Transcript
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[00:00:00] This is your beginner’s guide to a personal chef business. When we’re done, you are going to have all the information to know exactly whether you want to start a personal chef business. Hey there, Chef Shelly here. I’ve had a successful personal chef business for over 15 years. When I’m not cooking for my clients, I help passionate cooks just like you start a personal chef business doing meal prep services for clients, doing small catering or a million other services, because you can absolutely get paid to do what you love on your own terms without having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on culinary school Or spending all your nights, weekends, and sacrificing your personal life to doing restaurant work.
That sounds like something you’re interested in. Be sure to hit that little bell, hit subscribe so that you never miss one of my weekly videos. Okay, first, let’s talk about what a personal chef business even is because [00:01:00] I talk to people all the time who don’t know the difference between a personal chef and a private chef or think that with a personal chef business, you’re only doing catering or things like that.
So let’s clear that all up to make sure that having a personal chef business is even something you want to do. When you have a personal chef business, that means exactly what I say. You have your own business. You’re the employee. You don’t lease a building. You don’t have employees. You don’t have inventory.
There’s none of that stuff that you would have with a restaurant. And because you are the business owner, you also have to do all the bookkeeping, make all the decisions, decide the schedule, do the work, get the clients, file the taxes. All the things, right? So that’s having your own personal chef business.
If you want to be a private chef, that means you’re an employee of one family. You [00:02:00] work for them full time. You prepare their food and you serve their food. Maybe you even travel and go on vacation with, they tell you when to be there, how much your salary is going to be, and you just show up and do your job.
Very different than having your own business, right? But again, having your own personal chef business is very different than having a restaurant or even a commercial kitchen where you’re doing huge catering jobs because that entails a lease and inventory and employees and equipment and And a lot of things that as a business of one, you don’t need to have.
So those are the first few things to consider. Do you want to have your own business? Do you want to do all those business y type things on top of cooking and being a business of one, doing the work and the other things as compared to just being an [00:03:00] employee and showing up and getting paid? Personal chef business?
versus being a private chef. So let’s talk about the type of person who might consider wanting to have a personal chef business. Of course, it’s just the same as being a private chef in that if you want to get paid for doing something that you are really passionate about, cooking. But if you want to have freedom of determining your own schedule and making the business decisions, That would be having a personal chef business.
If you want to decide what you cook, how much you want to make, which clients you’ll take and not take, that’s a good fit for having a personal chef business. And most importantly, again, you have to be passionate about. because that is the most important thing. I spoke to someone, this is going to sound so odd.
They thought it would be really [00:04:00] easy just to tell people that they’d cook for them and do some cooking and make a ton of money. And that was it. I’m not going to blow sunshine up your skirt. I will never do that here. Nothing is that easy, but especially doing this is not necessarily that easy. Having your own business never is, right?
So those are all things to consider. But now things that don’t matter in having your own personal chef business, you don’t have to have gone to culinary school. You don’t have to have formal training. You don’t have to have restaurant experience or even hospitality experience. Certain skills that you get from doing those will help you just like if you have a marketing degree, it would help you have your own business or a business degree, but it’s not a requirement.
It’s not necessary. The most important thing is you’re passionate about cooking and you’re willing to do the work to start a business, getting paid for it. [00:05:00] So those are sort of the things that you need to have. Let’s talk about some of the things that might be deal breakers, right? Sort of the kind of things that if this sounds like you, this might not be a good.
I kind of hesitate to say something like the type of person it’s not right for. So, all right, so those are some of the things that you might be wanting that help you decide that a personal chef business might be a good fit. Let’s talk about the type of person that it might not be a good fit for. I hesitate to say.
So take it as it’s intended and not like I’m being Debbie Downer, right? This can be hard for some people. Starting a business can be hard. If you are very insecure, that can be a big challenge. Or, if you are not confident. Skilled in your cooking yet. Again, you do not have to go to culinary school. You do have to [00:06:00] be able to cook well and have other people have told you that your food is fantastic.
If you are not quite there yet, that’s okay. You just need to get there before you start a business and start taking paying clients, right? If you’re not good at managing your time, because you’re not going to have someone telling you what to do and when it needs to be done by, you’re going to know you need to do x and x and x, and you’re going to need to do it.
If you really suffer from indecision, from not being able to make decisions, that can make it really difficult because having your own business, you are the decision maker, literally. All the decisions are going to be up to you. And of course, I’ll say it again. It is not easy. It is not a get quick, get rich quick.
It’s going to take some hard work. That can be something to consider for some people. Having your own business [00:07:00] is just so different than being an employee. Right? And having your own business, you don’t get make money if you don’t work. So you’ll want to consider if you’re starting this business to make money.
That’s very different than a person who just wants to have this as a passion project or as a side gig or wants one or two clients, okay? I don’t know if there’s anything that really exists as a get rich scheme, right? We’d all be doing it. Again, just because someone knows how to cook well doesn’t mean that you’re gonna do well with the business things.
There is a lot to learn. So let’s say now that I’ve gone through what it is Who it could be a good fit for, who it might not be a good fit for. Let’s say right now you’re still in, you’re like, awesome. I don’t even care about that. I know it’s going to be hard. I love to cook. I want to get paid. I want clients.
Let’s do [00:08:00] this. All right. Let’s talk a little bit about the actual work because this is a huge one, right? So again personal chef business you’re working by yourself if you want to be in a heavy social environment fast paced commercial kitchen This is definitely not that again. The main service that personal chefs do is Personal chef services, also known as meal prep services, where you’re working with one client at a time, meeting with them, getting their likes and dislikes, giving them a list of entrees to choose from, you’re planning, shopping, preparing their food, packaging it up for them to heat later.
So that is a very individual type of work, right? So again, this is not being a private chef where you’re in the client’s home all day long. They’re telling you what you, they want to eat. You make it for them. You serve it to them. Again, not a private chef, right? [00:09:00] And it’s also not like meal prep boxes or, you know, people who order pre made food or pick up pre made food at the grocery store or someone who is making a whole bunch of food and then selling off the food like, uh, this week I’m making lasagna and chicken piccata and grilled salmon.
How many would you like to order? This is not like that at all. The key word in a personal chef business is service. If you’re working with the client on what they want for the week, you know, again, that’s very different. If you’re taking orders for what you’re making for the week, that is a different type of business.
It’s not bad. It’s just not personal chef services, and that’s also why Personal chef business, doing personal chef services, aka meal prep services, is a premium price point and not eight or [00:10:00] ten dollars per dish that people order. Again, this usually takes place in the client’s home. There are few places in the country right now that will let you cook out of your home kitchen, so check with your local city health department if you want to do it that way.
So that’s an overview of Personal chef services, which are the most popular service that people do in this type of business. You work with the client, plan, shop, cook, package, they heat during the week. Now the other main service that personal chef businesses do is very small event catering. This can be anything from romantic dinners for two, seated dinners for four, six, eight, or however many you can handle yourself or maybe with a server helping you, you know, small buffet styles where you prepare a larger amount of food.
of food and set it up for guests to serve themselves, maybe cocktail [00:11:00] parties where you’re preparing a ton of appetizers or brunch or high tea or, you know, whatever. The point of this again is that you’re doing it as a personal chef. Not a big catering company that has a ton of employees that are paid a low hourly rate.
And that’s how they do events of like a hundred people, right? So small events, boutique catering, whatever type of thing that makes that more. clear in kind of what you’re considering. Then of course though there are a million other services that you can do. People do cooking lessons, classes, demonstration, online, in real life.
They create meal plans and sell them. They do kitchen organization. I mean the list goes on and on and on. So there are a ton of other services that you can do. Again the personal chef business. This isn’t just about [00:12:00] being a personal chef to the client. It’s also about creating the business exactly as you want it to do the things that you’re most passionate about, cooking the food you love the most.
on the schedule you want, for the clients you want, making the money you want. So if this sounds like something that you’d love to do, whether it’s that weekly meal prep services with regular clients week after week, whether it’s small event boutique style catering or any other services, then you might be a perfect fit to start your own personal chef business.
And again, this can involve things from checking out your local city health department, whether you can cook from home or need to cook in a client’s. Again, this can start with checking with your city and seeing if you need to get a license, deciding if you want to have an entity like an LLC or just a DBA, setting up your business checking account, your insurance.
All those [00:13:00] things, and then of course, the work to do to get clients. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, but you’re not really sure where to start or it all sounds kind of overwhelming, you can get my free guide on how to do weekly meal prep services for clients. That’ll kind of walk you through what doing a cook day like that actually is like.
You can start getting your practice in, building your recipe collection, and if it gets to the point where you decide, you’re You don’t want to do it on your own. You need more help. I would love to work with you doing it. There’s also a link below for the Personal Chef Business Academy where I will work with you one on one to start the personal chef business of your dreams because I’m telling you the clients are out there and they’re hungry for what you’re cooking.
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