Starting Catering/delivery business. need help

[forzamilan]

Hi guys, I could really appreciate your guys' help on this one. This is the situation.

My friends dad has an italian restaraunt here in Vancouver. He also has a pasta delivery business as well that he does from the restaraunt. Currently he supplies 4 of Vancouvers larger italian deli's with Lasagnas. This combined with the restaraunt is becoming too much work for the guy so he wants his son as well as myself and one other fellow to take of the lasagna end of the business and help it grow. Im pritty well versed in business as I have experience at the university level as well as some hands on experience. What we want to try and do is expand our clientele to more deli's as well as the corporate/business market and possibly even major retailers. If any of you guys have experience in this sort of thing, what do you recommend as my first course of action?

I figured that the first things that need to be done are creating a very nice brochure (maybe around 500-1000) that we can drop off at several restaraunts/delis/small commercial buildings in downtown vancouver and hopefully get some owners to try the lasagna and see if they like it and perhaps they will stock their stores with our product. I also think a nice webpage that people can place orders online would be good. Possibly advertising in the local papers.

We dont need to worry about a location cause we can make the pasta in the restaraunt for free, so really our only costs are the ingriedents, advertising and travel expenses. How does one go about approaching say an Urban Fair or IGA about getting a meeting with a manager and testing out our product?
What do you recommend we should do when we first start out to get the biz off the ground?

THANKS IN ADVANCE

[B40]

1st thing - write a business plan.

It is technical, and you may argue that you don't really need it, but it does help. Gives you a nice framework of what you want to do and allows you to track your actual results with planned results.

If you need anything Internet based, send me a PM, I can help you with everything you'll need to get a website up and running.

[eelfliw]

The real question is, can the business afford a period of stagnation while you learn how to do sales?

If not, and you have no professional sales experience and the business can afford it, try outsourcing, ie. hire a salesman.

If the business is pretty stable and can afford stagnation, then you have some time to learn how to do sales.

[forzamilan]

bump

[midget_man]

All you have to do is find that one special customer...............







Find him and all your problems will be solved....................









You could be in business for years................................










Just don't tell Jon...............................

[forzamilan]

Does anyone know a good place in Vancouver to get a brochure/order form created?/ or a website where I can look at templates