Transcript
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[00:00:00] If you’re passionate about cooking and you would love to get paid to do it, whether you’re a home cook who didn’t go to culinary school or who doesn’t want to work in a restaurant and isn’t sure what else you can do with cooking to make good money. Or maybe you’re a hospitality pro who’s done with being overworked, underappreciated, underpaid, let alone sacrificing all your nights, weekends, and holidays, and basically your personal life to someone else’s wallet, right?
If you’re the kind of person who’s dying to have your own business, getting paid for your passion, building your dream instead of someone else’s, It’s having the freedom to choose your schedule, cook your food for people who love it and have control about how much money you make. You my friend are in the right place.
I’ve had a successful personal chef business for over 15 years and when I’m not cooking for my own clients, I help passionate cooks just like you, so you can get paid to do what you love, cook on your own terms. [00:01:00] Having a personal chef business is how I’ve been able to get paid to do what I love, cook and still have time to spend with my family, personal life, time with my friends, and I’ve been able to make great cooks.
money. Now, the reason that I’m telling you this right now is not to say, I’m so awesome. I’m doing this. I am not posting pictures of me on my Lambo with a bottle of champagne, partly because I don’t have a Lambo, but I want to share my story with you today to assure you that I am NOT a special little snowflake, even if my mom says I am.
Hi, Mom! I didn’t have connections. I didn’t go to culinary school. I just learned how to cook, became a great cook, have the skills and the drive to start my own personal chef business. And you can absolutely do it too. Honestly. Now listen, I didn’t even start out, [00:02:00] this is crazy, wanting to be a personal chef or have a personal chef business, right?
Like every other passionate cook on the planet, I wanted to go to culinary school. I wanted to cook all the things, to learn from the pros, to improve my skills, to be a chef. But I didn’t have the money after college to go to culinary school and so I got a job and life moves on as it does for so many of us, right?
First heartbreak. In the back of my mind though, like all passionate cooks, and I bet you do this too, right? I kind of have the fantasy of having my own restaurant, right? The chef owner dream. My own little bistro where customers come and love my food. Every night is a fabulous party, everybody’s happy, my food’s devoured, I’m adored by fans, you know, we all have this, probably discovered by Food Network, you know, my own show.
You know? [00:03:00] We all kind of do this, right? In our daydreams. But I knew I didn’t ever have the money to invest in a restaurant. And more importantly, I know the truth that’s separate from the dream, right? The dream is one thing. Reality is entirely different, you know, the crushing overhead, the having to deal with staff, empty tables, losing money.
You see restaurants closed constantly. You hear the statistics about the failure rate. You know what? I never really honestly seriously considered it, even though I kind of had that dream like we all have. Second heartbreak, right? So then after time went by and I had like regular jobs during the week and friends and relationships, you know, where I had a personal life on the weekends and stuff, I realized that I didn’t really want to work in a restaurant at all.
Right? You always have to work [00:04:00] nights and weekends. What if I don’t like the food I would have to cook? They’re gonna tell me when I have to be there, when I can have time off. And then the more I learned about culinary school, it really only prepares you to restaurant work. So if I don’t want to work in a restaurant, how am I gonna justify spending tens of thousands of dollars on something that would be a hobby?
So why would I go? So basically, I just took that whole thing and did what most people do. and put that dream away and resigned myself to pretty much working crappy office jobs forever. Third heartbreak. But one thing that stayed true for me through this whole time, no matter what kind of job I was working, was my love for cooking.
You know, my journey from passionate cook to culinary business owner actually involved a huge shift in perspective from what we foodies are influenced to want, culinary school and restaurant work, versus This is what [00:05:00] I actually wanted. While I was working an office job, and I bet you do this too, I would have dinner parties, and huge cocktail parties for friends, and everybody always raved about the food.
And it was so fun, and I loved doing it. And it got to the point, and maybe you’re experiencing this too, where people were asking me to do the food for their parties. And in the beginning, I loved it. I’d spend days and days pouring over recipes and planning and organizing and then days and days cooking and kill myself all day and all night of the event.
And I loved every minute of it. But after a while, reality started to kick in. You know, every time someone asked me to do food for their party, I would spend hours trying to figure out how to price it because everyone was totally [00:06:00] different. I would calculate every ounce of food, all the supplies I would need, try to figure out how much I should charge them, how much could I charge so that I could actually make some money but they would still want to pay for it and I wasn’t taking advantage and, and it’s not like I was getting these offers all the time either, right?
They just kind of came when they came. And of course, mostly during the holidays is when they came. I didn’t really even know how, if I wanted to do that, I would get someone who didn’t know me to hire me. You know, I never thought of it at that point as something I could actually do as like a job. I never thought that I could make it into something that would be consistent, right?
Consistent work, consistent income. I mean, every event took me forever. By the time I was done, I probably wasn’t even making minimum wage. Have you done small events like that and how much fun they are? And are you having the same thing happen? Please tell me I’m sure it’s not just me, [00:07:00] right? At the end of the day, this was, again, nights, weekends, and holidays, and it’s not like I could do that forever.
I was just doing this on the side of my real job. I didn’t see how I could turn these sporadic caterings into a thing, especially when it, I did the math on how long it was taking me. So when I finally heard about Personal chef services, a. k. a. doing regular meal prep services for clients week after week, that is when everything changed for me.
It literally solved every problem I had. Personal chef services, a. k. a. meal prep services, are during the day, not at night. They’re on weekdays. not on weekends, you’re not being super extra busy at the holidays, and it’s regularly scheduled clients instead of trying to find [00:08:00] new jobs to fill every weekend.
I realized that the fastest, easiest, least expensive route to actually getting to cook for people and getting paid regularly for it was to have my own personal chef business. So then I started trying to dig in to find out more about personal chef service and it was not easy to find information, you know, how do I start?
What do I need to get the business set up? How do you actually do like meal prep as a professional?
How do I price it, you know? The best thing I had when I got started was materials full of generic advice and a whole bunch of recipes from somebody else that I didn’t even want to use. I had to make a thousand decisions and figure it all out by myself. And I started my personal chef business in 2005 and it has been a wild [00:09:00] and wonderful ride.
At different points I’ve worked hard. Full time. I’ve cooked for multiple clients in one day. I’ve worked part time. I cooked for clients while I was pregnant. Later, I took a baby with me to cook. I’ve taken time off altogether. I have literally done it all the different ways. I raise my prices when I want to.
I fire clients I don’t like and do a million other things that I would never to do if I was working for someone else’s business. Most importantly, I get to do something that I absolutely love and keep my family and personal life totally intact. And believe it or not, made great money while I’ve done it.
I thought I wanted to be a businesswoman. A culinary schooled restaurant working chef. But I have found [00:10:00] profound fulfillment and freedom having my own personal chef business. Do you love to cook? Are people always telling you how great your food is? If my story appeals to you, whether you’re a home cook who’s not going to be able to go to culinary school, or if you’re someone who doesn’t want to work in a restaurant, Or if you’re just not sure what you can do with cooking to make great money, maybe you’re a hospitality pro who’s done with being overworked, underappreciated, underpaid, let alone sacrificing all those nights, weekends, and holidays for someone else’s wallet.
Any of those things, if you are the kind of person who’s dying to have your own business, getting paid for your passion, building your dream instead of someone else’s, the freedom to pick your own schedule, cook your food for people who love it. and have control over how much money you make. You are [00:11:00] absolutely in the right place because if you want this for yourself, I want this for you too.
You can watch my YouTube videos. You can download my free guide on how to do meal prep services for clients. And when you’re ready to get started, you can join the Personal Chef Business Academy where I’ll work with you one on one. And you’ll be in a community of like minded, passionate cooks to create the personal chef business of your dreams because the clients are out there and they’re hungry for what you’re cooking.
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