5 Catering Business Ideas and Plans for your Startup

A cook or a caterer, who actually is the best serving cook?

Which one would you have recommended for a party?

Your wife who is the best cook in the kitchen or a professional caterer?

Whether or not your wife is so good at cooking, remember, she lacks the word professionalism.

Why because she doesn't preach what she lives with.

Just because of that, she can only be a good cook for her husband but not yet a caterer.

Just think about this.

Remember, the history of catering?

According to Wikipedia, 

The catering business began to form around 1820, the year catering became a respectable and profitable business.

Wikipedia: Catering business

Afterward, the second generation of black catering formed who began to combine their catering business with restaurants they owned.

Guess what.

In the year 1930s, the Soviet Union, creating more simple menus, began developing state public establishment as part of its collectivization policies.

And do you know that most set-back catering businesses during that time just had their intention placed on how they could save some money, there weren't any special packages about how they could make more money as a business.

Not until now, that catering business is becoming so lucrative for set-back catering, shipboard catering, wedding catering, and mobile catering businesses.

And if you're wondering what a catering business is, 

A catering business is a specialized vendor that solve the needs of their audience based on the special meal that interests their desire.

Or a simpler version.

A catering business is an organization whose marketing goal is to provide a meal for any kind of event with a reward of acquiring more ROI.

What about a chef?

Or a simpler version

Who is a chef?

A chef is an individual known for his/her professional expertise for any aspect of preparation meal that suits the customer's taste.

In other words, a chef is a trained individual that works so diligently in order to meet the meal desire of the customers.

In order not to get you confused, here's what a caterer does.

So, who is a caterer?

A caterer is a person whose job is to arrange, supervise, and secure workers for the presentation of the meal at any occasion for clients.

However, a so-called caterer is not just only a professional but he/she is a boss.

On the other hand, he/she has chosen the catering business as a career path to earn money for living.

See some facts: the catering industry statistics in Nigeria.

• 30% of caterers in business today in Nigeria own their kitchen pieces of equipment.
• The average workflow time for Nigerian caterers is around 72 hours.
• 97% of Nigerian caterers focus on offline marketing opportunities.
• The average event opportunities for caterers is burial and wedding ceremony.
• Catering business in Nigeria doesn't have a share dominance or frontrunner meaning that anyone can carve out a profitable and lucrative niche.
• A catering business is becoming highly competitive in Nigeria.
• 60% of Nigerian caterers do their catering chore from home.

This means if you are focusing on how to start a catering business you can stick to what is next as by ideas you can subscribe to.

Today, I've got you to 5 actionable catering business ideas and plans for your startup.

5 free catering business ideas and plans from home:

1. Show your catering ideas through your unique selling point
2. Build trust before earning
3. Invest in online marketing
4. Drive more of local searchers
5. Attract word of mouth marketing

1. Show your catering ideas through your unique selling point

By now you have heard about a unique selling point.

So, what does it mean?

A unique selling point is just that credential that differentiates you from other catering businesses out there.

As a startup or as a beginner who is looking into starting a catering business from home or anywhere.

The unique selling point is the first experiment you should stumble upon because that is the catering idea that will sustain you and those who love you for what you do.

If you are wondering about how you can use it as your first experiment towards your catering business ideas and plans.

Think of it this way.

And especially think about your competitors.

Those who are in the industry near you.

For one, just think about what they do, scale them invariant with each other, and study which one out the competitor's people love doing business with.

That way, you will have a piece of profound knowledge about what is next to create as your catering business ideas and plans.

Remember, your catering business ideas and plans begin from your mission statement, brand story, and brand logo.

These are recipes that draw the attention of your prospects to what you do.

In fact, it helps connects well with their emotions and feelings toward your business.

However, you don't have to stop there just by tracking your competitors.

Everything doesn't seem to go right every time through that path, as you know your competitors might as well secretly change their marketing tactics which you can be ignorant of.

In order not to be ignorant of their secret weapons.

I think you should invest more in social listening and monitoring.

In fact, the word social media is free and here to stay.

Why not use that to monitor and track the buyer's journey of your prospects and track well what their needs are.

2. Build trust before earning

Just don't make a mistake of having the mentality of building your prospects for earning.

Sadly, they won't just convert for your offer.

The last time you visited a shopping store, what trigger you to buy from that store?

Wasn't the way they make you buy more or the trust you ever build for their products?

Likewise is the same way people will see your catering business as if truly you're building trust or you only want them as clients.

And if you ain't building trust near anywhere the bitter truth is that your competitors will and they will be everywhere.

That is the reason that you need to nurture prospects for why you're doing what you're doing.

For this reason, they will see your business for who you are not what you are.

And I think that is a goldmine catering business idea.

3 Invest in online marketing

One of the catering business ideas and plans you can scale out which could as well boost your catering ROI over time.

Is to use the idea of online marketing to generate more clients.

It can be any inbound marketing campaign such as paid ads, search engine optimization, and search engine marketing.

Whichsoever, the concept is to generate more qualified leads into your sales funnel.

With 60% of Google searches are done on mobile and what that means is that if you can optimize your catering business for mobile searchers.

You are only just going to put your catering brand out there but you are going to leverage every opportunity over your competitors.

Remember, more traffic equals more sales. 

And more online traffic is equivalent to more offline sales.

4. Drive more of local searchers

Investing in Google my business is just another way to drive local searchers especially near me searchers to your catering business.

See some facts:

According to HubSpot blog,

• 46% of all Google searches are seeking local information.
• 88% of consumers who do a local search on their phone visit or call a store during a day.
• 61% of mobile searchers are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-friendly website.

These means to make your catering business ideas grow big you have to do justice to local searchers to improve your catering business conversion overnight.

5 Attract word of mouth marketing

Having a big influence in the catering industry lies in how you build your customers for a word of mouth marketing.

And that will begins from a customer relationship and credibility perspective.

Especially how exactly you have to build your customers for fanocracy.

Because a customer who isn't your fan isn't your customer.

In other words, a customer can only promote your products if only they trust what you do and how they have seen your catering business.

That is the reason that not anymore you should build clients for the reason to do business with you.

That isn't a good catering business idea and plan.

But, build them on the rock of fanocracy.

Do you know that a customer who isn't proud to talk about your business or rather use your catering business stickers out there such a customer isn't your customer?

And if you build such customers around your catering business the big knock is that they will react as detractors.

So, my only advice for you is that scale-out your ideal customer profile.

In order to know who is your target audience.

That way you will have a proper understanding of who is a good fit for your catering business.

More importantly, keep the ideal customer profile consistent just don't make changes to it or amend anything in the nearest future.

Because it might hit you hard overtime.

Conclusion

Now that you know the catering business ideas and plans you can use for your startup.

So, over to you, how do you want to use it to develop your catering business?

I'm Destined boy, a certified digital and inbound marketer.