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

Robert , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

We create a working environment where individuals can express themselves through their food and their interpretation of menus that we custom create in order to make the customers’ experiences unique and memorable

Robert , 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?

Just stumbled into the catering business. Felt there was space and zero barrier to entry- worked for a few other catering operations and learned a lot. We interview our clients separately and find out about their previous experiences with food and what made memorable experiences for them- and use that information to create a new a different experience so they can be proud to present themselves through our catering and food service. I’m extremely proud of the team that we have put together- most recently we were chosen by Tony Robbins’ team as a brand leader and were offered a free seminar led by his lieutenant in order for us to understand that it’s progress that creates excellence and that change doesn’t necessarily produce any fruit without progress

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We’ve all been challenged by the recent current events. Nothing seems the same, but we kept the team together with weekly hikes and weekly cooking sessions and we were prepared to make changes to adapt to the changing conditions of the catering business and all food service businesses. Much of our competition has struggles with staffing and consistency, but we have made progress by listening to each other and making space for one another understanding that we are all different and motivated by different things.

We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.

Recently I purchased a coffee shop, just before COVID and things didn’t go well. I made a few poor decisions with staff and partnerships and delegated too much. We did finally sell the shop and the new owners are PERFECT- but it created some resentment within the operation and blame was rampant. Egos were damaged and all that stuff is pointless and fruitless- Lesson learned- be impeccable with your words and even more so with your actions and take responsibility when you should. When you sell a business, set the new owners up for success. Be honest with them about what went well and what could have been done better and differently and wish them the BEST!

Contact Info:

• Website: Unitedcateringteam.com
• Instagram: United__catering @rocketsscience
• Facebook: Robert Defibaugh united catering
• Linkedin: Robert Defibaugh
• Twitter: RocketscienceAz
• Yelp: United Catering