Turning Your Catering Biz Into A Really Dishy Proposition

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Let’s assume you already have the culinary talents and the dedication to customer satisfaction that are crucial to any successful catering enterprise. Besides providing food to satisfy at events, celebrations, and so on, you are also going to have to nail the image of your business. People don’t just want good food, they want good food from someone they can trust as a professional. Here, we’re going to look at how you make sure your catering biz is a tempting dish from any and all perspectives.

Make sure you are legally good to go

If you are just starting off on a freelance venture and trying out cooking for small events around you, make sure that you have all the licenses you need for a catering business. Many people will start a business off with a few trial runs for families and friends, ensuring that they get a good enough reception to start putting time, money, and effort into it. Unfortunately, many of these people keep building without realizing that they are going to need to be licensed to start charging people money for their services. If you plan on serving alcohol with your food, then you are going to need a separate license for that, too. If you can’t confirm you are fully licensed to clients, they are less inclined to trust you.

Create an online menu

As soon as your business kicks off the ground, you should try to make sure that you have some kind of online presence. Caterers are used to roaming around for their work, and often don’t have a set premises that can attract people with curb appeal. You can set up a Facebook group, but it shouldn’t serve as the “home” of your business. Take your business online and invest in a professional looking website that details your services, offers a menu, and enables potential clients to find you much more easily. A search engine optimization campaign can help you direct more local traffic to your services with little cost, too.

Tell your story

Whether it’s on your website on in brochures, make sure that you are starting to build a brand unique to your business. Your own business name, logo, and aesthetic will make up the core imagery of the brand that helps you build recognition and an image that stands apart from your competitors. But food provides a sensory and emotional journey and you can kick that narrative off with a brand story. Your brand story can talk about the inspirations for your menu and what got you started, or it can focus on the needs of the client, talking about providing convenience and comfort for those who need food quickly. Figuring out your story means figuring out which market you’re appealing to and what they want to see and hear.

Be specific in your services

Your story does not, however, tell the audience everything they need to know in detail about what services you are going to provide. It is a common mistake for brand new caterers to fail to tell clients whether they are going to be providing cutlery, what areas they can serve, even how many they can feed. Your focus on marketing your menu can distract you from some of the more crucial elements of the service that they want to hear. If you haven’t decided what level of service to offer, it’s a good idea to look at what clients look for in a caterer and figure out what you can provide without cutting too deeply into your profits. Make sure the details are listed clearly on your website and any brochures or long-form marketing material you publish.

Look the part

Your marketing and branding doesn’t end when you get the part. In fact, that’s where it starts. We are going to assume that professional caterers don’t need to be told about how to make good food or how to present it well. However, it’s wise you take the same approach to your very being, too. If you want to convince people you are dedicated to your field, then you might want to consider a uniform that makes you look like a food service professional. If you have a van or another business vehicle you use to reach venues, events, or clients, then consider investing in branding for the van, too. Not only does it cement a serious working aesthetic, but it also functions as a traveling advertisement for your services.

Speak the part, too

Professional caterers are expected to be able to communicate in detail about many different elements of the business you are in. You are going to be explaining not only your services, but your menu, specific tastes, and all sorts of other details. If you aren’t entirely confident or feel like you have trouble expressing yourself clearly, it may be worth looking into getting lessons in communication or reading books that can help you express yourself and be a little more confident. That confidence in communication will give the image of confidence in your cooking, as well.

Don’t let the strain show

As you become a more successful caterer, you are likely to become busier and busier. You might be taking on more events and clients than ever before, and you may be catering for larger crowds than you have handled in the past, too. It can be a stressful environment and you may be managing the business on the side even when you and your team is in the middle of a job. It’s important you don’t let that strain show, so it’s worth using catering management software to help you streamline all the organizational parts of it. Dealing with messy notepads or bloated Excel sheets can make it much harder to keep your cool, which can show in front of the clients and is not a flattering look.

Leverage the power of social

When you create a new dish, what is the best way to show it off to get those potential clients’ mouths watering? Having pictures to go with the menu on your website can make it even more compelling. In terms of marketing, however, food is especially powerful when published through social media. Twitter is a must-have marketing platform for any business that operates online. For food businesses, such as caterers, however, Instagram can be even more valuable. Good food has aesthetic appeal and you can use that to attract much more business, build your brand, and attract new clients through the right visual-focused social platforms.


Know your best bits

After you finish an event, it’s a good idea to review what you have learned. CRM tools can help you manage correspondence, details, and feedback from clients that can help you gather data on what works and what doesn’t. You can start to compile data based on what menu choices are most popular and which aren’t. This way, you can stop spending money on ingredients you don’t use as much and look into replacements. You can also gather feedback and see if there are any trends in which parts the clients liked, in particular, or which can be done better. Know your best bits and keep adapting your menu to maximize your profits. Even if you don’t agree with a client, it doesn’t matter. If a menu choice is costing you more money that it makes, it needs to be cut.

Keep building the network

It’s not only your reputation and image with the clients that matter. You also want to make sure that you have a firm presence within the event planning industry. Other caterers, wedding planners, and venues can all be highly valuable contacts for you. You can gain referrals from them, for instance. When caterers have a full schedule, they will often recommend an alternative. Event planners and venues often have links with local caterers. Build your links within the industry by visiting trade fairs and finding networking events near you on a regular basis.

Full mouths are good for business

Filling mouths is what you do but you should be filling them with praise as much as food. If your clients are happy and seemingly willing to shout it to the world, make good use of that. Word of mouth is one of the most effective marketing practices out there and, as food is such an emotional product, it is one of the easiest industries in which to acquire and leverage word of mouth. Ask them if they would leave a review in your Google listings or a testimonial online. Encourage them to spread the word through social media or follow you. You can even incentivize them with, for instance, a free taster or a voucher if they help you successfully gain a referral.

Food for events isn’t just a practical concern, it’s an emotionally driven purchase. Food is tied deeply to subjective enjoyment, so making it attractive as possible is in your best interests when attracting clients. The tips above should ensure that your business has an image that’s impossible to resist.

3 Tips on Holding an Event to Promote Your Business

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If you want your business to seriously compete with the other players in the field, you need to promote it in the right way. Remember the different forms that promotion can take. For example, your online marketing will constitute part of your promotion efforts, as will any events that you host.

There is no right or wrong way to go about promoting your business; the best moves for your business will depend on exactly what it is, as well as who you are marketing to and competing against. There are, however, a number of things that you can do that will maximise the chances of your promotional event being a success.

Throw the Event You Would Want to Attend

The easiest way of ensuring that you plan the very best event that you can is to make it the kind of event that you would want to attend. It doesn’t mean that everything should match your personal taste, it just means that you should put in as much effort as you would want someone else to put in to an event you were attending.

This thinking should extend beyond the event itself and also include things like invitations sent out beforehand. If you don’t invite people to your event in the right way, the number of respondents who show up at all will be lower.

Make sure that every aspect of your event reflects the care and attention you have put into it. The best way of achieving this is to ensure adequate planning beforehand. It’s no use getting to the day of the event and still not having everything in place. The more organised you are beforehand, the better chance you have of pulling it off without a hitch.

Staff it Properly

There are two components to ensuring that you have the right staff on hand. The first is simply numbers as if your event is understaffed, it will show. Guests at an understaffed event will have a harder time navigating. Even if your event only takes place in a single room, and everything is clearly signposted, you need enough staff members to ensure that food is circulated properly and that any issues can be addressed promptly.

While some businesses choose to staff these events using their own staff, if you want to really push the boat out, and if you want this event to be a roaring success, then you should hire some temp staff externally. Through companies such as Staff Heroes, you’ll be able to find a range of staff that are available to work during the specific date of your event, and then choose each staff member based on their profile.

Promote it Beforehand

Hosting a killer event isn’t going to do much good if no one turns up. And, of course no one is going to turn up to an event they don’t know about (not intentionally anyway). The best way of promoting your event will depend upon a number of factors, namely what the nature of your event is, and who you are hoping to attract to it.

For example, if you are a software company who is hosting an event in the hopes of meeting other programmers and coders, with a view to working with anyone whose skills and interests complement your business’s other work, it would make sense to promote your event in places where coders will see it. By contrast, if your business is one that sells custom clothing, it’s unlikely you’ll be looking to fill a room with programmers. Instead, you should advertise your event with flyers in clothes stores, and any outdoor market clothing stalls near you.

Holding a killer event is an excellent way of raising your business’s, and your own, profile. With the right event, you can achieve almost anything. It is worth investing the necessary time and money to get it right.

Online or On Campus: Pros and Cons

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There is no doubt that the internet has played a big role in changing the way we learn. Many people are not engaging in courses which are taught solely online. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should discount traditional learning environments entirely. In this blog post, we are going to weigh up some of the pros and cons of online learning versus on-campus study.

Studying Online

In the pros column, you can certainly put flexibility. You have the option to study courses which are based miles away from yourself and even in other countries. You can also fit your learning around the other commitments in your life such as work and family. As time goes on, you also have more and more options of what you can study, whether this is an online language class or something more specialised like an MSN degree online. Essentially, the choice in your hands.

On the downside, you have to be motivated and disciplined enough to study in your own time. There is also a degree of isolation involved as you are not face-to-face with teachers and other students – but improving communication methods are making this easier. Depending on the course and educational institution you have chosen, you may find that there is a lag time in asking your questions and having them answered again.

Studying On-Campus

Now let’s look into the pros of studying on-campus. If you find that you learn better in groups and face-to-face, this may be a better option for you. Help is readiliy available and when you are in a learning environment, you can simply raise your hand when you want a question answered. You also may want to engage in the social side of learning in a real life environment.

The obvious downside is that you don’t have the freedom and flexibility to set your own schedule, and you also have to be located close enough to your univerisity or school to get there easily. You may find that you have to put other aspects of your life on hold to complete your course – particularly if you are faced with a long commute. As well as this, on-campus study can end up being the more expensive option of the two.

Ultimately, the choice is up to you when it comes to studying online or on-campus. Essentially, you should weigh up the pros and cons just as we have in this list. Look at the different courses that are available in the area which you are interested in. Work out how best you are going to fit in the other commitments in your life. But there is no doubt that no matter what choice you make, further study is something which could end up enriching your life in many ways. You could find that you spark off a new passion or discover a career path which is more suited to you.

4 Hacks to Become More Productive In Business

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Productivity levels are as important to a business as its revenue streams. In fact, the true character of a company can only be found out from the productivity levels of the workers. Still for many businesses productivity levels seem to be an abstract concept. The point is that a business without a tight grip on its productivity levels is bound to suffer. Here are 5 hacks to become more productive in business. They may take some time to implement and some more time for the workers to get used to it, but the long-term results are promising in terms of work satisfaction and revenue generation.

Control of phones

All organizations must keep a close eye on their workers’ tendencies to use their phones at work. It’s a worrying habit because everyone is a victim of it. All it takes is one notification sound to divert their attention for 10-15 minutes or even more. However, to avert this, a business can establish no notification zones.

In the workplace there should be no notification zones where it’s not allowed to check the phone for notifications. Unless it is a phone call, employees should not be allowed to take out their phones at all in these zones. In case they need to check their phone, they should excuse themselves and leave the room to do so.

To do list apps

Several software companies make specialized apps for businesses to use. A to-do list app that can be centrally accessed can work wonders for an organization. The benefits of such an app are aplenty, some of them include:

• Keeping track of all job schedules.

• Supervisors are able to check which worker is lagging.

• Allotment of work becomes easier.

In case the organization is unable to afford investing in a personalized application, it can always look for free alternatives in the app stores.

Reading business articles

Reading business magazines and journals, especially the types that are suited to the workers’ job requirements must be encouraged by the organizational heads. Here’s how an organization can encourage its workers to read more:

• Subscribing to magazines and newspapers related to the field of work undertaken by the organization.

• Sharing websites and article links on a common social space for all workers to view and read. There are several knowledgeable websites which business professionals must read. For instance, Fabweb.Org is a great website which keeps its readers up to date on the latest technological and business advancements around the world.

Refusing additional work

Productivity does not mean taking up a large number of tasks and not being able to finish any one of them. It is measured in terms of how successful the worker has been in the process of completion of all the tasks that have been assigned to him/her. If they feel that taking up additional work could hamper their chances of finishing their assigned work, workers should be given the chance to refuse it.

Apart from following these guidelines, you must also have trust in the workers and give them their freedom to do their best. Only then can your business become truly productive.

What Is Procurement?

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Procurement is a term you will hear often in business, but it may not be one which you are instantly familiar with. Procurement is all about making sure that all products a company gets are from trusted suppliers and are of good value. For example, if you had a company whose sole focus was to be environmentally friendly, the procurement team would make sure that their suppliers were environmentally friendly and that all product is sourced naturally wherever possible.

Why is it important?

Procurement is a huge part of your business strategy and it is vital to get it right in your business. If you think about it, over half of your business revenue is used to source materials and products for your company to sell on, so procurement is a department which needs to be managed correctly. You can buy Sertica’s procurement software for better management of your procurement team and this can make life much easier when researching for the correct suppliers. Making sure that the correct decisions are made with products and suppliers is absolutely essential for any business.

Visibility

In the procurement process, one of the important things to think about is visibility. Visibility means that as an organisation, you can see exactly where your money is being spent, and in turn, you can make changes to save the business money and be more successful as a result. Segmentation is a strategy which is often used for monitoring spending as it puts spending into different categories to make it easier to see what impact each type of spending has on the business.

The procurement process

The process of procuring items can involve several different steps, and here is a basic rundown of those steps which are involved here:

  • Identify requirements
  • Authorize purchase request
  • Identify suppliers
  • Make inquiries
  • Get quotes
  • Negotiate terms
  • Make a decision
  • Creating a purchase order
  • Sort out shipping
  • Receive invoices
  • Make payment

Is Procurement Purchasing?

Most people use the term purchasing and procurement as the same thing, but they are different in the fact that purchasing doesn’t concern itself with the sourcing and researching of suppliers, it is only concerned with the shipping, making an invoice and paying for the goods. Procurement is a department which you should have alongside the buying department in your business for maximum efficiency.

Learn more here about how you can use software to enhance this area of your business easily and give you a head start above your competitors for both purchasing and procurement.

Using technology

In this day and age, we are lucky enough to have software for pretty much any business process, and our procurement process is no different. Because the process of procuring items can be complicated, technology can help massively by organising data and comparing different quotes to come up with your final decision. It can make life much easier and allow for more productive working on the case.

If you don’t already have a procurement manager or team in your workplace, now is the time to take that leap and hire yourself a new member of the team. Procurement is a vital role in any business, and it can make a massive difference to your success and growth in the industry.