This week I’m going live with the one & only Chef Lizette.
For sure we’ll hit on cooking, drinking, branding, podcasting, marketing, social media....
And whatever the hell else we feel like talking about!
Tune in for this energetic conversation at TalkRadio.nyc or watch the Facebook Livestream by clicking here.
Jeremiah introduces the message of the week, “we are always selling to 98.6 degrees”, which is the average body temperature of a human, and it is important to remember whenever you are trying to sell something, that there is a human on the other side of the transaction. Jeremiah introduces his guest for this week’s episode, Chef Lizette, a successful personal chef from NYC, who is often referred to as Chef by everyone from all walks of life. Chef Lizette explains the reasoning behind being referred to as Chef, that many people have difficulty pronouncing her full name Lizette Lopez De Arriaga, and that she used Chef Lizette for personal branding, to help others out, as she often cringes at how some people pronounce her name when they introduce her. She explains how even after she is no longer going to be a chef full time, she still wants to be referred to as Chef Lizette, to pay homage to her time as a chef. The two discuss Chef Lizette’s decision to go into the culinary industry, and she explains that the Sunday dinner she and her family had every week growing up is what inspired her to pursue cooking as a career. She continues to explain how she had a formal education in fashion, but even though she loves fashion, it never quite stuck with her as cooking did. She recalls watching Julia Child on PBS, which continued to inspire her to cook, and she went to UCLA for her culinary education. Chef Lizette also discusses her time working in restaurants and other formal cooking jobs, as she worked at the Ritz-Carlton and with Wolfgang Puck before she became a private chef. Jeremiah goes into his culinary career, and how even though he never had a formal education in culinary arts, he still gained a lot of knowledge through his experience.
The two discuss Chef Lizette’s move from Los Angeles to New York, and she explains how moving to New York was always the plan for her, that the city has always captivated her. Chef Lizette explains her transition in her career to being a personal chef. She explains when she met Julia Child at a book signing, where Julia Child told her to never stop learning and be humble. To Chef Lizette those words were incredibly important, and she kept those words to heart, and that because of that she wanted to create a large ranging resume, and didn’t want to be cornered into a niche within the culinary industry. She continues to explain that being a restaurant chef, while a good experience for her, was not something she would be able to do for the rest of her life, as she enjoys interacting with the customers when cooking for them. Jeremiah discusses how he also likes interacting with the customers, and how many of the restaurants he worked at were open-air kitchens, and customers were able to come up and interact with him while he was cooking. He also explains that at his restaurant Della there is an open air kitchen, and it is incredibly important to him to have this customer interaction with the kitchen. The two discuss wine, and how often wine comes up in Chef Lizette’s job. She explains that she had to take courses in culinary school related to wine, but more importantly many of her cousins and her grandparents loved wine. She explains that what made her realize how important wine was to a meal was when she went to Napa, where she had the a meal where the wine matched to the meal perfectly.
Jeremiah and Chef Lizette continue talking in depth on how Chef Lizette came to New York, with Chef Lizette discussing how in Los Angeles where she was originally based there is only a small community of people who needed a private chef. She continues to explain how for a long time she never thought she needed an agent, because most of her work came from word of mouth. But, in New York the environment for private chefs is an incredibly different environment, and many of the people in the community that needed private chefs tended to want New York chefs, and the supply and demand of private chefs and clients in New York is very different from the supply and demand of Los Angeles. Chef Lizette continues to explain that she had a client offer in New York, and the catalyst that convinced to make the move to New York was the death of her close friend. But, after she packed up and sold everything to move to New York for this new client, the client decided to keep the chef they already had. She explains how she was able to figure out how to stay in New York to be able to get a job with a client, with very little money and no home, until she was able to land a client by offering to work for free for two weeks. Jeremiah builds off of her story, comparing it to the life story of Tony D, his personal mentor. The two discuss their upbringings and how it contributed to their mindset going forward in their careers. Chef Lizette explains the importance of discussing the difficulties that come with success in one’s career, as people often don’t discuss those aspects.
Chef Lizette discusses the book Crush it!by Gary Vaynerchuck, and how reading it has changed her life and her mindset. How everything that was included in the book spoke to her, and resembled her own life. Jeremiah and Chef Lizette discuss her attitude and successful use of social media. Chef Lizette continues to explain how Crush it! became so important to her, that she had to become the person ready to receive the information presented in the book for it to make the impact that it did on her. They discuss how no one knows when the magic moment when the information will click with a person, so it is important to include repetition of these ideas and facts so that the information is readily available to people when they are ready for this information to click with them. Jeremiah and Chef Lizette briefly discuss her upcoming podcast that she is working on Breaking Bread with Chef Lizette.
