We recently connected with Deirdra Coleman and have shared our conversation below.

Deirdra, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I launched my business in 2017, with my own funding & fed up with corporate America. In 2020, I relocated to Georgia & left behind the clientele that I’d worked so hard to build in Chicago. Not only did I relocate during a pandemic, I was literally starting my business over. I had to revisit strategies that helped me before, such as pop up shops & other networking events throughout the city of Atlanta. I quickly realized how different the business scene was in Atlanta versus Chicago & it was I clear I needed to change my strategy. I continued to network throughout the city, partnering with other business owners to provide chef & catering services, etc. but my business still was not at level it was in Chicago. I decided to take a break from the business & get a 9-5 job because I really needed to figure out a better game plan. That’s when I met my boyfriend in February of 2022. He’s a sales executive & really equipped me with the tools and networking needed to scale my business. He’s helped & coaches me on executive sales strategies that has put me in front of several 5 figure opportunities. In addition to the sales strategies that I’ve learned to scale my business, I’ve also fine tuned many back end & customer support features to be more accessible to my target audience.

Deirdra, 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 was born & raised in Chicago. I took a leap of faith in 2020 and moved to Georgia for a fresh start & it’s turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made in life. Besides starting my business of course. Lol. I got into the food service industry because since I was old enough to reach the top of the stove, I’ve been cooking. As a child, I would always cook with my Granny and with her I developed a passion for cooking & an obsession for making food from scratch. Cooking was always an escape, an expression of my creativity & love, but it wasn’t until my corporate job drove me to depression that I decided to make a business out of my hobby.

In addition to catering services, I own a line of low & no sodium spices; which are the only spices I use when cooking. My spices are handcrafted with the best herbs & spices to create bold & flavorful spice blend, without the harmful effects of sodium.

I think what sets me apart from others are my products, my customer service & each catering experience is customized & memorable. Many low sodium spices on the market are bland, but with Deelectable spices your get bold & flavorful!

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Initially my business was self funded. I used the income from my 9-5 job to get started and then reinvested every dollar that was made back into the business for the first 3-4 years of operating. After relocating to Georgia, I worked harder on the back end/financial side of my business such as building business credit. I begin establishing small vendor or NET 30-60 accounts, after building credit with vendor accounts I moved to more lines of credit such as business credit cards and loans.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I launched my line of spices after learning of all my food intolerances, I thought if I had all those issues with food, many other people may have too. I got started by getting to know the different herbs & spices, how the blended together & most importantly how the would taste across a variety of dishes. I tested many different spice blends before I decided on the 11 spices that I have on the market now. Prior to launching this product, I knew nothing about launching a product. I spent months researching the best way to launch a product, vendors, how to market the products, you name it! After months of research & overthinking everything, I finally decided to order test bottles from a vendor. I designed spice bottle labels in Avery & decided to just see what response I’d get from the market. It was insane! I sold over 1000 spices within the first few months of launching! The most important lessons that I’ve learned along the way with launching a product, are it’s okay to make mistakes & correct them later down the line, but you absolutely have to get started!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.deelightfulfoods.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/deelightfulfoodservice