We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dorien Murphy a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Dorien, thanks for joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

Being an entrepreneur is incredibly risky. Of course, you can hedge against the risk by building infrastructure, hiring the right people, training, and training some more, and, ironically enough, taking more risks.

I sometimes think that working a traditional salaried role might be easier as you do not have the worries, late-night calls, funding, and financing hurdles to jump through. However, I wouldn’t change it for the world. In creating Cheffin, my team and I have taught teens how to cook, where their food comes from, and so much more. And that’s the tip of the iceberg. We plan on scaling that aspect of our business to include adults too. Stay tuned.

Dorien, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Chef Dorien Murphy, Founder of Cheffin, LLC. We are a personal chef-for-hire company based in Baltimore, MD.

Our core business allows us to curate and execute high-end hospitality events in your home while you get to enjoy your parties. We are full service, too. We handle the pre-event planning (menus, equipment), and the execution of events, and we even clean up everything after we’re done, all at a reasonable price so that just about everyone can have a personal chef experience.

But the above is our CORE business model. We also are hospitality consultants and instructors. We are proud of the Cheffin Teens program, a culinary and hospitality curriculum we piloted with Palm Beach County Boys and Girls Clubs last summer. We’re scheduled to roll it out in Baltimore too. Stay tuned.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I knew that to be successful in a socially-driven business, I had to have a solid social presence and strategy. So, I consulted business owners in my friend group to see how they did it.

Consistency has always been a major factor, as people on social media subscribe to your actions. Also, knowing that someone is always watching me has been key to my growth. Finally, identifying your brand and staying within it helps with consistency. People readily identify YOU with your brand, so stay clean and out of issues.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Managing a team of people with different skill sets and goals can be difficult. So I always try to understand the “WHY” for each team member. Some want to learn as much as possible. Others want to make as much money as they can. Knowing who is on your team and their goals help me individually manage them all and help them reach their goals. In turn, they do their best for our business.

That also helps keep high morale. I have seen business force the feeling of “family” on their teams. As the business and employment world progresses, I’m learning that your team wants to be heard and have agency in their work to “make it make sense.” So, I include my team in developing business processes to involve and teach them.

Finally, while Cheffin is my business, I cannot run it alone, and I make sure my team knows that.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ouicheffin.com
• Instagram: @dorienmurphy, @cheffinllc
• Facebook: Dorien Murphy, Cheffin LLC
• Linkedin: Dorien Murphy