We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chef Paul a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Chef , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you take vacations? Why or why not?
Yes I do, now!! Vacations are mandatory, especially for small business owners. We as self employed individuals have this drive to go go go and seldom stop, as stopping could mean missing a lucrative revenue opportunity or allowing your company to lose momentum. The hard truth is this, not taking vacations does the exact thing you are trying to avoid. For the better part of 20 years, my company was operating, not taking vacations, not taking down time, 12 consecutive years of doing Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s events. Till it finally took a mental toll and I was forced to stop. During this down time, there was the realization that without vacations, my creativity suffered, my mental health declined and it allowed boundaries with clients to be nothing more than a hop-able fence. As a chef, vacations also represented the opportunity to expand my palate, network in other countries and broaden my vision for my company. After each vacation, family in tow or not, my company grew significantly. Now, it is mandatory that I periodically shut the company down and travel. My true clients understand and there’s always new ones waiting to work with me. At the end of the day, I cannot pour into something if my cup is empty.
Chef , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Chef Paul and I am from the island of Barbados, small country boy with big city dreams. I moved to Florida in 1997 for Culinary school, graduating in 2000 but also landing my first big private chef client in 1999. That first client was the world renowned reggae band ‘Inner Circle.’ Sing it with me, ‘Bad boys, bad boys, what you going to do, what they going to do when they come for you!?’ Yeah, that’s them. From there, I went on to cook for many celerity clients until one day, I got a call that changed the way I saw myself in the culinary industry. It was a call from Denzel Washington to cook for him and his family. Fresh off of his Academy win for Training Day, he was a pleasure to work for and I worked with him through 3 films, Man on fire, Out of Time and Deja Vu. I owe a lot to him because of the advice he’d given me about life and business. This is probably one of my most proud moments in my career. My work for him was to prepare meals to help him stay in shape for the roles he was filming and this became my life’s work per se. From then on, my business model changed to fitness meal production and I took it upon myself to get in shape, get fitness certified and learn as much about the food-fitness industry as possible. This knowledge allowed me to live the life my clients were paying me to provide: a personal understanding of how food and fitness affects the body. Several years later and after many high-end clients, I received another life changing email. How would you like to work for ‘THE ROCK!?’ Who would say no? I guess my knowledge of food and fitness attracted him to my skill set. It was a very fun and busy 5 years working for him and his family. He was a pleasure to work for and an absolute machine in his visions and work ethic: Lots of lessons there. During that time and my vacation travels, I ended up in Australia and volunteered my time to speak to culinary students at Le Cordon Bleu about my industry. Following speaking at the school, they contacted me to be their Key note speaker at their 2018 graduating ceremony. For a boy from Barbados to now be flown to Sydney to be the key speaker was an incredible honor and I’d say, the most humbling experience in my life.
Prior to the Pandemic, I was managing a small kitchen for a Banking firm in Davie, Florida and stopped taking personal chef clients. This extra time allowed me the down time needed to start a family, spend time resting and getting my mental state in the right place. This is the time I firmly stood on my square. Maintaining good mental health is paramount. Then the Pandemic hit. People were hit hard economically and many industries were affected to the point of closure. However for the private chef industry, it was a form of re-vitalization. Many people couldn’t go out or travel so many people sought to have their events and or celebrations at home. The culinary world exploded and for my business, we were the busiest we’ve ever been. From traveling to Dallas, Texas to cook for my athlete clients to traveling to the island nation of Dominica to help open the first self sustainable resort in the world: Coulibri Ridge. If there’s anyone who deserves a full feature of their project, it would be owners, Dominique and Dominic. I truly enjoyed working with them, cooking on the resort and enjoying the amazing views the mountainous island has to offer.
At the moment of writing this, I’m taking a mandatory and health restricted hiatus. During the pandemic, I was involved in an horrific car accident where my vehicle was totaled by being rear ended by a dump truck. To say, I am blessed to be alive would be an understatement. After some 10 invasive medical procedures, 3 of which were serious surgeries, I’m taking some much needed downtime to heal and continue therapy. Funny how life works though. It’s in the cloudiest times of life, you have the clearest visions. You see things and people for what and who they are and appreciate the little things more. When my wife had to help me get dressed, put on a sock even, feed me or shower me, it’s a clarifying moment for truly appreciating good solid people. This downtime however gave me the motivation to work on projects that I deemed, not enough time to complete or those that fell by the wayside. It also allowed me to get back to two passions that had long suffered: reading and writing.
Once I’m fully healed, it will be amazing to work on and finalize the projects that dictate the next chapters of my life and career. Being a chef is a passion of mine and a gift I fully intend not to waste. I’m excited for people to see what I have stored in my pantry.
Follow my journey on my website www-chef-paul.com and on my IG @chefpaul305.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
I like this question a lot. Most people reading this will expect a long convoluted and detailed answer but the simple truth is, the most effective strategy to growing and maintaining clients is to ‘Show up!’ Yes, it really is that simple and I’ll explain. Show up with your skills, your communication, on time, show up presentable and show up with your integrity. Many times in business, people lead with the mindset of revenue first, they fail to show up or show up for the wrong reasons. Clients are people too with feelings, emotions and expectations. In the industry that I’m in, trust is a huge factor and while it takes many years to gain, it can be broken in a split second if you fail to ‘Show up!’ Without trust, most clients won’t work with you at all.
My advice, show up!!
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
When we think of funding, we think financially and that would be correct but let’s tackle this from another angle. How I funded my business was with time. Let me explain. During college, I recognized how important it was to build a solid reputation and network over building capital. What sense it is to build massive capital without a positive reputation to go with it? Therefore I set out to give my time in the form of volunteering. Even to this day, with the incident where I gave my time to speak to students turned into one of the brightest moments in my career or the decade plus of volunteering with the Boys & Girls Club of America. Volunteering also allows you to network in circles you normally cannot pay your way into. The way I built my capitol was literally one service donation at a time until those donations of time turned into being paid for my time. Donating time also allowed for one important factor: practice. For any new business, you will need to perfect the service you’re offering. Many clients do not and will not pay for a new service where you still have to iron out the kinks. In donating your time and service, people are more forgiving and more often than not, offer advice on how to fix or improve an aspect of your business. Their investment into you is to only make you better. This is the true capital you seek.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.chef-paul.com
- Instagram: @Chefpaul305
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chefpaul305/
- Twitter: @Chefpaul305
- Youtube: @Chefpaul305
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/chef-pauls-personal-chef-service-fort-lauderdale
- Other: www.chef-paul.crypto Metaverse Coming soon.
Image Credits
Main image credit: Kerry MacMaster Fitness Image Credit: Adam Sayih Australia Image Credit: Le Cordon Bleu