subject: Opening A Catering Business - Assembling Your Team [print this page] Putting together your management team for your catering business requires you to take stock of where your expertise really lies. The skill sets and workloads required of the sales and operations aspects of the catering business are such you will probably need, at minimum, two managers to fill these roles. Consider which you will be and then how to go about finding the other.
Sales-Side Manager
Your business must start with at least one salesperson. The sales manager will be the face the customers see most often. Just because this individual must know sales, marketing and customer service doesn't mean he or she can lack understanding of food and food service. This manager should be able to talk customers through the entire food service process, and possibly the entire event if your catering company professes to be true event planners. This person needs to be comfortable with the range of options available to customers through your company, and able to express what can be achieved for different budgets. If the sales manager does the job right, he or she does not have to be on site for every event or delivery as the clients will trust that your company's staff have the same work ethic.
Operations-Side Manager
The operations manager may be the head chef for the company or an operations manager who the head chef reports to. This manager must be concerned with all of the details that go into fulfilling a customer order, from procuring supplies and ingredients, renting event equipment, creating a workable schedule for the production process, arranging for delivery, and seeing through the close out of each order. The operations manager should be able to explain the costs of producing specific items on the menu to allow the sales manager to know how to price orders to allow for profit.
