If you are an excellent cook or know an excellent cook you can hire, you can make money catering parties.  The good news is starting a small party catering business does not require a lot of capital.  If you are smart and plan out your business growth so that you start out with small local assignments with cooking equipment you already have in your home and then invest in your business as it grows.  

Finding your first few clients can be as simple as getting the word out by helping your friends and family.   If their guests have an awesome experience they may consider you for their next event or may refer you to their friend.    Spreading the word on your social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat is also an excellent way to market yourself and let people know your catering business is available for hire.  Craigslist is also a great resource for finding catering jobs but remember to vet all clients you get from Craigslist carefully to ensure you don’t get scammed or put yourself in an unsafe situation.

Most of the small parties that will hire you when you start out will be home parties that will have kitchen facilities that you can use.   If kitchen facilities are available, you can do most of the prep work offsite prior to the party, and then finish or keep the food refrigerated or heated in their kitchen.  You can rent any equipment you need at local party rental stores and then invest in the items you rent most frequently as your business grows.  

How to Find Clients

Here are three simple ways you can get clients for your new catering business:

Pitch People on Craigslist

Craigslist is effective if you want to be up and running fast and don’t mind browsing through a ton of junk to find a few gems.

Good prospects will be cautious about caterers they find on Craigslist just as a reasonable caterer would be cautious about a prospect they find on the site. You should therefore pitch your client with this dynamic in mind and present yourself as a normal person worth meeting.

Partner with Event Organizers

Event organizers can hook you up with a few gigs if you enter into an arrangement with them to give them a finder’s fee. Since entertainment and parties is their business, they will always know several informal and formal parties that are being organized in your town.

Have Your Own Website

A business website is almost mandatory in this day and age. A potential client will search for you online to know more about your services and who you are. If they can’t find anything about you, they will quickly move on to the next caterer.

To land clients in your town searching for caters on Google, optimize your site to rank for popular relevant keywords and search phrases.

List on Sites Such as Yelp

You should consider listing your service business on a site such as Yelp. If you ask your clients to provide a review, you will quickly build a strong digital footprint and you will have the appearance of a renowned brand that can be trusted.