Oddbean

#asknostr My wife wants to start working as a private chef and deliver fully cooked meals to clients. We live in an area that does have quite a bit of reasonably affluent folks so there is money here. I would like to crowd-source how to get this off the ground. Marketing advice is probably 99% of any potential lift off. The main question is: How do you get a first client? Seriously, how do you even go about this? Hang a flier? That seems weak. I'd call people but I don't know who to call. Newspaper ads are dead on arrival (maybe not?). Getting a booth at a farmer's market might work but what the hell do you put out on the table? Samples? It's sourcing that first client that, I think, everything hangs on. Do one and you can do two. Do two and you can do four. That sort of thing. She asked me to ask y'all for help on how to do this and many of you have seen pics of the food she cooks so you know she ain't just blowing smoke up her own ass on this. #cooking #marketing #clientWrangling

There are lots of ways, but no guarantees without spending a bunch of money, which is unlikely to be worth it. As much as I hate traditional social media, it is a good way to get the information out on this. Think about places that the well-to-do frequent and see if you can hang flyers at any of those places. Tell everyone you know to tell anyone they know about it. I think some grocery stores have a board for flyers. Are there any big businesses where potential clients might work? You could ask if you could hang flyers there. "We can cook for your employees so they can work longer," is a good motivation for the business to allow you to hang flyers. There also might be some older people who would like the service, so maybe a senior center.

My wife did some stuff like this, she worked in one of the fancier restaurants on Main Street. All the chefs at these high end place know one another and they all know the affluent regulars. Those folk inevitably need a wedding chef or something eventually That’s exactly how she got her first client Get in with those folks somehow

even food trucks have thier customers come to them. preparing & running hot food around could be challenging time-wise. often when one person tries to do too much, it all suffers. get a pretty face, with a big smile in a tux shirt to deliver. Just humble #smij of an opinion.

Samples at the farmers market is actually a great idea. Puuttng out fliers is honestly not bad, but you gotta hit the convinience angle on that one. You're right that the first few clients are key, word of mouth is the most important marketing tool in that arena. Especially around food as reputation is everything. You can try approaching some friends who might be willing to test her out and provide testimonials? Set up a website and maybe some sort of page on yelp or whatever? Kids sporting events might be another place you can try marketing at? Especially things like sports practices because I guarantee you all those parents are tired and hungry. You might be able to partner up with an existing business? Ask to talk to an admin and bring samples. Maybe start off catering for a company event and oh btw I do this for personal home meals as well. Pivot from there.

Community groups are awesome. Currently (unfortunately) the dreaded FB does this well. But also I agree on farmers markets, local community events (can get a booth for under $500 usually), word of mouth marketing is really powerful. In terms of what you could do at the booths or events, demos! Show her cooking the food live and show samples. Do one private event for a lower cost and get tons of content for social. I can go on…all the best!

Not that my opinion carries any weight; It might be a good idea to find someone who’s well connected and offer to do it at cost as a pilot. If they don’t want to take her as a client they might be able to recommend her to a friend, or at least mention it to someone else at that level. Free work leaves a good impression and even if it’s subpar you can learn with little consequence. Does she have any friends in the industry that she could subcontract? Or some of their clients they’re less than excited to cook for?

My wife runs a tutoring center, so not the same thing, but she literally walks around and drops off flyers in mailboxes and gets some new kids that way. Agree with a previous comment that you’d want to sell the convenient angle.

I dont know where you are, but check this out. https://www.reddit.com/r/Comma_ai/comments/1fek9sj/were_hiring_a_chef/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

If that was me, I would get the menu & order system set up, active socials, and get some slick business cards printed. I would then get a hold of anyone I know that does housekeeping, lawn care, plumbing, etc and ask them to hand them out to their clients. Offer the same in return. Give some to all friends who are supportive because you never know who they know or may run into. I would also do things like go out to dinner at nice places & leave a few cards wherever I could, maybe stick some on cars. Bulk mailing some flyers to narrowed down areas can be inexpensive, too. If there's any local wine & food festivals, see how much it is for a space. And I'd be flexible. Maybe start out offering a slightly cheaper meal service to middleclass acquaintances, to build some reputation. In a previous life, I had a housekeeping business that morphed into a concierge service over a few years time by basically doing this... but with cleaning.

I owned and operated a food service business for a number of years. Might want to start with catering to small offices like medical, insurance, banking ect. Great way to get your name out to the affluent folks

My friend found his on Kijiji, the Québécois version of Craigslist You can also sign up as a ghost kitchen on Uber Eats / DoorDash and deliver the meals with a promo code to incentivize customers to subscribe to your service Be sure to let it be known that you offer menus tailored to each client’s needs, otherwise picky eaters and people on strict diets will not see the appeal

For awhile, I had a lot of people asking me to meal prep for them. I think it was a combo of two things: I used my own meal prep plan and my Instagram was a testimony to that and also I live to serve others so I was constantly cooking for others… eventually people were just like “I wanna look in shape and I want to enjoy food the way that you do while you do it” So, I would say… what’s her unique selling point and then… the golden rule: serve others

start with people who already trust her food. give them a discount or some incentive to buy and leave a review. even as a favor. some that do that, may end up doing it more. samples at a farmers market is good but get some testimonials from easy sales first. family friends church etc. people that will buy just because you asked for help