Is Catering The Business For You?
Now that you’re sure you want to start a business, and you have lots of good reasons why, the next question to ask yourself is:
Why do you want to start a catering business?
Start-up costs
You can often start a catering business out of your home with a small initial investment. At the beginning, you may be able to minimize start-up costs by renting some items.
Of course it’s also possible to start big if you have the money, skills, and experience.
The catering market
The catering business is less sensitive to swings in the economy than other types of businesses. In good times or in bad, there always seems to be a market for catering.
- Catered parties for rich clients will always be in demand.
- Businesses of all sizes require catered lunches, parties and meetings.
- Birthday parties, graduation parties and wedding receptions often require catering services.
- As people become busier and have less time to plan social events, the demand for catering services will increase.
Your personal characteristics
To succeed in the catering business, it will help if you have certain personal characteristics. Think about your answers to the following questions:
- Do you like working with people?
- Do you seem to have an intuition about what people enjoy?
- Do you have a passion for cooking?
- Do people believe you have a knack for preparing tasty dishes?
- Are you a good planner?
- Are you an effective manager?
- Do you look forward to new experiences?
- Do you like challenges?
- Do you enjoy meeting new people?
- Are you able to work under pressure?
You don’t have to answer “Yes” to all of these questions to succeed. But if you answered “No” to all of them, you should seriously consider other business start-up opportunities.
Test the waters
If you really think that catering is the business for you, why don’t you test the waters first? Ask your friends or your office if you could “pretend” cater a dinner party or lunch meeting. That is, let them pay you for the cost of the groceries, and you do the work for free. This will let you experience first-hand the challenges of planning and executing the kind of events you hope to do as a business later.
