Meet Gayle, the small business owner of Grandma’s Home Style Cooking – providing customers in Kempsey NSW with home cooked meals when life gets busy.
Grandma’s Home Style Cooking can provide bulk family meals to the door. Sometimes is is because there is a new baby in the family, an elderly relative needing care, an illness, or disability challenges. Gayle takes the stress away by delivering a home cooked meal.
“Tania, my Many Rivers business coach, has helped me with marketing and putting myself out there. Because its all very well to have these skills but if you can’t get yourself out to the people then it’s no use.”
Keep reading to hear the more about Gayle’s business journey with Grandma’s Home Style Cooking.
Meet Gayle
My business is a meal delivery service. Predominately NDIS clients and I’ve been operating since July 2019.
I’m near retirement so I’ve done a lot of different work before opening my own business. I was working in hospitality and with chefs in TAFE and before that I was doing a diploma in community services. So, I put the two things together and came up with my business.
I was doing a NEIS course and one of the speakers that came to the NEIS course was a Many Rivers business coach.
I made the decision to open my own business because I thought I’d have a go at doing something myself because I’d always been employed up until now.
Working with Many Rivers
A lot of guidance and support for setting up the business. It’s just a good referral point to bounce different ideas off and just get guidance in the areas that you need.
We also arranged pro-bono assistance for the website Terms & Conditions. I haven’t designed a website yet. I am very conscious of the increase in demand to the service once the business does start being visible more.
Tania said that I need to be on Facebook and I told her “no I don’t do technology”. It wasn’t until it wasn’t working that I decided I needed Facebook. And there she was, patiently smiling and helping me set up a Facebook page.
Biggest Success
Delivering to five clients in one day just last week. My client base has grown.
Biggest Challenge
Technology. Another thing that Tania, my Many Rivers business coach, did for me was she gave me a pack for bookkeeping. For someone who didn’t want to do technology that was a really good resource. For someone to recognise that I was struggling in that area to come and help me do it the old fashioned way.
Future Goals for Grandma’s Home Style Cooking
I’m going to expand to a separate premises. I can’t be too big and be in my kitchen at home. I was going in the direction of getting a website and Instagram but now I am trying to see how to expand but staying within my own limits of where I am at the moment. I’m going to talk with Tania about being more efficient in the way I do things. Then I can take on clients from home. I need to do this as a step towards moving out of the house. I don’t have enough income to cover all the cost of having a separate place. However, if I become more efficient then I would be able to move. We discussed paying someone else to complete deliveries. I am looking into using a local person or an Uber driver.
Thanks Gayle for sharing your story of your home cooking small business with us. We can’t wait to support you on this journey to achieving your future business goals. Make sure to follow Grandma’s Home Style Cooking on Facebook.
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Did you love this client story and want to read another? Read about David and Dee, the small business owners of The Gazebo Florist who kick-started their dream with support from their Many Rivers business coach.
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