Transcript
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[00:00:00] When I talk to passionate cooks who want to start a personal chef business, a lot of the time they’re focused on catering. And I think it’s because when we love food, and we love to cook, we love sharing it with other people, right? And when we cook for other people, a lot of times it’s at an event, like a party, a birthday, game day, or even throwing dinner parties for friends, right?
And then people want us to cook for them, or we love parties and we want to cook in that type of event, so we just start to do that as our business. It’s just kind of easy to fall into, right? But what I want to offer you today is, what if instead of stepping into what seems like the easiest, instead of just reacting to what people ask you to do or make food [00:01:00] for their next party, what if you made the decisions in advance?
What if you thought about what it is you want from a business where you get paid to cook and then you set those things up and that’s how you make money cooking. Now this might sound really basic. If you’re a passionate cook who wants to start a personal chef business, really look at it and see if you’re being intentional.
Are you deciding what services to offer in your business? Or, are you saying yes to anybody who asks you to kind of cook anything or do anything? Are you making offers that are super specific? Or are you posting pictures of whatever you cook on Instagram and think people are just going to be able to figure it out?
The reason that I’m asking you to think about this today is if your number one reason for wanting to have your own [00:02:00] personal chef business is freedom of schedule, deciding your own hours, and whether or not you’re going to work nights, weekends, and holidays, What kind of services you offer is important to decide to support that.
If you have kids and don’t want to work nights and weekends or maybe you have a spouse who works a regular schedule and you want to be on the same routine as them, then you really need to think about whether catering is going to fit into that vision. 99 times out of 100, catering is weekends, nights, and holidays.
So, if that’s not when you want to be working, you either need to come up with something, some specific catering offering that’s going to be done during weekdays, or you’re going to end up taking a bunch of work that’s going to make you some money, but you are not happy with. Now, on the flip [00:03:00] side of this, if you’re just starting out.
And you’re doing personal chef services, AKA weekly meal prep. And the most important goal to you is to make 10, 000 a month. You’re probably not going to be able to get there, especially when you’re just starting out on meal prep services alone. So you really need to be intentional about your pricing, your workload, and what will, what it will really look like to get you where you want to be money wise.
When you’re starting your personal chef business and you’re in the planning stage, you need to decide what you want so that you set your business up like that. Otherwise, you’re going to end up being just as unhappy in your own business as you are. In a job or working for someone else or not having a job or whatever.
And you know what? I even kind of have to take that back. You’ll probably be more unhappy, I guarantee it, because you’ll have done it to [00:04:00] yourself. So is setting your own schedule like when you want to work and when you don’t the most important? For instance, you don’t want to work weekends? Then don’t tell people that you cater.
Or is it how much you want to work? If you only want to work one day a week? Then you need to start a wait list as soon as you can. That way it’s an easy offer to people who contact you about your services so that you don’t feel guilty, take on more than you want to and just resent. That you’re working more than you wanted to in the first place.
If you just wanted this to be a part time fun, one day a week thing, you know, is it you want to have your own personal chef business so that you’re matching your family’s schedule? You know, if your spouse is in the restaurant business working nights and weekends, Then you might want to focus on catering, not weekly meal prep services.
[00:05:00] Otherwise, you’re going to end up working opposite of each other. So again, is it a certain amount of money that you want to make? Really look at your pricing. And your schedule and what that needs to look like to get you where you want to be. And then you need to set your marketing up to get you there.
Another thing I hear that’s one of the most important things about having a personal chef business to people is being able to cook their own food, right? Maybe you’re coming from a restaurant where you were cooking their food or whatever. Or you’re just really passionate, you know, maybe you’re vegan or gluten free because you’re celiac.
So whatever it is, you want to cook your own food. Well then be dang sure that you are not advertising in your marketing that you’ll cook anything for anybody because if you’re French laundry style, you’re not going to want to do football parties with seven layer dip, right? [00:06:00] The money might be okay, but that is going to suck the passion right out of it for you.
And isn’t that one of the main reasons that you want to have your own personal chef business in the first place? Honestly, if you want to have your own personal chef business and you want to be happy with it, make these decisions on the upfront and then set up your business to get you there. Don’t go all in with no goals, no plan, all over the place, and let it run you like a river or you are going to be just as unhappy with your own business as you are without your own business.
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