Cooking Schools and Teachers Teleforum

August 19, 2003 - How to Get Scheduled in Cooking Schools if You're Not A Celebrity Chef

Moderator & Speaker: Cathy Cochran-Lewis, Austin-based culinary consultant for cooking schools, chef/cookbook author promotions, culinary travel, former director of Central Market cooking schools, and current IACP Board member foodie11@aol.com

Speaker: Mary Cech, pastry chef, traveling cooking teacher, 1st cookbook out this fall, cechchoc2@yahoo.com

Speaker: George Geary, pastry chef, traveling cooking teacher, cookbook author, ggeary@aol.com

Cathy's Perspective:

A combination of factors (economy, travel expenses, rising popularity of TV chefs, and America's continuing infatuation with well-known cookbook authors) have forced many cooking schools to focus their dollars on big names that can guarantee a sold-out classroom and add to the bottom line with book sales.

Teachers who want to break into the traveling teacher segment must demonstrate their marketability to cooking schools. First and foremost, the non-celebrity cooking teacher must understand the position of cooking schools –profitability and promotional exposure.

Cooking schools:

• Must sell out classes to pay expenses
  
• Can't take many chances with their instructor dollars
  
• Seldom have the luxury of hosting someone to "start" building a market for their classes
  
• Want teachers to come with a ready-made market
  
• Want teachers to help promote their own classes
  
• Want teachers who are cost-conscious with menus, expenses, travel, etc.

How can you become marketable to cooking schools? Build a Media Kit! Make it easy for a cooking school director to schedule you, by creating a thorough, dynamic media kit. Your kit should include:

• A listing of class offerings with a written class description and menu for each class. Know what the market is! Get catalogs in advance and see what you can offer a school that they are not already featuring. Make sure your ideas for classes are current.
  
• A couple of sample recipes
  
• A one-page bio and a photo of you
  
• Testimonials from schools you have taught at or from other known culinary professionals
  
• Media clips of stories written about you
  
• A one-page information sheet that includes your proposed teaching fee, schools you've taught at, your teaching specialties, your availability
  
• Marketing assistance – website listing of classes, contact students in the area, contact media with a press release, stir up interest!

Once you have your kit, follow these 4 steps to begin your new traveling teaching career:

1. Mail your media kits to cooking schools you are interested in with a personal letter indicating why you are a good fit for that school. Research the school and understand who they schedule and why. Learn about the types of classes that are successful. Call the school and talk with them to gain general information.
2. Follow up with telephone calls and e-mails. Many schools get bombarded with teachers who call so don't be put off by not getting a return phone call. Make sure that what you're offering is something that is of value to the school.
3. Begin amassing other assets that make you marketable:* Build a database from every school you teach at and then when you approach a school, let them know you will be contacting former students in the area to help promote your class.
   
   • Have a website where you can post your classes and appearances.
   • Do an e-mail newsletter to provide info and update your former students.
   • Make yourself known! Get media attention, write articles, do radio shows, get active in IACP, volunteer with prominent food organizations such as SOS, Les Dames d'Escoffier, ACF…
   • Special Perks
     • Establish a teaching rate that is fair given your accomplishments. Without a book or TV exposure, most schools won't pay more than $300 to $400 for one class.
     • Can you get a product sponsor of any kind to help you with travel?
     • Offer to teach the class on a sliding scale basis.
     • Offer to teach the class for free, if it's feasible.
     • Offer to share airfare expenses or teach first class at a reduced rate.
     • Work diligently to secure several schools on a tour so travel expenses can be shared. Always let each school know where else you are teaching and don't teach in the same city at two different schools.
     • Contact media and let them know about your class. Let the cooking school know you contacted the media.
   • Building Relationships is EVERYTHING
     • Make contacts at IACP. Attend the cooking school & teachers forums and networking social.
     • Prepare a postcard or one page info sheet to hand out at IACP about who you are and what you want to teach.
     • Attend classes in your area. Offer to volunteer at some classes.
4. How to Be Asked Back:
   • Be a professional. Provide class material, prep lists, printed recipes EARLY – at least 6 weeks prior to class.
   • Offer options for ingredients that are hard to find.
   • Don't be a prima donna. Do everything you can to make your class easy on the staff, easy on the director, and valuable and entertaining for the student.
   • Ask for feedback from the directors who scheduled you.
   • Ask to see student surveys/feedback forms.
   • Always thank each and every member of the staff for working with you and give them credit in front of the class.
   • Send a thank you note.
   • Always collect a list of names & e-mails from the students who attended your class. Include them in your database and/or send them an e-mail or note to thank them for attending your class.
   • Above all, be easy to work with, grateful for the opportunities, follow up on all requests immediately, and give cooking schools every reason TO schedule you.
     

Mary's Perspective:

We're all in a growth process, trying to get better at it as the market churns. Marketing is about YOU. You are your best marketing tool.

• Put your best and most positive foot forward, always.
• Be proactive.
• Ask what can you do for the school, not what can you do for yourself.

If you've taught in a school and want to go back, ask and answer some of your own questions:

• Why would a school want me to come teach for them?
  • I teach well, I communicate well with the students as well as the director of the school.
  • I work well with staff.
  • I write a good program.
  • I sell in-store merchandise.
  • I help sell my classes through my website, through my mailing list/postcards/newsletter.

Tips to build good teaching and working relationship with schools:

• Be respectful at all times to everyone you come in contact with. Assistants are there to help you, and many times they are volunteers. You're both stressed to get the class out on time, don't lose your temper and remember they are doing their best. How you act will influence whether or not you are asked back.
  
• Be flexible. Things fall through the cracks due to miscommunication, especially when writing over email, with multiple points of contact with the school. Communicate as many times as you need to.
  
• Be patient.
  
• Be intuitive to students questions and needs in different areas of the country. There will be questions like high altitude, or humidity, etc. Make good eye contact with students. Engage the student.
  
• Be organized and have everything prepared in ample time before class. Make sure there are enough samples, but not too many, being conscious of the school's food costs.
  
• Don't be unreasonable when ordering special and/or expensive ingredients. Have substitute ingredients in mind for the school when they cannot locate a particular item.
  
• In your class, start on time and finish in a timely manner.
  
• Read your evaluations on class so that you can work on areas for improvement. Solicit feedback from the cooking school director for areas of improvement.
  
• Do not have an ego. Chefs have big egos, and part is built in for confidence levels and can be good, but too much ego is not good. If someone tells you they didn't like your class, listen and improve upon your style of teaching and performance.

Building your teaching style:

• Start locally. Helps you get comfortable in front of a class, helps you get used to the types of questions home chefs ask.
  
• Branch out to traveling teaching after you've mastered the local scene.

Mary started an on-line newsletter (sent to names she's collected through her classes) to help continue to market herself. She also included the store directors on the distribution list so they know she's helping market her classes.

George's Perspective:

George shared how he marketed himself in the beginning when he wasn't teaching outside of California, and didn't have a cookbook, but wanted to teach on the east coast. He started by using his networking skills within IACP for contacts, but recognized that he would have to prove to the schools that he was marketable. (He now teaches at 130+ schools nationwide.)

He turned not having a cookbook into an asset, by explaining to schools that he could teach for them more often than a cookbook author who only has a new book every 2 or 3 years. He marketed himself with topic-driven classes. By teaching "subjects," he convinced schools that they could have a much longer (and more frequent) relationship with him than a teacher who was using book-driven classes.

Now that he has a book, he is running into schools who don't want him back until he has another book. He says the types of people coming to cooking schools when there is an author, are not necessarily the same students who are coming for the topic classes.

He used his background as the Disney pastry chef to open some doors. When he started some schools weren't doing pastry classes, so he was able to fill a niche. If he was met with "everyone is on a diet, your pastry class won't sell," argument, he simply asked the director if they were selling their diet classes. The answer was mostly no, so he overcame their objections.

He also began building a media database, gathering the names of food editors of newspapers and local magazines in the towns he was targeting. He sends out press releases to help build traffic for his classes.

Combining several schools on a trip is also a way to get bookings, asking schools what other schools are in the area and how can he work with them to combine expenses. He said paid for half the travel on the first teaching trip he made because the school wanted to share expenses. He didn't have another school lined up, but said he did and just covered the expenses himself.

George first calls a school to talk to them about teaching for them, and then follows up with a teaching kit instead of sending the kit first and then following up. He gets a date first, and then sends topics, not menus. He stopped sending menus because the schools would cherry pick between the menus and come up with a menu full of items that don't go together. In his press kit, he sends clippings from magazine articles he's written, and provides a list of schools where he has taught.

He doesn't send his recipes in until he knows the class is going to make. He's had too many schools cancel the class, but provide (or worse, sell) the recipes to the students, or have a staff person teach his recipes after canceling his appearance.

He has a huge master mailing list containing the names, email and street addresses of students from all the classes he's taught, sorted by school name. Now he can send emails and mailings to those students for future classes.

Question & Answer:

Comment: Give yourself time before class starts to go over menu and recipes with assistants, and give them a timeline so they know how the class will flow.

Q: Do any schools not like you to gather student addresses/emails?

A: Some don't, but if you put them at ease by assuring them that you don't give the information to other schools, and you don't promote your other school classes with their students, they usually don't mind you collecting information. The schools actually benefit from the marketing you do. Always ask the school first before asking the students to give you information.

Q: How often do you send out press releases to the media to let them know you are coming to the area?

A: George sends a release to a new school, and checks with the school to see if he's allowed to invite the media to attend the class (gratis). He doesn't send a release every time, but certainly focuses on his first trip to the area. After he's been there, he's gathered names and can fill the classes without the media attention. When his book was released, he sent his publisher a list of all the upcoming classes he was teaching and the publisher took care of notifying the media.

Cathy said that it wouldn't hurt initially to get your name out there to contact the media whenever you are traveling.

Q: Margaret Henderson from Utah says that the Salt Lake market is pretty saturated with cooking classes. Sur La Table has cut back on classes, and has staff teaching most classes. She teaches at 4 locations including out of her home, but it's difficult to get back into Sur La Table. Are others experience this same issue?

A: Sur La Table is viewing her teaching in her home as competition. She may have to live with not teaching as much at Sur La Table, as teaching in her home is her "bread & butter." She could look to teaching outside of Salt Lake for additional teaching revenue.

Q: What is the profitability of a teacher, and what is the driving force behind being an instructor?

A: A big part is the passion, doing something you love (cooking/traveling/meeting new people), trying to grow to a new level. Mary wanted to cross over from professional teaching to home cook teaching. She wanted to market herself so that eventually she could promoter herself, write a cookbook, and move into a new area of her career.

Margaret says that she can teach 4 nights a week, at $300 a class, and it becomes a decent income.

Q: Emily teaches all ethnic cuisines in Santa Fe, and is running into schools asking her what her specialty is. Saying all cuisines is too broad. How can she market herself?

A: Pick up schedules from cooking schools and take 1 of 2 approaches. Either offer something similar, or pick something different, hoping to fill a void.

George also suggests that you contact schools and offer to do a day tour on a Saturday into ethnic markets in the city, etc. Expand beyond just teaching.

Q: How can you protect your recipes from being distributed by the school if you don't teach the class? Can you copyright the recipes?

A: When you submit your recipes, you have every right to put the copyright symbol or the word "copyrighted" the year and your name on every recipe. Explain to the schools that your recipes are copyrighted which means they cannot use them without your permission.