• I can’t imagine if I would never have taken action and instead let my imposter syndrome get the best of me.

   

  I would never have been able to work in hundreds of beautiful estate kitchens with modern kitchen appliances, have the time and money for a 2-week vacation every single year, earn a stable and predictable income by booking regular meal prep clients, receive the satisfaction of helping my clients have dinners together as a family, gather and test thousands of recipes and compiling a super cookbook, keep my stress level low since I’m in charge of my own work hours and time off, and improve my cooking techniques greatly while practicing day after day.

   

  This all makes me feel successful. Being a personal chef has been a life changing career for me and it could be for you as well.

   

  What are you going to be able to do once your personal chef business takes off?

   

  What does success look like for you? 

  • Is it reaching a particular...

LinkedIn can be a great space for meeting potential new clients in your community. Meeting one new person in your service area means possibly connecting with ten more, since that one new potential lead knows at least ten more friends who may be interested in your services.

Let's connect on LinkedIn >>  Approach the platform with professional politeness by including a note sharing how you know me! 

LinkedIn is a platform hosting hundreds of your target market customers. For you, it will be an online resume of your life in business. 

The course Personal Chef Business in 10 Weeks houses an entire lesson on generating leads from LinkedIn. Here's a snippet from the course on how to set up your profile.

Step 1: You’ll begin by creating or updating your LinkedIn profile.

Your profile should project a professional image and be well written. It’s okay to ask for a second opinion or a helping...

I’ve been listening to cooks and chefs for years and have listed all the reasons they felt were stopping them from either starting or improving their personal chef businesses. Are any of these your reason?

Reason #1 "I'm not sure how to go about getting clients into my new business."  

TAKE ACTION: Did you know that getting leads is not the first step in taking your business off the ground? Identifying your ideal client is the first step, otherwise you won't know who to direct your marketing efforts toward.

Who is your ideal client? Learning marketing foundations is the key to a successful personal chef business. Luckily, marketing can be learned.

Reason #2 "It's too expensive to start a business." 

Start-up costs run about $500 for license and insurance for a full year. From there, you'll benefit from a website, about $250 a year. Other than that, you can run a slim business and skate by with no other...

I received a message the other day from a chef working on putting together her mission statement. She had apparently been agonizing over her mission statement for weeks, but hadn't yet begun marketing for leads. 

This confused me since she hadn’t yet received her first client.

Do you ever find yourself getting lost in “busy work” thinking you’re propelling your business? Really, your concentration at the beginning should be getting new clients. You know this.

She should have been spending her time working on lead generating activities. What lead generating activities are YOU doing to get new meal prep or dinner party clients?

Remember, I created these courses with you in mind. You wanted to learn how to price your services, market for leads, and have templates to use in your meal prep business. 

They're all available here >>

Best Wishes & Much Success to You, Virginia Stockwell

Check...

If you had a magic wand and could make your biggest challenge as a personal chef disappear, what would it be? 

Click one:

• I would be more confident.
• I would have my pricing figured out.
  
• I would have a full roster of clients.
  
• I would have a completed business plan.

Taking action sooner than later will always bring you closer to your ideal life. The best time to start is yesterday and the second best time to start is today!

Best Wishes & Much Success to You, Virginia Stockwell

Do you know what makes entrepreneurs different from those who are not entrepreneurs?

They tried. They took the leap. That’s the only difference. We're all potential entrepreneurs.

The only difference between you and people who founded successful businesses is that they took the leap. That’s it. 

Now ask yourself, do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur asks the right questions.

• The question is not "how do I get clients?" The question is "what sets me apart from other personal chefs so that customers want to choose my services over another?"
• The next question is "how can I share this amazing benefit with my community?" Shift your inner communication and enlightenment will arrive. 

Best Wishes & Much Success to You, Virginia Stockwell

Download 101 Marketing Tactics here >>

Your income is truly up to you as you can choose to work many hours or few hours, hire additional help or work alone, accept small events or large events. You can work full-time, part-time or seasonal. It's your business so you have control over your own hours and income.

Personal chefs are  not paid by the hour and instead charge by the job, so do not draw a true salary or hourly wage. Meal prep often runs $200 to $400 depending on your area, experience and number of servings. This is for one cook session for a client that is often weekly. Monday through Thursday are the most popular days for meal prep.

Meal prep income can be supplemented with weekend dinner parties or cooking classes of which prices vary greatly. In my personal chef business, the average size of a dinner party is ten guests and I charge $700 which does not include the cost of food. Most dinner party requests are Saturday evenings.

It's important to mention that personal chefs have...

You can't decide today that you're going to be a personal chef, then start tomorrow full-time. First, you'll need to build the foundation of the business by checking out the competition, learning to price your services, and understanding the logistics of running a meal prep business. Building the foundation will probably take about 30 days. During this time, you can continue to work at your current job to pay the bills.

Next, you'll begin marketing your services and start accepting clients. It's suggested to start with just one or two clients, perfecting your meal prep system over 30 to 60 days of practice.

Now you're ready to begin getting more leads into your business and ramp up to full-time with the goal of finally quitting your current job. As an alternative, you can choose to only work with one to two clients as supplemental income while keeping your current job. Understanding how marketing and advertising work is a key skill in determining how fast...

Private individuals are hiring you as a personal chef, not companies or institutions. When someone calls to set up a consultation about hiring you as their personal chef, all they're thinking about is, "how can you help me?" They just want to know if you’re able to help them with their problem.

Potential clients are thinking about menu offerings you can provide them for meal prep or their event. They’re not at all wondering where you went to school, how long you’ve been in business, or what your liability insurance covers. Their only concern is how you can help them.

Regardless of your culinary education or business experience, there are clients for every background, experienced or novice. Everyone had to start somewhere and everyone has a first day in business.

There actually is no certification needed to start a personal chef business. Following completion of my courses, I do not offer any personal chef certification because it has no legal merit and truthfully, your clients will not care. Any organization offering a personal chef certification is really just providing a certificate of completion from their courses and calling it a certification. 

I'll provide business guidance on how to price your services, how to obtain new clients, and logistics of a meal prep and dinner party business. I'll show you how to create a strong branding and marketing foundation to show your clients you are a professional business.

You'll also need to obtain a business license (also called a tax certificate in some areas) through your city/county Clerk's office. Some areas also require a health safety certification.