, and so forth, all of which I did by myself. No outsourcing what ... so ... ever ...
I take my own personal photographs (with a remote linked to my phone), food photography, and cookie photos, produce my own videos, video tutorials and record my own audiobooks, and occasionally I consult with clients on writing books, building websites, offering marketing and publicity advice, and much more.
Plus, I’m now a content creator for my YouTube, TikTok and Instagram channels. I mention all this because I’m a stickler for detail, branding, marketing and sales performance at extremely high levels by a solo-preneuer who aims to stand out among his peers and the competition. This means, I wouldn’t dare use a knock-off / copy-cat CCC recipe that wasn’t mine or that hadn’t been tweaked, perfected over DECADES of baking to be my true one and only, original and ever so uniquely different chocolate chip cookie recipe than what you see from 1,000s of other CCC bakers out there.
You see, I've seen practically every type of chocolate chip cookie (and recipe) out there in my 35+ years of baking cookies. I know what's a knock-off or copy-cat CCC recipe when I see it; whether it's in a recipe's measurements, steps, ingredients, prep time, baking time, cooling time, how to cool the cookies, or if I see (other bakers) adding ingredients that are just plain stupid, unnecessary, hairbrained, dumb, and just don't belong in a chocolate chip cookie recipe. I see it all the time online and on social media and it just disgusts me. Why? Because these 1,000+ bakers are practically all doing and saying the same dang thing. What separates them apart is their address and that's about it.
That being said, I can tell you right now, my CCC recipe is like NO OTHER CCC RECIPE and PRODUCES A COOKIE like NO OTHER and FASTER than any baker on EARTH! To showcase what I'm talking about and that I know what I'm talking about, I even wrote a 460-PAGE BOOK about my cookies, my baking experience and my chocolate chip cookie recipe which goes into A LOT about baking cookies, how I bake my cookies, and my overall plans (for world domination) when it comes to bringing the WORLD’S BEST (EVER) CCC RECIPE to market. It's called:
Why I Make The World's
Best Chocolate Chip Cookie!
Wanna Try One? ... or do you want the recipe?
by BART SMITH
I put the whole book together in about 2 WEEKS back in November 2024, while building the web pages to showcase my 51+ cookie stories, 140 cookie reviews and 427 cookie testimonials, plus my rewriting an article called Why I Make The World's Best Chocolate Chip Cookie. Well, I thought, "WHY NOT WRITE A BOOK ABOUT IT?"
I'll tell you this, no other chocolate chip cookie baker on this planet has ever (or could they ever) publish anything remotely close to the magnitude that this book has established, having been published on Amazon.com and stating such BOLD CLAIMS (inside) as to my being able to bake THE WORLD'S BEST CCC! The book also goes into decadent detail as to how I plan on debuting my chocolate chip cookie recipe to the public marketplace for the world to enjoy and start baking Bart's Cookies in their own homes or place of business. Oh, the book is filled with full-color photographs of my cookies on practically every page! Again, a book like no other. You have to see it to believe it!
"21" REASONS WHY BART SMITH
Makes "THE WORLD'S BEST" Chocolate Chip Cookie
In this 21-POINT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE SYNOPSIS, I outline 21 REASONS WHY I DO make the world’s best Chocolate Chip Cookie (CCC) since the creation of the first CCC back in the late 1930s. Imagine, 90+ years later, FINALLY, someone comes through with a BETTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE! (i.e., ME!)
Well, if any other CCC baker out there wants to purport that THEY make “THE BEST” chocolate chip cookie, I simply challenge them to compare their baking experience, knowledge, techniques, procedures, consumer reactions, marketing, years baking, quantity of cookies baked, speed to which they bake their cookies and how their "finished product" looks and tastes with my 21-POINT CHECKLIST. Yeah, uh huh, good luck!
After all, is someone THE BEST CCC BAKER just by SAYING they’re the best or should you actually be made to provide a PILE OF EVIDENCE to back up such a claim? Exactly!
That being said, let’s bake to it! Check out my 21 REASONS WHY I make the WORLD'S BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE and you be judge and jury as to the conclusion you come to after reading this quick cookie report.
INTERVIEW ME or REVIEW MY COOKIES
Do you have a podcast, TV, radio or other type of show on YouTube, Instagram, Twitch or TikTok where you interview people? Do you do product reviews? Do you have a website blog where you showcase products and do giveaways? Then you should consider interviewing me and/or reviewing my cookies for your audience. We can give away free cookies to your listeners, viewers, followers and subscribers and get the word out about my ‘WORLD FAMOUS” chocolate chip cookies at the same time. Learn about both options below and let’s get this going!
INTERVIEW ME
Yes, you will receive cookies if you interview me! Interviews are done either live at your location (whether you have a kitchen or not), via Zoom where you open a box of my cookies and eat them live during the interview, via "live" sessions on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube! Lucky listeners can receive FREE cookies if you conduct a giveaway after folks enter to win!
REVIEW MY COOKIES
Yes, you will receive cookies if you write a review about my cookies for your blog, website, social media channel, etc. You'll take pictures of what I send you, optionally record a video of your review, and write (from the heart) what you think about my cookies. Lucky readers/followers/subscribers on your list can receive FREE cookies if you conduct a giveaway after folks enter to win!
CONTACT THE "COOKIE MAN"
Greetings Cookie Lover,
If you have any questions for me, questions about my cookies, or you would like to send me a message, share a testimonial or request to review my cookies, interview me, etc., just click the button below and do just that → send me a message!
Until then, I hope you do get to try one of my cookies sometime soon. Until then, I'll eat some for ya. How about that???
Bart Smith, Founder
BartsCookies.com
BartSmith.com
FOLLOW THE “COOKIE MAN”
Bart Smith has been baking the world's best chocolate chip cookies since he was in college (1988). That's more than 35 years ago. He bakes milk chocolate chip, dark chocolate chip, milk/dark chip combo, white chocolate chip, white chocolate chip cookies with macadamia nuts, peanut butter with milk chocolate chips, as well as the world's best gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. Bart’s cookie fans are all over the country and around the world. Everyone who tries Bart's cookies agree that Bart really does bake the world's best chocolate chip cookie. Just check out these 51+ cookie stories, 427 cookie testimonials and 140 cookie reviews. Then, you too may come to the same conclusion and want to try one. See if Bart's cookies truly are the world's best chocolate chip cookie you've ever had!
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