We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Trina Cheeks. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Trina below.
Trina, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear how you think where to draw the line in terms of asking friends and family to support your business – what’s okay and what’s over the line?
My friends and family support me to the highest power so I feel there’s no need for me to draw the line with my biggest supporters. My family supports without me having to ask and they are my support system through all of this. I have friends/classmates who I’ve known since high school who support my business and encourage me when it comes to my business. Having the support of friends and family is something all entrepreneurs want & need especially pursuing a full time business. Friends and family provide a support system that can help entrepreneurs like myself balance work and play, and generally keep a sense of perspective even amid the stress and responsibility of maintaining a successful business.
Trina, 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?
Hello my name is Trina Cheeks and I am the owner of YFBGKITCHEN. I am a up & coming, youthful & creative caterer who is passionate about cooking. I have been in the cooking industry for almost 5 years and counting. I attended Houston Community college culinary school & after I graduated I started my business all while working a full time job. I was working almost 40+hrs a week and catering whenever I had free time. In 2021 I decided to take a leap of faith and quit my job to become a full time entrepreneur. Now I’m on this road of entrepreneurship and it’s not always easy but I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Since quitting my job my business has grown tremendously for which I am grateful. My business caters to all events from weddings, birthday parties, proms, etc.
How did you build your audience on social media?
When starting my business I didn’t have much clientele but majority of my clientele was family, friends & classmates. Then I started getting lots of new clientele right before I decided to quit my job and that became overwhelming. In 2021, I decided to be more active on my social media platform. I started with Instagram, then Facebook, snapchat and Tik Tok. My followers started growing on all of my social media platforms when I posted more content and interacting more with my followers. In this generation as far as social media you definitely have to keep up with the newer trends. For anybody wanting to build their social media presence MAKE that content, POST the content, and be consistent!!!
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
My side hustle made me the full time business owner I am today. I graduated culinary school and started my business while working full time. As my clientele started to grow it started to become overwhelming and I decided to take that leap of faith and quit my job and trust the plans God had for me. My business has been doing so far so good and is continuing to grow. I have catered many events from weddings, babyshowers, a high school prom and many more. Becoming a full time business owner has been such a learning experience for myself and others who have been on this journey with me and continuing to encourage me along the way. The highlights of running my business have been catering larger events and seeing my clientele grow just from not only word of mouth but promoting my business more on social media.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/yfbgkitchen
- Instagram: YFBGKITCHEN
- Facebook: YFBGKITCHEN