Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Annalease Johnson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Annalease thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

My perspective on this is a little different than most. I see allot of small business/entrepreneurs get really frustrated when people they consider close to them don’t support their businesses. Though I understand this can be tough, I feel you should only focus on your target audience and who really needs you. Personally I don’t care if my loved ones support or not because I only want people who are interested/need what I offer to support me. I want everyone to do whatever they are interested in. Having expectations based on your relationships with someone gets messy. I feel like the only boundary I set if my loved ones do hire me for anything is simply to give me the same respect that you would any other business.

Annalease, 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?

I Am Chef Annalease Johnson Born and raised in Detroit Michigan. From a young child I was always a foodie. I used to go to different restaurants with my grandfather and trying anything he ate. I was the kind of kid who would take food from my house and take it to the park just to feed all of my friends. I’ve known that I’ve wanted to be a chef since I was about 9 years old. I will never forget the day that I was being honored at a award ceremony for an essay competition and the dinner was at a hotel. I ordered this pan seared chicken breast stuffed with mushrooms and I was amazed at how something could taste so good. from that moment on I knew I wanted to be a chef. After cooking professionally for over 10 years and really seeing what happens in commercial kitchens I was livid. From the way to women were treated in the industry to the poor quality ingredients being used by major foodservices companies I was ready to throw in the towel. That was until I realized that I was destined to change everything. I established a company that would reform the food service industry as a whole From catering events, Meal prepping, Cooking classes and home made product.. I single handedly did it all. I started off with one business one brand which is tasteandsee. When I first started tasteandsee I considered my business to just be my brand and working behind the scenes. I recently just discovered that I Chef Anna was truly the brand. Annalease’s Story is what started it all. All of my experiences is what inspired me to serve people. I was completely different from what I had ever seen before. Normally a chef is very workload heavy..serving people without truly being seen. That troubled me because my heart is with the people I feed. I wanted to get inside the mind and hearts of people in a way that would changed their everyday life. That’s when I started to show my life as a chef on social media. I started to inform people on things that would change the way they cooked at home. My following grew pretty fast and I started to receive so much feedback from the public. This is when I had the grand Idea to Create Flavors Of Heart With Chef Anna. Flavors of my heart is a interactive cooking show series where every era of my journey is intertwined into one big Heartfelt event. Each show is live streamed and has a live audience. Now more than ever I feel that I am giving the world everything I dreamed of. Its crazy that this is truly only the beginning of an amazing journey.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I would say one of the biggest things was when I started showing my personality and presenting myself as relatable. We are living in a social Media era. People don’t really know anything about who you are and what you do unless you show them. The quickest way to show who are is through media. I Discovered a entirely new market for my business I never knew existed.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I used to get so overwhelmed with social media content. I would compare myself to other creators and felt that it would take too much time to get to a place that I was putting out content I was comfortable with. I quicky realized that esthetics cant compete with authenticity. So I started making videos just sharing some of the thing I’ve learned throughout my career in my pajamas at my dining room table. Every video I created sharing valuable information became consistent hits. People loved me exactly for who I was. I would encourage any creative, entrepreneur and content creator that you it doesn’t matter how you start.. just start. Show the real you. Show what makes you great. You will learn as you go and the people who are meant to find you will find you. All it takes is that first step.

Contact Info:

• Website: Tasteandseefoodsllc.com
• Instagram: Tasteandseefoods
• Facebook: Annalease Johnson/Tasteandseefoods
• Other: Tiktok: Naanaamocha (Girly Chef Anna)

Image Credits
Jeffery Mullins – JillinsPhotography Luiza Grace – LA PhotographE