We recently connected with Mish Sen and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mish, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

Hi, the first client I got that paid me a good pice for my services was in an unexpected venue. I have had brand collabs before and the like and I wanted to grow locally working with local small and big businesses.

Two years ago I had gone to a farmer’s market and was drawn to a stall with beautiful fresh produce. Once I got near I noticed it also had locally made honey, jams and vinegars. There was a friendly lady with a big smile who welcomed me and I asked her who grew these lovely produce with such vibrant colors. She introduced herself and said she was the farmer who grew all of the produce herself and made the honey, jams ad vinegars.

Upon farther conversation with her I found out she also supplies her honey and vinegars to my favorite local coop.

She was very excited to talk to me and once I introduced myself as a food blogger and took some footage of her stuff, she wanted to exchange numbers-“I need help,” she said. I gladly gave her my number and went home with wonderful fresh produce. I found out she comes to the farmers’ market weekly so was looking forward to buying more fresh, local produce from her.

Summer passed and at the end of fall, when the days were just turning a bit chilly and the sun was setting early, I got a text from this lovely lady saying she would like to have a chat. We set up a time and the talk led to me getting a three month contract to manage her social media account and the full payment in advance!

This was special because I never expected to get paid in advance for work I haven’t even done. She was so trusting and that made me happy to give her a month’s free of service complimentary!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been a teacher of 7th grade English for about 10 years before I turned into a full time digital marketer. Over time, I transitioned from being a teacher to corporate life. I am a digital marketing consultant.

In 2020, I started my food page on Instagram and haven’t looked back. My mission is to make Indian food accessible and approachable to all. There are plenty of people who enjoy Indian food in restaurants but don’t cook it at home because they feel a bit overwhelmed. I want to reach those individuals and show them that Indian food can be quite easy to cook and doesn’t take a load of ingredients and often my dishes are under 30 minutes because I’m an impatient cook!

My Instagram page is tailored to make Indian cooking simple and easy. I also have a cookbook, Indian Kitchen Secrets: 52 Easy-to -Make Indian Recipes for Beginners available on Amazon exclusively.

I offer private cooking lessons (individual and group) and also provide marketing consulting for people staring their own food blogs on Instagram or would like to. I also develop recipes for brands (food brands, grocery stores, gyms).

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy for growing my clientele is simply networking. Sometimes it’s been people I know who has been kind enough to introduce me to relevant people and other times I have reached out directly to prospective clients and introduced myself and my offerings.

Do not be afraid to ask people you know for introductions or reach out to businesses or prospective clients directly. You can also join networking groups.

You also have to make sure to keep on producing good quality work so you have a lot in your portfolio and are not relying on a few pieces of older work.

What I’ve realized is that you have to put yourself out there and be okay with rejection but a lot of times things do work out. Patience is definitely important because even when you network building relationships takes time.

People have a lot on their plates, so you have to give them time and space.

Also, if there is anything you can offer the friend who has opened doors or keep up the relationship with a client you should do it. Everything is not a balance sheet, focus on growing relationships. And maintain the relationship once you have done the collab or provided the service.

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

The biggest key to social media success is consistency and trial and error. You have to try different things and see what clicks and produce more of that.

I built my audience on social media by first doing competitive research. I’m a food blogger so I followed other food blogs and see how they were presenting content and what type of engagement they were receiving. I also had to be careful not to constantly compare myself to them because they had started ahead of me so I definitely needed to allow myself time to get to that level and there was a lot to learn.

I also took an Instagram course. Additionally, I learned the basics of food photography, food videography and video editing. I was already good at copywriting so that was one less thing I had to learn. However learning about hashtags and how to use them was important.

The most important thing was to pay attention to what people were telling me on my page and how they were reacting. I also made sure I kept reiterating my message and that is “Indian food can be easy.” I provide fairly healthy food with some indulgences thrown in and I had to keep emphasizing that, so I get the right audience.

I made sure I kept a posting schedule and provided regular stories.

I tried various types of content initially till Instagram made videos the prime kind of content to produce.

I also routinely engage with other creators and we have a nice support system going.

Sometimes I did giveaways. That’s a great way to get new followers. I have also recently appeared in many TV spots and that has helped me grow locally which is a big goal of mine!

Lastly, I invested on some Instagram ads. That is a great way to grow also, but as a supplement to all the other efforts.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mishsen.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eatswithmish/