you want to welcome to in the c suite where we bring you tips tools and resources for small business owners entrepreneurs and other professionals what thinking about starting their own businesses we are starting their brand new series in the second of training series  to tell you all about it actually invited a guest to come back to me today and we're going to put our business hats on and we're going to share some information with you for people who are in transition and thinking about kind of second tier careers what am i going to do next we are going to help i guess dispel some myths explain a brand new industry that you may not have thought of that we probably interact with on a regular basis but we're going to look at the business side of it was so without any further delay i want to welcome back to the show executive chef dave graham if you have me back we thank you for coming back again so i said at the beginning we're going to put our business hats on this time and i'm going to kind of tell you who the audience is and it's pretty much the same audience but with those specific mission this time when i said professionals in transition i'm going to tell you who are kind and thinking about their they are professionals who are doing well they're perfectly fine they're employed but in the back of their minds they're having this what if they come pull this rug from under my feet and what am i going to do and or one of them will pull the rug and i'm just thinking what i want to do is right maybe they're fine but then there's that second segment that has already been downsized they are watching those service packages if they were fortunate enough to get one start to dwindle therefore a one  that we are not supposed to touch but we don't have a choice our dwindling checking account balances everything's going down down down and they're trying to get back into the job market get their foot back in the door with this whole new maze that you have to navigate now where you send something to the computer and you never hear from anyone again right got put right keywords in and everybody stressed and i think there's an invisible population people are just really nice but you don't know what they are dealing with and then the last group of people who have been looking for a while and they're in this place where i'm saying they're kind of being forced to start thinking about becoming a c e o meaning i'm going to start my own business i don't know if anybody's going to hire me again maybe i'm only fifty five years old what am i going to do for the next twenty years right so that's the audience it's people that we probably want passed every day days that we think oh they're ok and you don't know they could be holding it together with what i call crazy glue or masking tape you just don't know and one of the things one gram of these days is a story behind every face and so let's talk to that group of people people that time when those hills and valleys came around i was in that valley homeless and not knowing where everything was going to end up and i know that not just myself homeless but myself with my wife and kids and as a father you know you have your goal is to protect them from everything right you are you are the forefront you are the you are the bodyguard you are that one this supposed to take all the hits and bruises so that they don't be affected by anything but so yes i do understand but one can never give up on his or her self never stop believin even if some the best part about someone taking something away there really is no place to go but up there really isn't and so that's why i'm thankful i didn't even know that whole part of the back story who would know that and it's a perfect example you don't know what people are going through so this show this series that we're going to embark upon is for that group of people so thank you for being here to help me kick it off you've been featured on food network's chopped it for anyone who didn't see the previous segment  want to talk about this restaurant industry because many of us know how to cook you can go up in the south on a farm i didn't grow up in the south but i had family so i was there pretty often so we were always in the kitchen cooking and so it's a potential opportunity for us maybe to figure out how the business side looks like let's talk about a restaurant where in the restaurant all the time let's look at it from the business perspective  difficult is it to kind of you've had a restaurant to kind of get that thing off the ground or is there a smaller place that we can start because i don't want people to think oh i just got to go on this day maybe i should start working at the restaurant first first off you w literally do you do all the background double check that would check every single thing that you want to do if the restaurant industry is one of the most flourishing diverse industries there is out there there's a lot of love and passion that is put into it and if you happen to have an ounce of love a passion for cooking yeah you will succeed in this business let's talk about the restaurant itself not so much ownership let's start with scuse me and i know you said this to me before a lot of people report to the sushi chef and the sushi every ports executive chef where that vision actually comes from and their vision trickles all the way back down the line cook the cook and the prep cook there are the hands in the feet of the executive so let me try to help people envision this because we don't see what goes on and you know the executive chef is kind of the visionary yeah right he's the one who he or she is the one that is kind of creating this atmosphere of this restaurant so the prep cook is the one chop and yes do they physically and i'm just trying to see what goes on in the kitchen are they physically taking something to the line cook i'm just figuring out what goes on back there yes and it's a war going to depends on the size of the restaurant ok if it a small restaurant nine times out of ten they're probably preparing everything thing chopping it up and then taking it to the line cook in the like of that actually cooking it now in a large establishment he was probably preparing put it in the walk in area and then there's a line cook wi sushi chef yes through the vision a list record of share yes got it so it's a team thing going on i'm a sports person so everything to me is an analogy of a team yes so and even with film there's a crew yes so it's very similar every person on that crew although you never get to see us point them yes has a specific role that all kind of has to play in tandem yes for that final product to be produced to have seen an executive always you can tell a good executive chef nine times out of ten if he's really really good he's out on the floor in the front on the dining room because he has made sure that his crew is taking care of got it and they trust their executives that much but he can just walk freely in the vision has been saying so they really and and to that point not just the vision they have to know all of those different aspects almost like an executive producer again i'm  we have to know every even if we're not directing or working the cameras or anything at that particular time we still need to know how all plays together how the production everything comes together same thing with the executive chef exact so you're out there not just looking at the customers d servers bus person and these are the ones that make your dining experience happen ok so you know i'm going to break this down because you've just said a lot of different things that we've got service that self explanatory maitr to a table and whenever they're going back out to go serve in the back a captain lead his team back out for service or the be unison all the way around because it's just like film crew there's so many when you when people turn off the show they've missed all the credit yes those are people those are all individual roles is the same thing so now that i have you know we've helped kind of expand upon what the roles are where people get training like if they are interested in you know what  career which became their number one career you know it's amazing even in sales in bank with sales and things and age and quite a few friends that used to be teachers and lawyers and even have an executive chef randall used to be a doctor transition from one career to the next they were in sales in something else or they were in the they were in a fraud and something else right right enshrines ition over to the hospitality industry and that's what they love so people just love people right exactly and if you do this is the perfect place to be and if you're accustomed to talking to people i mean and it just rolls off your tongue you really are just coming up the learning curve yes what product is yes but the sales piece is the sales always right that interaction you're comfortable with if you can if you can literally come up with that sales pitch to keep someone in that seat if you don't you're doing a great job so that's a whole nother again this is second tier careers this is the thing i want to uncover things that people may not have thought of so when we come back i want to talk about so that was to rest one piece yes we touched on it a little bit of a take a quick break let's talk about catering yes kind of the similarities what's different about it and how people might be able to kind of make that transition into that piece as a sales outlook of life also this is great so far i told you i told you you see why i reminded executives have james graham back we will be right back after this quick break grab a pad and pencil was going to get into some specifics although those are specific to well i get into some more and we'll be right back in a few minutes everybody stay t and now back to the show we are back in the c suite continuing our brand new executive training series with my very first guest in this series executive chef james graham so right before we went to the break we started to talk about banquet captains and banquet sales and catering and i'm kind of curious about the difference between getting into the restaurant piece versus catering i e i'm really good at i don't know making sandwiches and i want to prepare sandwiches for businesses that are in the local area let's talk about the catering business and how that's a little bit different but catering the restaurant somewhere to actually move forward with catering is a good way to go you can do these things at home you can you can create your own brain and social media is your best friend you can start taking  pictures and never ever be afraid of someone telling you that it didn't taste good that's important isn't it yes you have to ask them thick skin when people start criticizing it and again i make all these analogies was kind of like filmmaking when you do something pour your heart and soul into it and you spend hours and hours and hours to put together a ten minute segment somebody watches was all right ye walk went into that what do you mean it was an awesome exactly so let's talk about that piece and does that matter in catering to you think still and i need to have that thick skin yes you do in catering you have to have very very because nine times out of ten when you doing catering you do in large groups right and you know people talk and if you in a group and one says one thing and the other and it trickles around and you're still at that event yeah so  yes it can really be it can hurt you or it can help you grow you make you stronger make you stronger yeah and let the stuff roll off your back you have to yeah because if you sit there and think about it it's not going to is not going to hurt it's not going to help you in  right so you have to just suck it up and just move forward but then what you have to do is learn from that if you don't learn from that and then you know then that hurt you but catering is a broad spectrum of possibilities let's give him some just some specifics as i like to be as crystal as i can let's just let's go back to the sandwich idea yes where do i go to get the materials i'm in i'm home and i'm making sandwiches or is it that simple can i just start making sandwiches in my house what what's the protocol behind that i would say yes but also get your audience ok it's your audience let people start tasting your food not just your family members but but invite some friends from friends over one time when we were talking about this offline you mentioned an example of a lemon cake oh yeah let's talk about that because i thought that that was something people can really really relate to i say it all the time now my grandmother may one of the best let me cakes i ever had my she still does right now but when i moved to new jersey there's a young lady that lives in new york she still sells these lemon cakes now she would sell these lemon she cakes out of her house i think they were fifteen bucks apiece but i know that every single weekend we had an event in my church there would be lines everybody would pull up to her house and grab eleven cake gravelly mckay and we were not the only church that was pulling up to grab them and know it wasn't just churches but the best part about her base with that home you had to go anywhere except to go to the store to grab the product speaking of baking at home or cooking at home other wills and regulations around that we should like about you can't just start cooking this stuff up and right there's some protocol you need to go through there is quite a bit you know your kitchen needs to be up to code there should be some some licensing somewhere and every city is different ok just go to your food board of health and they will help you out with all of those they're coming into your kitchen i want to be specific then you know they're not sending you a manual they are literally coming to inspect you well ok make sure that you get to all of this stuff is online now i think that's the best part about it now you can go online and get all the information but once you are set up then you invite the inspector at it i do so at some point somebody had to call us something invite them make sure that you already ready them don't let them come surprise you don't want to surprise because surprise is they go to shit and things that i understand in terms of materials and things that you need to buy let's go back to the sandwich example where i get those pretty containers and where i get the plastic and where do i get those supplies there's a lot of dumb do it yourself places out there that but for food there's a place called restaurant people which has literally everything from soup to nuts you can get your coconuts you can get your cheeses your produce everything one stop shopping even have the but it's it's sending in a subliminal message yes and how much care and pride you take in the delivery of what you're letting that person i really care about some effort into this our time is winding down so that might be something that people can look into and you definitely think and then i guess you can kind of tell that like guess where your personality clash on because you don't have an executive chef vision you as you are now bringing to life yes right this is your vision that you get to once you get your food truck in order and you want to go and open up a restaurant guess what you've just learned without a school adding learn how to run a restaurant by yourself so when someone you interview that person or that maitre d spot or for that executive chef but you have just perhaps all of it and you know what you're looking for so you don't just read the thing in a book you brought that to life yeah you've lived it that's the best part and that's i would imagine when you're an executive chef little person might join your team yes that's what you want yes you want someone knows how to bring this thing to life if that's the case then you can do it yourself yeah i love it so you were on chopped and yes part of the food network yes watch the other segment if you haven't seen where you were what i'm excited about is that you're such a good storyteller and i come from a family a grandmother was a poetry therapist and i like to listen to people share their stories and i can kind of envision that it's a story but it's also instructional piece tonight so you married the two yes i'm excited about the how can people get in touch with you you can reach me at jaggers at g mail dot com there is j a g r e h s g mail dot com and my number is seven three two three seven to five six eight four and again a seven three two three seven two five six eight four look for my website to be launched in the very near future a lot of things right now under construction yet because i'm reinventing myself it is getting  forward so the entrepreneur has just it's really coming to life but we have been landed i love it i'm excited about it this series is for us yes it's for you it's for us it's the people who are right in this boat that you know sometimes the internet's overwhelming united google of stuff is too much but they can tune into something like this and they can say ok oh i didn't realize i didn't know i could take my sales experience and turn to bank with sales i didn't know thank you for sharing i learned a lot and i am sure that everybody who tuned in thank you so much everybody reached out to executives to james graham thank you just ponce for bringing today show to all the viewers visit our website for more information stating exec's dot com and we look forward to seeing all of you