May 12, 2023 • 34 mins
This week I speak with chef Matt Collins about payment methods and deposits, with a side or horror stories. Whether you work in the food industry or not, if you receive payment for your services, you won't want to miss this.
We cover various options for payment methods, including cash, check, Venmo, Zelle, Paypal and Square. We talk deposits: when to request them and how much to ask for. Additionally, we discuss fees and gratuity. Tune in to gain valuable insights and practical tips on handling payments.
MATT COLLINS
Matt Collins on Instagram
Chef Collins Events - Private Dinners
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Today I'm talking to posits payment methods and
horror stories with Chef MattCollins, whether you're someone
who works in the food businessor not, if you take money for
your services, stick around,because you're gonna want to
hear this. I'm Chris spear. Andyou're listening to Chefs
Without Restaurants, the showwhere I speak with culinary
entrepreneurs and people workingin the food and beverage
(00:21):
industry outside of atraditional restaurant setting.
As most of you know, I work as apersonal chef. For my business.
I currently accept cash checkZell Venmo, and sometimes PayPal
as a payment method. Thisweekend, I had an issue with a
customer payment through Zellthat's already been on the show
twice, you might have heard himbefore. He's someone I talked to
(00:43):
frequently, often bouncing ideasand thoughts off of him. When I
had this issue, I sent Matt amessage joking that we should do
a show about it. I know he's hadissues with Venmo and checks. So
we thought, why not talk aboutit. When I started this podcast,
it was because I wanted to bringreal value to those who are new
business owners, or maybelooking to start one. This is a
topic that I see come up a lotin personal chef forums, and
(01:05):
people ask me all the time aboutpayment methods. I keep the
intro short, because we're goingto really dig into it on the
show. But we talked aboutdifferent options for payment
methods. We also talked aboutdeposits, how, when and how
much. We're going to talk aboutfees, gratuity, and paying by
cash. And due to the nature ofthe conversation, we're gonna
get into some horror stories,which I think you'll find
(01:26):
amusing. Overall, Matt's amildly funny guy, and we try to
keep it light. As always, if yougo to chefs without
restaurants.org, you can findlinks to everything, including
our private Facebook group, andyou'll be able to add yourself
to our database so you canhopefully get some gig leads. If
you have any questions, commentsor feedback on this episode. I'd
love to hear from you. My DMSare always open on Instagram at
(01:46):
Chefs Without Restaurants or youcan shoot me an email at chefs
without restaurants@gmail.com.
This week's episode will beright up after a word from this
week's sponsor, the UnitedStates personal chef
Association. Are you a personalchef looking for support and
growth opportunities? Look nofurther than the United States
personal chef association withnearly 1000 members across the
US and Canada. You SPCA providesliability insurance
(02:10):
certification lead generationand more. Consumers can trust
that their meal experience isinsured and supported by us
SPCA. And now for a limitedtime, save $75 on new membership
and get your premiere listing onhire chef by using the code tax
break 2023 at OU spca.com That'scapital T capital B. Plus, if
(02:32):
you have products or services tosell chefs and their clients
showcase your business on hirechef and USPTA websites with our
great introductory packages. Tolearn more about membership
advertising or partnershipopportunities call Angela at
1-800-995-2138. Extension 705
Chris Spear (02:53):
or email a PR a th er at us pca.com Hey Matt,
welcome to the show. Thanks forcoming back. I guess this is
like your third time. So you'reprobably my most appearing guest
at this point. You did theregular episode you did a what
is the chef or what is a chefmini episode and now we're back
(03:14):
to talking about payment methodstoday, which I guess at its
core, maybe sounds like a drytopic, but I think we'll keep it
fun, right?
Matt Collins (03:20):
Yeah, I'm pretty fun. I'm excited for my jacket.
Kind of like SNL gonna have thethree timers club jacket on
Chefs Without Restaurants.
Chris Spear (03:28):
You're gonna be the Steve Martin of the Chefs
Without Restaurants podcast,Alec. Alec bald, I think those
two go back and forth. Yeah.
Matt Collins (03:36):
But people like Steve Martin, not everyone likes
Alec Baldwin. So that's why I'mhim. It's not everyone likes me.
Chris Spear (03:41):
I don't always like you either. It's kind of like
the Star Wars. I don't like youeither. Anyway, we're already
off track here. So for theaudience, we wanted to talk
about payment methods. You know,Matt's a personal chef, I'm a
personal chef. He and I actuallytalk off camera a lot about, you
know, when you should take adeposit how much what your
payment methods are. But thisstarted because this weekend, I
(04:04):
had a situation. So I've alwayssaid I take cash cheque. Zell
and Venmo. I can do PayPal, Idon't mind because it's an easy
way to take credit cardprocessing. But they charge a
fee, which I don't like. Soanyway, I had these guests at a
dinner there was nine people.
Now shame on me because I letthem all pay separately and
(04:26):
we'll get into this. I do feellike one person should be paying
you but it comes time to settleup. And all these guests, you
know their couples, so like fourof them want to pay Venmo and
you know, a couple want to payZell or whatever, which is
usually fine. So you know, theysend me the money. One woman
with the Zell it doesn't gothrough. It's not showing on my
(04:47):
phone. But I've had this issuebefore and I said you know,
don't worry about it. I'm sureit'll go through. Guess what it
didn't. It's two days later. NowI come home it's still not in my
bank. I don't know where thismoney is. But here's the
problem. I don't know who thiswoman is. She's not the person
who booked the party. She's aguest of the hostess, right? So
I call Xcel. And here's whatthey tell me. You don't have a
(05:09):
valid account. And I'm like,What do you mean, I don't have a
valid account, I have anaccount. So here's how the cell
works. It goes directly intoyour bank. But what they don't
tell you is it doesn't actuallygo to your bank account number,
it's tied to your debit card. Soyou know, like credit cards and
debit cards do there's anexpiration. So I guess my debit
card expired, and my bank sentme a new one, no big deal. I
(05:29):
didn't update it in the Zellapp. So when this woman went to
pay, Zell does not flag and saythis is not valid, can't go
through, they accept theprocess. I think I've got my
money, I leave the party. Andthen I find out later, guess
what, I didn't have a validdebit card on file. So they
refuse the charge. But at thetime of service, when I'm at
this party, the woman was nottold this. So she thinks it goes
(05:51):
through, I am not told this. SoI think it goes through. And now
I have to hope that this is agood person. And she is actually
going to send me the money sheowes me. But guess what, I also
have to figure out how to get ahold of her. So now I have to
email the hostess and say, hey,you know how we said the woman
who's gonna pay us out? And Ithought it'd be okay, guess what
it's not, can you reach out toyour friend and tell her she
needs to send me 250 bucks,which is just a pain in the ass.
(06:13):
So this is a long way of mesaying, I think I need to work
on some processes here. And Iknow Matt has had some issues
with some of these things aswell. So we wanted to talk about
this a little bit today, becauseI want to bring value to my
listeners. And I thought thiswould be more interesting than
just doing a solo show. So Mattand I are gonna hash it out a
little bit over payment methods.
(06:33):
What do you think, Matt?
Matt Collins (06:35):
Right, we literally had to bite my tongue
hearing that you allow people,multiple people to pay.
Chris Spear (06:42):
And this is not my first time I've done this and
had an issue. So yes. So yeah,getting getting into that you
really need to have one personmaking payment, right? If you
are doing a dinner party with 10people, and it's five couples,
how do you handle that?
Matt Collins (06:55):
Not one person, the only time I'll take a second
payment if someone else maybewants to leave a tip. And then
I've had an issue where someonesaid, Hey, I forgot to leave a
tip, can I leave a tip in frontof my staff? And then they're
like, you know, set it up viasquare, and then they just never
paid it. So I had to like, takescreenshots and show my staff
and like, yeah, they actuallyjust never paid it. So it's
(07:16):
like, because then it peoplethink I'm, you know, taking like
100 bucks out of their pocket,or something. And so it just put
me in this like weird, like,Curb Your Enthusiasm situation
of like, you know, I'm in overlike, you know, not that it's
the end of the world. It's alittle bit of money. But you
know, it just, you know, I havepeople who I rely on and if they
think I'm stealing money fromthem, that's not cool.
Chris Spear (07:35):
Yeah. Matt Collins is cancelled, because he's
stealing tips. Yeah,
Matt Collins (07:39):
I mean, well, I don't know honestly, how many
chefs has that happened to
Chris Spear (07:43):
quite a
Matt Collins (07:43):
few recently, most of them, you know, and I'm
almost like, who has it? I guessit's how you run a restaurant.
So we can't be the Chefs WithoutRestaurants doing the things the
Chefs Without Restaurants aredoing. But
Chris Spear (07:55):
But I do think this is more common, especially in
like younger parties. Like Isee, you know, I do a lot of
bachelorette parties. And it's adozen single girls, and they all
want to be like Venmo. When youat the table. Sometimes I found
that that does work out ifyou're talking about tips,
because it offsets the chancethat if there's one bad tip or
because I've had a party oflet's say 10, where the host is
the one who doesn't want a tip.
So you've got $1,000 dinner, andthey don't tip so you don't get
(08:19):
let's say 200 bucks. But atleast when you've got 10 people,
if you've got one who doesn'ttip, but nine others do, you
know, I'm playing the oddsthere, I'm playing the odds, but
Matt Collins (08:31):
you lost the tip on this last part because you
lost 250. And then there's like,sometimes there's individual
processing fees for eachtransaction, too. So you're
rising fees and just generalconfusion at the end of the year
doing your taxes. Oh, for thisparty, it was blah, blah, blah,
then you have to recalculate howmuch you lost in fees.
Chris Spear (08:49):
I haven't paid any fees most. I mean, we'll get
into the fees, things most ofthem are just a transaction
percentage. Venmo gives you theoption when you pay someone it
says is this for goods orservice. I think in like three
years of doing business, onlytwo people have flagged it as a
service where I did get assessedthe fee, and everyone else just
(09:11):
pays me and I haven't had to paywhich is why I love using Venmo
and Zelle because 99% of thetime I'm not assessed any kind
of fee on that which is sweet.
You know, when people pay viaPayPal, I'm getting whacked with
this, you know, I'm losing like30 $40 on a one transaction fee
and yes, there's a cost of doingbusiness. But if I could skate
through without paying that, youknow 40 $50 And I do want to be
(09:33):
clear this woman did pay for theparty. They all went 100% tipped
went above and beyond. I didmake my money. I don't know if
they're listening. They probablyaren't. But it was a great
party. We had lots of fun. Theydid pay me well and everyone
tipped and it worked out butthere was the off chance that
maybe I wouldn't get tipped orwouldn't get paid for this party
at least for one person.
Matt Collins (09:56):
Ah, I totally spaced on what I wanted to say
because I checked arranged likefour times?
Chris Spear (10:02):
Well, I think one of the big things is like going
back to it is, if you're doing aparty, you need to have one
person coordinate. Like if allthese people are paying their
own way, they need to givewhoever's the hostess needs to
collect that money, and then payyou out of their account. So if
we're buying or selling,
Matt Collins (10:18):
have a maximum, how many times you can split a
check. So I think, you know, Imean, I don't have the verbiage
on my website, but maybe Ishould add it, I haven't had
that as many issues as whatyou're having. But I've had some
times where it's, you know, I'mgonna pay X percentage and so
on. So it's gonna pay thebalance, because you know, I've
had people's parents pay forparties, you know, another
(10:39):
family member, split it with,you know, brother and sister
paying for a parentsanniversary. And then a lot of
weird stuff, as long as youknow, people are clear with
what's happening, hey, I'mpaying the deposit. And then you
know, another ex, anotherperson, next week's gonna pay
the remainder of the balancebefore the event, because that's
like a policy I have is, ifyou're not at the event, the
(11:00):
party has the event has to bepaid for beforehand. You know,
it can be the week of thebalance, but you just can't not
be there and then me go hunt youdown. Like I'm not debt
collector. I'm not the Punisher.
I'm not a, you know, Boba Fett?
No, you're Mr. Star Wars. Sothat's like a whole crazy thing.
(11:22):
When I first started thebusiness, I did a pop up. And
then my first public, I have myfirst private event. I literally
gotten an email beef while at myfirst ever private event about
someone who didn't like theverbiage of my deposit form, and
was like, Well, do you take Zelland I was like, I've never used
(11:45):
it, you can try sending it over.
And then, you know, that waslike the beginning of the meal,
like the hors d'oeuvres, firstcourse. You know, I had a minute
sent, sent that email. And thenlater by the entree, I'm like,
she's like, You got it. And I'mlike, I didn't get it. And then
I was literally had to call theperson step outside and was
like, Yo, you need to call yourbank call Bank of America called
Zell, I don't have it, I can'tsend it back. And if I don't
(12:06):
have a deposit, then you know,your your dinner in 910 days
isn't going to happen. BecauseI'm not going to buy food. And
it was right when I started thebusiness, I had very little
money. It wasn't like, I waslike, Oh, I can go buy all this
food. And I needed that money tobuy the food. Like, I just
bought all my plates, mywebsite, and, you know, like,
(12:28):
whatever napkins glassware, sowhere I was, the last thing I
needed to do was to spend acouple of $100 on food, and not
ever get paid or go into theZell void.
Chris Spear (12:41):
Yeah, I feel like the Zell void is real. And this
makes me think that I did have acustomer a couple days ago who
said they're going to send adeposit via Zell and now that I
think about it, I haven't seenthat. And I probably need to
reach out to her and say, Hey,did you actually forget and not
send it? Or did you send it andnot realize that it was going to
the Zell void, and I didn't havea valid account. So that's the
kind of stuff that like, caneasily slip by you, right? And
(13:04):
then I could see getting into anargument, like at dinner when I
present like, the cheque, andshe says, there's $100 deposit.
And now I have to, like, figureout what happened to that $100
deposit?
Matt Collins (13:15):
Well, not to just like, totally dump on on Venmo
as well, because that's anotherthing where you were saying you
didn't have any fees, and basedon whatnot, like, right when
PayPal took over Venmo for me,they instantly like messaged me,
because I don't know if yourname is your business name, I
made a business account separatein so that way people don't see
(13:37):
like my partner paying me rentor friends paying me whatever,
whenever I want to send money. Ijust cuz everyone adds you, you
know what I mean? So I use mypersonal for like a year. And I
was like, well, it's weird,because all these people are
adding this account. You know,every client would add it. And
then it's just like, they'reseeing all my stuff. It's just
made me uncomfortable. So I madethe business one. And then once
(13:59):
that switch over cam, they werelike, We don't care if you're
paying your staff, like we'regonna hit you with a fee, it
doesn't matter. So it didn'tmatter, friends or family or
anything anymore. And then I waslike, okay, whatever, I can work
that in. And then I had acancellation happen. And they
instantly you want the money outof my account. And I was like,
my policy isn't you get everysingle dollar back. They
(14:22):
canceled on a holiday weekend.
In under 48 hours. I hadpurchases I made. I had to
reimburse my staff. And so I hadto fight with Venmo. And it took
about a week to get the moneyback. And then I just was like,
why am I going to pay fees if mymoney is not protected?
Chris Spear (14:37):
So how did that work? Like the customer reached
out to them and said like it
Matt Collins (14:43):
essentially was like fraud, but they never
followed up with me. So theyjust didn't say anything. So I
noticed like, I don't know, acouple days after the event was
supposed to happen that themoney was taken out of my bank
account. And it was a good chunkof change and it is maybe like
$1,800 So whatever it was 1500so you kind of notice, my Daddy
(15:04):
Warbucks. So you kind of noticewhat do grand comes out of your,
your, you know, your checking.
And so I reached out and youknow, the spute, I had to
screenshot emails, you know,explaining how much money I was
gonna give her back, etc,showing all that, and then they,
they took care of it. But itwas, it was quite nerve racking.
And that was like a harddecision, because I still get
(15:24):
people who want to pay Venmo andif they're in a hard spot,
they're in their own home, youknow, I'm not going to tell
them, you know, fuck off, youknow, I'll take it, I just
haven't send it to my personaland hope that it doesn't get
flagged, and I'd much ratherlose. You know, I mean, 4% on
fees, if Venmo decides to takethe fees, then, you know, not
(15:46):
get paid the balance or orupset. A customer doesn't
listen, which is it is what itis, you know?
Chris Spear (15:54):
Yeah. And one of the things I've, you know, most
of the time, or much of the timepeople are drinking at these
parties. So when you get intothese multiple people hands in
the pot, I've had a number ofscenarios where you've got, you
know, five couples, and the wifesays, husband, okay, you know,
send him 200 bucks or whatever.
And he's like, half drunk andwhatever. And he doesn't put in
the right name, thank God. Nowthere's like a scan a QR code.
(16:17):
And they sometimes need yourphone number to validate because
one time I was at a party, andthe people had like, no Wi Fi,
no reception in their house. AndI gave them my name. And they
said, they sent me the money.
And I kept saying it wasn'tthere. And they're like, no, no,
like, we just, there's no Wi Fi,like, I'm sure when you get
home, it'll be fine. And liketwo days go by and I still
(16:37):
didn't have the money. It turnsout, they sent it to the wrong
person. Even though in all myemails, I'm saying like, here's
my Venmo. They said, I mean, ifyou looked at the avatar, the
guy looked like an 18 year oldFilipino guy in his profile
picture, like at the gym, no oneknows. They think that that's
what you look like, I am an 18year old Filipino guy. But you
know, like, clearly but everyonewas they're having drinks.
(16:57):
They're like, Oh crispy, or senda min mom, like I'm not crispy
or on Venmo. That's not my Venmoit's Chris dashboard, dash six,
if anyone wants to send me anymoney,
Matt Collins (17:05):
I was just gonna make that joke that you should
say it so people can send yousome money. I remember that
knowing you. And it was a wackyname. And that's like branding,
which is something to thinkabout from like a business owner
standpoint, if you have a demo,that's like, not really your
name, like I have a very commonname, like, my personal demo
isn't Matt Collins? Becausethere's no, I'd have to have so
(17:26):
many numbers after I just lookedlike a twitter bot. Because it's
just like a common common name.
And so that's like, one of thethings to or why do you want to
hyphenate things and dashes likewhen you want it to like
streamline across all yourplatforms and, and if you can't
get that one, maybe it's like ared flag of like, I don't want
people accidentally paying thewrong person just because they
(17:47):
got my business name before me.
Because, you know, a lot ofpeople, you know, I see in the
groups and stuff, they havenames that are kind of like, you
know, quirky things like the,the, you know, like an animal
Senate or something like thecilantro Raven and stuff. And
like, someone else might havethat name for whatever else you
(18:08):
need. I mean, they have like,these cute names, like the
wilted onion, and, you know, allthis, like, you know, you know,
like,
Chris Spear (18:14):
nice thinking on the spot. They're
Matt Collins (18:16):
mangoes and porridge, I don't know, they
have these like names. And itsays something that
proprietarily someone else canalso have for whatever other
purpose. And you know, justbecause they think it's cute, or
it's from like a movie referenceor something. And so it's just,
it's just kind of something tothink about, you know, and like,
it's not a great thing. That'swhy I hate Twitter, because it's
(18:37):
like, I It's my name, mybusiness name is too long to do
on Twitter. So I just don't likeit.
Chris Spear (18:43):
My two I'm perfect little bites on almost every
platform, except I have to belike PRF. CTLITL bites on
Twitter. And it's annoying.
Matt Collins (18:51):
That's your stock names. When you go public. It is
for you RFT bytes stuck.
Chris Spear (18:58):
So what options are you accepting? Like when you
talk to customers about how theycan pay you? What do you tell
them upfront?
Matt Collins (19:04):
Yeah, so it's i It's on my website. And I
emailed over them too. And Ialways say it on the phone that
if you want to pay the deposit,it's a check in the mail, or
processing through square whichcredit card which people can
link Cash App to that and alltheir stuff. And that's on their
hands. So I don't have to have aCash App. And also squares
Great. I'm not paid by square Ijust don't have been using for
(19:26):
years and they've never talkedto me and for lack of a better
term. Family Show I guess ornot. We're all adults. Now. You
can use the F word on the show.
Oh, yeah, you're gonna lose thatmonetization. You can get one fn
to make it PG 13 Okay. We'reout. Oh, no, go go edit that
out. bleep it out. But squaresquare has all these update
settings to where they sendreminders. So I've had people
(19:48):
who will tell me, Hey, I'm gonnapay after Friday after my check
clears I'll pay the deposit andI'm again no worries. You're
just gonna get emails until ithappens. It's not me it's part
of the system. And I just letthem know sometimes I feel bad.
I'm like, oh, man, this persongot like, one email a day, the
last week, because they haven'tpaid and I don't want to be a
dork, but at least it's not medoing it. It's like an automated
(20:11):
thing. And then it remindspeople to and because I've had
people that I've left becausethey were drunk. And they're
like, I want to pay via creditcard and I send them over the
invoice. And you know, it's theonly people I trust, but
sometimes it takes a couple daysfrom the pay it but every
whatever, 48 hours, squares likea unpaid invoice and it emails
me to as well that they saw it.
Chris Spear (20:35):
So you're okay, leaving without having all your
money? It depends
Matt Collins (20:39):
on the person. And it depends on the amount of
money and how other things likeif they're if they live in close
proximity to me,
Chris Spear (20:48):
like I can come to your house and knock on your
door saying I want my $2 itdoesn't
Matt Collins (20:53):
happen often. I don't want this new thing to
happen. We're now I said online,that I'm not a total hard ass.
I'm normally kind of a weirdonormally kind of like hanging
out in the kitchen like sippingon a glass of wine or some of
the weight and you're stillhere. You're still here, the
movies over go home. And I'mlike, Yeah, well you owe me X
amount of money, can we settleup, or I'll send a text to the
host.
Chris Spear (21:13):
Because going back to the Wi Fi issue, like and
reception issue. I do lots andlike cabins and on the mountains
and whatever. And like I wasdoing a dinner one time and
these people you know, out bythe fire, and they're trying to
Venmo me and it won't go throughand I just had to leave like
hoping he'd pay me tomorrow. AndI wasn't worried. But I did have
someone helping me that night.
And she was like, she has herown business. And she's like,
Oh, hell no, like I am notleaving property until I'm paid
(21:35):
in full. There's no way I wouldget in that car and leave
without knowing that I had themoney. But this
Matt Collins (21:41):
goes here like Airbnb rental things and you
know, the town's you know, ifyou're going out into the woods,
you know, I mean, like, if I'mgoing to town in the Poconos, or
somewhere weird or out in thewoods, where my phone doesn't
work, I'm gonna recommend thatit's paid in cash before I get
there. I'm like, Hey, I don'tknow if the credit card process
is gonna work. I don't know. Youknow, but you know, typically I
(22:01):
hook up to the Wi Fi, if that'sthe case. But you know, you
never know, because sometimesit's a rental verbo or
something, or maybe the Wi Fi isdown, where it's just like he's
got to have a backup plan. Andthat's like, we're, you know,
I'll take Hey, just give me acheck. Because I don't think
people are generally gonnacommit the fraud. You know, you
have you have a check. I had ahuge, huge multi day event paid
(22:23):
by cheque, and the personcancelled the check. Wow, why
Chris Spear (22:28):
was that?
Matt Collins (22:29):
Um, what I think it was, is that there wasn't
there. There are secondaryfridges in their garage where I
was supposed to sort of the foodbroke. And so I told them, and
they're like, they had so muchalcohol and smelters in their
fridge in the kitchen that theyhad nowhere to put it. And so it
got trashed the leftovers and Idon't normally provide
(22:51):
leftovers. I normally do aseated dinner. But this was like
a family style thing. So I savedthe stuff. But you know, things
sat out for a while it was a hotsummer day temperature zone. So
I think they were just bitter,that they didn't have leftovers.
Chris Spear (23:04):
So they ate the whole meal, everyone got fed. It
was multiple
Matt Collins (23:07):
meals, it was a malt. It was a three day event
of breakfast, lunch and dinnerfor about a dozen ladies. So it
was a good sum of money. Andthen for whatever reason, some
either the client or the clientsassistant, they canceled the
check, saying they did it wasn'tsigned. But then I just called
them up. It was like, Hey,you're gonna have to literally
pay me today, like via creditcard. This is insane. But they
(23:31):
did some weird thing acting likeI wouldn't notice that, you
know, $4,000 wasn't in my, mychecking. So it came out and
then I got I got hit with a feefrom the bank from the cheque
being cancelled. Because it wasas if I stole their checkbook
and wrote the check I get, I'mnot really sure with some
legality thing. And so I had afee from Bank of America for
(23:52):
either 50 or $100 that I tackedon, and was like, Yeah, I'm not
paying that, like you canceledthe check. Like it because my
balance and my deposit are thesame number. If there's no
changes, if you don't change, soit's the exact same number. So
you know, like you it's noconfusion. It's not like that's
why a lot of people do likesmaller dollar fees. But I never
(24:12):
really understood like, Oh, hey,so $200 to hold the date. That
what is that? $200 If it's acouple $1,000 party,
Chris Spear (24:19):
it's like skin in the game though. Like, I feel
like people won't duck outbecause, you know, I've just
noticed, and I want to get intodeposits. So I'll make this
quick but like, I never chargedthe deposit. If you listen to my
old podcast I talked about likenever having a deposit. And then
maybe a year and a half ago Ijust started to have a lot of
cancellations like not like weweren't even necessarily having
the menu but it would be likethe process of like you want
(24:41):
this date. It's you know, thelast Saturday of this month.
Okay, cool. Then I send you amenu and we go back and forth
and then you like ghost me andthen all of a sudden like I
follow up you're like oh, wedecide to go in another
direction like that had neverhappened to me and like I had
like eight years of that neverhappening and then I had like
three of them in the span of twoFew months, I was like, well,
just something like people, likepeople return their carts to all
(25:04):
the because of a quarter like,that's how cheap people are and
how little it takes to get theminvested. And I was just like,
if they just gave me 100 bucksjust to say like, here we go,
it's 100 bucks, and you will100% be out of that 100 bucks,
if you cancel, that's beenenough to keep people in line
and to not cancel on me.
Matt Collins (25:23):
I think you just have to, like, not let people
know that, you know, you have asoft hold for about a week until
the deposit. I just followed upwith somebody today and was
like, hey, you know how thatmenu look for you? And they
said, You know, I was busy? AndI said, No, no worries. And I
sent them a couple of optionsback. That, to me is pretty
standard. But I have to keeptabs on. I have like a whole
(25:43):
section on my, my calendar andmy notebook of like, these are
the people and I write the datethat I sent them the menu, and
then what I'm supposed to fallback up, if I don't hear from
them, cross them off. And thenyou know, I have people who
follow up in that week span forthat date, like somebody else.
And I just got to tell themlike, you know, hey, I'll know
within 48 hours or whatever. Andthen I know we apply a little
(26:05):
bit of pressure.
Chris Spear (26:07):
What is your amount that you're asking for a
deposit?
Matt Collins (26:10):
I do 50% of the invoice so that way, because I
do different courses anddifferent sized parties, and
then I have different, you know,what are their travel, whatever.
I just like people to agree 100%what they're paying for. Because
if you take a deposit, andsomeone's expectations of what
the dinner is going to cost iscompletely different. Then what
(26:32):
are they going to want to dowith that deposit? If they don't
want to move forward with theevent? Why you have the deposit,
because you held the date,
Chris Spear (26:38):
I don't take a deposit until we've talked
numbers like you know, like,they know, they know straight
out like how much the dinner isgoing to be before I take a
deposit as well. Yeah,
Matt Collins (26:47):
but there's a lot of variables, you know, I mean,
if someone wants to, you know,add something premium to it, or
someone wants to add it on theircourse, or someone wants to do
the main family style. I have tocharge more for that, because
it's a lot more portions. And soI have to tack on that. And so
there is that fluctuation, and Ijust like it to be completely
agreed upon. Before there's adeposit so that way, there's
just zero confusion. You know, Ihad someone recently who went
(27:10):
over all the pricing, theycouldn't hear me well on the
phone, they were walking theirdog. They live in a neighborhood
where you know, cars are drivingby like a you know, more urban
North Jersey neighborhood. Andthen we went over stuff for
about a week and thought
Chris Spear (27:26):
you said $30 ahead, didn't you say $30 ahead,
Matt Collins (27:29):
well wasn't even like that. They were fine with
the menu costs. It was just mystaffing, my my my booking and
travel, and it was all things Isaid on the phone. And I
mentioned the story thatsometimes when people get the
bill, they freak out. So I waslike, you know, just make, I
just wanted to let you know,because I thought I was a little
long winded. They might havejust got bored of listening. But
we laughed about it. And thenfour days later, I send the bill
(27:51):
and they're like, well, there'slike $600 in fees. Because there
was a staffer travel and the$150 booking fee. That's all on
the website. And I was like wewent over this. And so I
apologize, I said we could cutback the menu, but they were
just so like, offended thatthere was additional fees that
they just didn't want to do. AndI turned away three other
dinners for that day. And thatweek span, because I thought
(28:11):
they were a lot because we hadsuch a good conversation on the
phone that I was like, you know,in the referral. And so I was
like, this person's doing thisshit. Like, I don't want to
muddy the waters and and holdpeople on and piss them off.
Because some of the other peoplecall me we're also like regular
people. I do business regularly.
But I didn't want to put them ina weird situation if I didn't
think the person was going tocancel.
Chris Spear (28:32):
Yeah, people are weird. I mean, just this week,
like, I don't know, for somereason I had Friday open. I had
someone reach out to me likelast week and say they wanted a
dinner this week. I was like,Yeah, I've got like, I talked to
him on the phone. And she wasall excited about how her
daughter loves food and cooking.
And she's like, Yeah, we youknow, that sounds great. Send me
a menu. I was like, I'll get itto you in a couple hours. And
like I stopped everything I wasdoing, like made a menu sent it.
(28:54):
And then nothing. And this waslike last Thursday didn't hear
anything. And then likeyesterday, she sends an email
was like, it doesn't sound likeour schedules are gonna align
and our family will be in town.
But it's like, I just talked toyou like three days ago. And you
said Friday. Like, it's not likeI had something else cooking but
just like that, like peopledon't think about things like
(29:16):
that. Like it's a Friday night.
You're new to being ghosted.
Matt Collins (29:19):
I get that all the time where I'll follow people
like a week later, and like, oh,yeah, we're just not doing it.
And I'm like, why didn't youjust say something when you knew
because normally if we're on thephone, we're talking we're, you
know, I'm saying you got you gotthe poll, you got to a week have
a soft toll. I'll follow up withyou. I'm telling you, I'm going
to follow up, you know, I'mgoing to reach out so I when you
(29:39):
just when you decide I didn'tsay we're not doing it and open
it back up for the next personin the queue, because otherwise
I'm leading someone else on it,hey, I'll get back to you in 48
hours. And then they're not evenyou know, making other plans or
they're nervous or they'relooking at other people that do
the event or the dinner. I don'tknow that's like a whole other
(29:59):
thing. thing to the deposit werejust like, like parsing like
human behavior. But I think thepoint of the deposit is having a
number that makes people notwant to cancel. Like my deposit
was refundable, you know, withina certain timeframe, up until,
you know, maybe a year afterCOVID started because it just
got too out of hand. Because itwas just so much rescheduling
(30:22):
that I was like, I can't have,you know, 60 days a year
scheduled then cancelled.
There's only so many Fridays,Saturdays and Sundays that
people want.
Chris Spear (30:31):
But I do feel a lot of chefs, not myself
particularly are specificallydon't want to take that because
they're hoping they're gonna getcash and maybe all that doesn't
get reported, you know, whenyou're taking a deposit check
for $1,500 That has to bedeposited. That's one thing, but
if someone slips you $1,500Cash, maybe they did, maybe they
(30:55):
didn't. And just saying that,like, I know that that's
probably something that nobodywants to talk about. But I know
that that's something thathappens. People love getting
paid in cash.
Matt Collins (31:03):
But that's an unpopular I have an unpopular
opinion of that as I want toclaim everything I do for my
business so I can keep trackyear to year. No one's making
enough money that buy everysingle dinner you do like I do
100 a year if I didn't claim$100 of every dinner I did at
the end of the year. What isthat? That $10,000? If I did
(31:25):
that, well, what am I buyingwith that a new car, then?
Wouldn't I like I'm like askingyou to be audited. You know that
you can even buy a new car for10 grand. But I'm just saying
like, what what is the point ofthat you're not like living
outside your means you're notlike buying a house with it.
Like, you're just doing all thiswork
Chris Spear (31:44):
and Breaking Bad.
You don't have like a stash ofcash like in your heating ducts.
You just
Matt Collins (31:49):
asked him to get audited. And then like I have
like a manila envelope ofreceipts. And then I have like
an Excel of all my spending, whywould I want to have to go
through that with an auditor Ipay somebody a good chunk of
change to do my taxes and tolook over everything? Why am I
going to send them fake numbers,and then keep my real numbers.
So make sure I know how mybusiness is growing. I'm doing
(32:11):
air quotes, because it's such astupid thing.
Chris Spear (32:13):
You have a little notepad under your bed.
Matt Collins (32:15):
I'm just saying.
No, it's just like weird. Iactually have it right here.
Unknown (32:20):
Oh, nice. There you go.
And I have little
Matt Collins (32:23):
up and down arrows and the year before, because I
tally up what I do each monthand I compare it to the year
before. And then I know if I ifI want to spend more on
advertising if I want to workmore on that. But I just think
cash isn't that crazy. Like Idon't want to go on some like
conservative podcasts thingwhere it's like the government
wants you to Venmo everything.
So they can tell you when youcan't and can't spend money. But
(32:44):
I just think cash cash is a niceoption because it makes people
feel more comfortable. Peoplelike being able to hand you cash
so that way you can tip yourstaff in cash so that way they
feel like or they want to giveyour staff cash themselves and
shake their hand or pat them onthe shoulder and say thank you
and have that human element toit. Because that's like an old
(33:06):
school thing. You go to arestaurant, you really like your
server or your bartender youfeel good giving them a tip. And
a lot of times that's like aguest at the event who didn't
have to pay for the dinner andthey just want to say thank you.
They don't want to feel like alike a bum.
Chris Spear (33:20):
I love it when they put it in your chef pocket and
then like tap your chest. Oh myGod ever have that happen? Like
just slide it in that Chefpocket and just like tap you
like There you go. The last
Matt Collins (33:29):
time it happened.
I felt like a stripper and Ifelt disgusting.
Chris Spear (33:32):
Have you ever been asked if you're a stripper when
you show up to do a bacheloretteparty? Like you showed me like,
are you really a chef and I'mlike I can be whatever you want
for the right price.
Matt Collins (33:40):
I just had this conversation because I did a
bachelorette party on Sunday.
And the joke came about and Isaid it happens once in a while
but I think I've moved past thedrunk Santa shirtless wearing
only apron promo photos from twoyears ago. I don't get as many
comments anymore. I have to do anew shoot.
Chris Spear (33:59):
Well, thanks, Matt for coming on the show. And I
know we'll have you back realsoon. Have a good one. As always
is Chris with the Chefs WithoutRestaurants podcast. Thanks for
listening and have a great week.
Go to chefs withoutrestaurants.org To find our
Facebook group, mailing list andcheck database. The community is
free to join. You'll get gigopportunities, advice on
building and growing yourbusiness and you'll never miss
(34:19):
an episode of our podcast. Havea great week.
Today I'm talking to posits payment methods and
horror stories with Chef MattCollins, whether you're someone
who works in the food businessor not, if you take money for
your services, stick around,because you're gonna want to
hear this. I'm Chris spear. Andyou're listening to Chefs
Without Restaurants, the showwhere I speak with culinary
entrepreneurs and people workingin the food and beverage
(00:21):
industry outside of atraditional restaurant setting.
As most of you know, I work as apersonal chef. For my business.
I currently accept cash checkZell Venmo, and sometimes PayPal
as a payment method. Thisweekend, I had an issue with a
customer payment through Zellthat's already been on the show
twice, you might have heard himbefore. He's someone I talked to
(00:43):
frequently, often bouncing ideasand thoughts off of him. When I
had this issue, I sent Matt amessage joking that we should do
a show about it. I know he's hadissues with Venmo and checks. So
we thought, why not talk aboutit. When I started this podcast,
it was because I wanted to bringreal value to those who are new
business owners, or maybelooking to start one. This is a
topic that I see come up a lotin personal chef forums, and
(01:05):
people ask me all the time aboutpayment methods. I keep the
intro short, because we're goingto really dig into it on the
show. But we talked aboutdifferent options for payment
methods. We also talked aboutdeposits, how, when and how
much. We're going to talk aboutfees, gratuity, and paying by
cash. And due to the nature ofthe conversation, we're gonna
get into some horror stories,which I think you'll find
(01:26):
amusing. Overall, Matt's amildly funny guy, and we try to
keep it light. As always, if yougo to chefs without
restaurants.org, you can findlinks to everything, including
our private Facebook group, andyou'll be able to add yourself
to our database so you canhopefully get some gig leads. If
you have any questions, commentsor feedback on this episode. I'd
love to hear from you. My DMSare always open on Instagram at
(01:46):
Chefs Without Restaurants or youcan shoot me an email at chefs
without restaurants@gmail.com.
This week's episode will beright up after a word from this
week's sponsor, the UnitedStates personal chef
Association. Are you a personalchef looking for support and
growth opportunities? Look nofurther than the United States
personal chef association withnearly 1000 members across the
US and Canada. You SPCA providesliability insurance
(02:10):
certification lead generationand more. Consumers can trust
that their meal experience isinsured and supported by us
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you have products or services tosell chefs and their clients
showcase your business on hirechef and USPTA websites with our
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1-800-995-2138. Extension 705
Chris Spear (02:53):
or email a PR a th er at us pca.com Hey Matt,
welcome to the show. Thanks forcoming back. I guess this is
like your third time. So you'reprobably my most appearing guest
at this point. You did theregular episode you did a what
is the chef or what is a chefmini episode and now we're back
(03:14):
to talking about payment methodstoday, which I guess at its
core, maybe sounds like a drytopic, but I think we'll keep it
fun, right?
Matt Collins (03:20):
Yeah, I'm pretty fun. I'm excited for my jacket.
Kind of like SNL gonna have thethree timers club jacket on
Chefs Without Restaurants.
Chris Spear (03:28):
You're gonna be the Steve Martin of the Chefs
Without Restaurants podcast,Alec. Alec bald, I think those
two go back and forth. Yeah.
Matt Collins (03:36):
But people like Steve Martin, not everyone likes
Alec Baldwin. So that's why I'mhim. It's not everyone likes me.
Chris Spear (03:41):
I don't always like you either. It's kind of like
the Star Wars. I don't like youeither. Anyway, we're already
off track here. So for theaudience, we wanted to talk
about payment methods. You know,Matt's a personal chef, I'm a
personal chef. He and I actuallytalk off camera a lot about, you
know, when you should take adeposit how much what your
payment methods are. But thisstarted because this weekend, I
(04:04):
had a situation. So I've alwayssaid I take cash cheque. Zell
and Venmo. I can do PayPal, Idon't mind because it's an easy
way to take credit cardprocessing. But they charge a
fee, which I don't like. Soanyway, I had these guests at a
dinner there was nine people.
Now shame on me because I letthem all pay separately and
(04:26):
we'll get into this. I do feellike one person should be paying
you but it comes time to settleup. And all these guests, you
know their couples, so like fourof them want to pay Venmo and
you know, a couple want to payZell or whatever, which is
usually fine. So you know, theysend me the money. One woman
with the Zell it doesn't gothrough. It's not showing on my
(04:47):
phone. But I've had this issuebefore and I said you know,
don't worry about it. I'm sureit'll go through. Guess what it
didn't. It's two days later. NowI come home it's still not in my
bank. I don't know where thismoney is. But here's the
problem. I don't know who thiswoman is. She's not the person
who booked the party. She's aguest of the hostess, right? So
I call Xcel. And here's whatthey tell me. You don't have a
(05:09):
valid account. And I'm like,What do you mean, I don't have a
valid account, I have anaccount. So here's how the cell
works. It goes directly intoyour bank. But what they don't
tell you is it doesn't actuallygo to your bank account number,
it's tied to your debit card. Soyou know, like credit cards and
debit cards do there's anexpiration. So I guess my debit
card expired, and my bank sentme a new one, no big deal. I
(05:29):
didn't update it in the Zellapp. So when this woman went to
pay, Zell does not flag and saythis is not valid, can't go
through, they accept theprocess. I think I've got my
money, I leave the party. Andthen I find out later, guess
what, I didn't have a validdebit card on file. So they
refuse the charge. But at thetime of service, when I'm at
this party, the woman was nottold this. So she thinks it goes
(05:51):
through, I am not told this. SoI think it goes through. And now
I have to hope that this is agood person. And she is actually
going to send me the money sheowes me. But guess what, I also
have to figure out how to get ahold of her. So now I have to
email the hostess and say, hey,you know how we said the woman
who's gonna pay us out? And Ithought it'd be okay, guess what
it's not, can you reach out toyour friend and tell her she
needs to send me 250 bucks,which is just a pain in the ass.
(06:13):
So this is a long way of mesaying, I think I need to work
on some processes here. And Iknow Matt has had some issues
with some of these things aswell. So we wanted to talk about
this a little bit today, becauseI want to bring value to my
listeners. And I thought thiswould be more interesting than
just doing a solo show. So Mattand I are gonna hash it out a
little bit over payment methods.
(06:33):
What do you think, Matt?
Matt Collins (06:35):
Right, we literally had to bite my tongue
hearing that you allow people,multiple people to pay.
Chris Spear (06:42):
And this is not my first time I've done this and
had an issue. So yes. So yeah,getting getting into that you
really need to have one personmaking payment, right? If you
are doing a dinner party with 10people, and it's five couples,
how do you handle that?
Matt Collins (06:55):
Not one person, the only time I'll take a second
payment if someone else maybewants to leave a tip. And then
I've had an issue where someonesaid, Hey, I forgot to leave a
tip, can I leave a tip in frontof my staff? And then they're
like, you know, set it up viasquare, and then they just never
paid it. So I had to like, takescreenshots and show my staff
and like, yeah, they actuallyjust never paid it. So it's
(07:16):
like, because then it peoplethink I'm, you know, taking like
100 bucks out of their pocket,or something. And so it just put
me in this like weird, like,Curb Your Enthusiasm situation
of like, you know, I'm in overlike, you know, not that it's
the end of the world. It's alittle bit of money. But you
know, it just, you know, I havepeople who I rely on and if they
think I'm stealing money fromthem, that's not cool.
Chris Spear (07:35):
Yeah. Matt Collins is cancelled, because he's
stealing tips. Yeah,
Matt Collins (07:39):
I mean, well, I don't know honestly, how many
chefs has that happened to
Chris Spear (07:43):
quite a
Matt Collins (07:43):
few recently, most of them, you know, and I'm
almost like, who has it? I guessit's how you run a restaurant.
So we can't be the Chefs WithoutRestaurants doing the things the
Chefs Without Restaurants aredoing. But
Chris Spear (07:55):
But I do think this is more common, especially in
like younger parties. Like Isee, you know, I do a lot of
bachelorette parties. And it's adozen single girls, and they all
want to be like Venmo. When youat the table. Sometimes I found
that that does work out ifyou're talking about tips,
because it offsets the chancethat if there's one bad tip or
because I've had a party oflet's say 10, where the host is
the one who doesn't want a tip.
So you've got $1,000 dinner, andthey don't tip so you don't get
(08:19):
let's say 200 bucks. But atleast when you've got 10 people,
if you've got one who doesn'ttip, but nine others do, you
know, I'm playing the oddsthere, I'm playing the odds, but
Matt Collins (08:31):
you lost the tip on this last part because you
lost 250. And then there's like,sometimes there's individual
processing fees for eachtransaction, too. So you're
rising fees and just generalconfusion at the end of the year
doing your taxes. Oh, for thisparty, it was blah, blah, blah,
then you have to recalculate howmuch you lost in fees.
Chris Spear (08:49):
I haven't paid any fees most. I mean, we'll get
into the fees, things most ofthem are just a transaction
percentage. Venmo gives you theoption when you pay someone it
says is this for goods orservice. I think in like three
years of doing business, onlytwo people have flagged it as a
service where I did get assessedthe fee, and everyone else just
(09:11):
pays me and I haven't had to paywhich is why I love using Venmo
and Zelle because 99% of thetime I'm not assessed any kind
of fee on that which is sweet.
You know, when people pay viaPayPal, I'm getting whacked with
this, you know, I'm losing like30 $40 on a one transaction fee
and yes, there's a cost of doingbusiness. But if I could skate
through without paying that, youknow 40 $50 And I do want to be
(09:33):
clear this woman did pay for theparty. They all went 100% tipped
went above and beyond. I didmake my money. I don't know if
they're listening. They probablyaren't. But it was a great
party. We had lots of fun. Theydid pay me well and everyone
tipped and it worked out butthere was the off chance that
maybe I wouldn't get tipped orwouldn't get paid for this party
at least for one person.
Matt Collins (09:56):
Ah, I totally spaced on what I wanted to say
because I checked arranged likefour times?
Chris Spear (10:02):
Well, I think one of the big things is like going
back to it is, if you're doing aparty, you need to have one
person coordinate. Like if allthese people are paying their
own way, they need to givewhoever's the hostess needs to
collect that money, and then payyou out of their account. So if
we're buying or selling,
Matt Collins (10:18):
have a maximum, how many times you can split a
check. So I think, you know, Imean, I don't have the verbiage
on my website, but maybe Ishould add it, I haven't had
that as many issues as whatyou're having. But I've had some
times where it's, you know, I'mgonna pay X percentage and so
on. So it's gonna pay thebalance, because you know, I've
had people's parents pay forparties, you know, another
(10:39):
family member, split it with,you know, brother and sister
paying for a parentsanniversary. And then a lot of
weird stuff, as long as youknow, people are clear with
what's happening, hey, I'mpaying the deposit. And then you
know, another ex, anotherperson, next week's gonna pay
the remainder of the balancebefore the event, because that's
like a policy I have is, ifyou're not at the event, the
(11:00):
party has the event has to bepaid for beforehand. You know,
it can be the week of thebalance, but you just can't not
be there and then me go hunt youdown. Like I'm not debt
collector. I'm not the Punisher.
I'm not a, you know, Boba Fett?
No, you're Mr. Star Wars. Sothat's like a whole crazy thing.
(11:22):
When I first started thebusiness, I did a pop up. And
then my first public, I have myfirst private event. I literally
gotten an email beef while at myfirst ever private event about
someone who didn't like theverbiage of my deposit form, and
was like, Well, do you take Zelland I was like, I've never used
(11:45):
it, you can try sending it over.
And then, you know, that waslike the beginning of the meal,
like the hors d'oeuvres, firstcourse. You know, I had a minute
sent, sent that email. And thenlater by the entree, I'm like,
she's like, You got it. And I'mlike, I didn't get it. And then
I was literally had to call theperson step outside and was
like, Yo, you need to call yourbank call Bank of America called
Zell, I don't have it, I can'tsend it back. And if I don't
(12:06):
have a deposit, then you know,your your dinner in 910 days
isn't going to happen. BecauseI'm not going to buy food. And
it was right when I started thebusiness, I had very little
money. It wasn't like, I waslike, Oh, I can go buy all this
food. And I needed that money tobuy the food. Like, I just
bought all my plates, mywebsite, and, you know, like,
(12:28):
whatever napkins glassware, sowhere I was, the last thing I
needed to do was to spend acouple of $100 on food, and not
ever get paid or go into theZell void.
Chris Spear (12:41):
Yeah, I feel like the Zell void is real. And this
makes me think that I did have acustomer a couple days ago who
said they're going to send adeposit via Zell and now that I
think about it, I haven't seenthat. And I probably need to
reach out to her and say, Hey,did you actually forget and not
send it? Or did you send it andnot realize that it was going to
the Zell void, and I didn't havea valid account. So that's the
kind of stuff that like, caneasily slip by you, right? And
(13:04):
then I could see getting into anargument, like at dinner when I
present like, the cheque, andshe says, there's $100 deposit.
And now I have to, like, figureout what happened to that $100
deposit?
Matt Collins (13:15):
Well, not to just like, totally dump on on Venmo
as well, because that's anotherthing where you were saying you
didn't have any fees, and basedon whatnot, like, right when
PayPal took over Venmo for me,they instantly like messaged me,
because I don't know if yourname is your business name, I
made a business account separatein so that way people don't see
(13:37):
like my partner paying me rentor friends paying me whatever,
whenever I want to send money. Ijust cuz everyone adds you, you
know what I mean? So I use mypersonal for like a year. And I
was like, well, it's weird,because all these people are
adding this account. You know,every client would add it. And
then it's just like, they'reseeing all my stuff. It's just
made me uncomfortable. So I madethe business one. And then once
(13:59):
that switch over cam, they werelike, We don't care if you're
paying your staff, like we'regonna hit you with a fee, it
doesn't matter. So it didn'tmatter, friends or family or
anything anymore. And then I waslike, okay, whatever, I can work
that in. And then I had acancellation happen. And they
instantly you want the money outof my account. And I was like,
my policy isn't you get everysingle dollar back. They
(14:22):
canceled on a holiday weekend.
In under 48 hours. I hadpurchases I made. I had to
reimburse my staff. And so I hadto fight with Venmo. And it took
about a week to get the moneyback. And then I just was like,
why am I going to pay fees if mymoney is not protected?
Chris Spear (14:37):
So how did that work? Like the customer reached
out to them and said like it
Matt Collins (14:43):
essentially was like fraud, but they never
followed up with me. So theyjust didn't say anything. So I
noticed like, I don't know, acouple days after the event was
supposed to happen that themoney was taken out of my bank
account. And it was a good chunkof change and it is maybe like
$1,800 So whatever it was 1500so you kind of notice, my Daddy
(15:04):
Warbucks. So you kind of noticewhat do grand comes out of your,
your, you know, your checking.
And so I reached out and youknow, the spute, I had to
screenshot emails, you know,explaining how much money I was
gonna give her back, etc,showing all that, and then they,
they took care of it. But itwas, it was quite nerve racking.
And that was like a harddecision, because I still get
(15:24):
people who want to pay Venmo andif they're in a hard spot,
they're in their own home, youknow, I'm not going to tell
them, you know, fuck off, youknow, I'll take it, I just
haven't send it to my personaland hope that it doesn't get
flagged, and I'd much ratherlose. You know, I mean, 4% on
fees, if Venmo decides to takethe fees, then, you know, not
(15:46):
get paid the balance or orupset. A customer doesn't
listen, which is it is what itis, you know?
Chris Spear (15:54):
Yeah. And one of the things I've, you know, most
of the time, or much of the timepeople are drinking at these
parties. So when you get intothese multiple people hands in
the pot, I've had a number ofscenarios where you've got, you
know, five couples, and the wifesays, husband, okay, you know,
send him 200 bucks or whatever.
And he's like, half drunk andwhatever. And he doesn't put in
the right name, thank God. Nowthere's like a scan a QR code.
(16:17):
And they sometimes need yourphone number to validate because
one time I was at a party, andthe people had like, no Wi Fi,
no reception in their house. AndI gave them my name. And they
said, they sent me the money.
And I kept saying it wasn'tthere. And they're like, no, no,
like, we just, there's no Wi Fi,like, I'm sure when you get
home, it'll be fine. And liketwo days go by and I still
(16:37):
didn't have the money. It turnsout, they sent it to the wrong
person. Even though in all myemails, I'm saying like, here's
my Venmo. They said, I mean, ifyou looked at the avatar, the
guy looked like an 18 year oldFilipino guy in his profile
picture, like at the gym, no oneknows. They think that that's
what you look like, I am an 18year old Filipino guy. But you
know, like, clearly but everyonewas they're having drinks.
(16:57):
They're like, Oh crispy, or senda min mom, like I'm not crispy
or on Venmo. That's not my Venmoit's Chris dashboard, dash six,
if anyone wants to send me anymoney,
Matt Collins (17:05):
I was just gonna make that joke that you should
say it so people can send yousome money. I remember that
knowing you. And it was a wackyname. And that's like branding,
which is something to thinkabout from like a business owner
standpoint, if you have a demo,that's like, not really your
name, like I have a very commonname, like, my personal demo
isn't Matt Collins? Becausethere's no, I'd have to have so
(17:26):
many numbers after I just lookedlike a twitter bot. Because it's
just like a common common name.
And so that's like, one of thethings to or why do you want to
hyphenate things and dashes likewhen you want it to like
streamline across all yourplatforms and, and if you can't
get that one, maybe it's like ared flag of like, I don't want
people accidentally paying thewrong person just because they
(17:47):
got my business name before me.
Because, you know, a lot ofpeople, you know, I see in the
groups and stuff, they havenames that are kind of like, you
know, quirky things like the,the, you know, like an animal
Senate or something like thecilantro Raven and stuff. And
like, someone else might havethat name for whatever else you
(18:08):
need. I mean, they have like,these cute names, like the
wilted onion, and, you know, allthis, like, you know, you know,
like,
Chris Spear (18:14):
nice thinking on the spot. They're
Matt Collins (18:16):
mangoes and porridge, I don't know, they
have these like names. And itsays something that
proprietarily someone else canalso have for whatever other
purpose. And you know, justbecause they think it's cute, or
it's from like a movie referenceor something. And so it's just,
it's just kind of something tothink about, you know, and like,
it's not a great thing. That'swhy I hate Twitter, because it's
(18:37):
like, I It's my name, mybusiness name is too long to do
on Twitter. So I just don't likeit.
Chris Spear (18:43):
My two I'm perfect little bites on almost every
platform, except I have to belike PRF. CTLITL bites on
Twitter. And it's annoying.
Matt Collins (18:51):
That's your stock names. When you go public. It is
for you RFT bytes stuck.
Chris Spear (18:58):
So what options are you accepting? Like when you
talk to customers about how theycan pay you? What do you tell
them upfront?
Matt Collins (19:04):
Yeah, so it's i It's on my website. And I
emailed over them too. And Ialways say it on the phone that
if you want to pay the deposit,it's a check in the mail, or
processing through square whichcredit card which people can
link Cash App to that and alltheir stuff. And that's on their
hands. So I don't have to have aCash App. And also squares
Great. I'm not paid by square Ijust don't have been using for
(19:26):
years and they've never talkedto me and for lack of a better
term. Family Show I guess ornot. We're all adults. Now. You
can use the F word on the show.
Oh, yeah, you're gonna lose thatmonetization. You can get one fn
to make it PG 13 Okay. We'reout. Oh, no, go go edit that
out. bleep it out. But squaresquare has all these update
settings to where they sendreminders. So I've had people
(19:48):
who will tell me, Hey, I'm gonnapay after Friday after my check
clears I'll pay the deposit andI'm again no worries. You're
just gonna get emails until ithappens. It's not me it's part
of the system. And I just letthem know sometimes I feel bad.
I'm like, oh, man, this persongot like, one email a day, the
last week, because they haven'tpaid and I don't want to be a
dork, but at least it's not medoing it. It's like an automated
(20:11):
thing. And then it remindspeople to and because I've had
people that I've left becausethey were drunk. And they're
like, I want to pay via creditcard and I send them over the
invoice. And you know, it's theonly people I trust, but
sometimes it takes a couple daysfrom the pay it but every
whatever, 48 hours, squares likea unpaid invoice and it emails
me to as well that they saw it.
Chris Spear (20:35):
So you're okay, leaving without having all your
money? It depends
Matt Collins (20:39):
on the person. And it depends on the amount of
money and how other things likeif they're if they live in close
proximity to me,
Chris Spear (20:48):
like I can come to your house and knock on your
door saying I want my $2 itdoesn't
Matt Collins (20:53):
happen often. I don't want this new thing to
happen. We're now I said online,that I'm not a total hard ass.
I'm normally kind of a weirdonormally kind of like hanging
out in the kitchen like sippingon a glass of wine or some of
the weight and you're stillhere. You're still here, the
movies over go home. And I'mlike, Yeah, well you owe me X
amount of money, can we settleup, or I'll send a text to the
host.
Chris Spear (21:13):
Because going back to the Wi Fi issue, like and
reception issue. I do lots andlike cabins and on the mountains
and whatever. And like I wasdoing a dinner one time and
these people you know, out bythe fire, and they're trying to
Venmo me and it won't go throughand I just had to leave like
hoping he'd pay me tomorrow. AndI wasn't worried. But I did have
someone helping me that night.
And she was like, she has herown business. And she's like,
Oh, hell no, like I am notleaving property until I'm paid
(21:35):
in full. There's no way I wouldget in that car and leave
without knowing that I had themoney. But this
Matt Collins (21:41):
goes here like Airbnb rental things and you
know, the town's you know, ifyou're going out into the woods,
you know, I mean, like, if I'mgoing to town in the Poconos, or
somewhere weird or out in thewoods, where my phone doesn't
work, I'm gonna recommend thatit's paid in cash before I get
there. I'm like, Hey, I don'tknow if the credit card process
is gonna work. I don't know. Youknow, but you know, typically I
(22:01):
hook up to the Wi Fi, if that'sthe case. But you know, you
never know, because sometimesit's a rental verbo or
something, or maybe the Wi Fi isdown, where it's just like he's
got to have a backup plan. Andthat's like, we're, you know,
I'll take Hey, just give me acheck. Because I don't think
people are generally gonnacommit the fraud. You know, you
have you have a check. I had ahuge, huge multi day event paid
(22:23):
by cheque, and the personcancelled the check. Wow, why
Chris Spear (22:28):
was that?
Matt Collins (22:29):
Um, what I think it was, is that there wasn't
there. There are secondaryfridges in their garage where I
was supposed to sort of the foodbroke. And so I told them, and
they're like, they had so muchalcohol and smelters in their
fridge in the kitchen that theyhad nowhere to put it. And so it
got trashed the leftovers and Idon't normally provide
(22:51):
leftovers. I normally do aseated dinner. But this was like
a family style thing. So I savedthe stuff. But you know, things
sat out for a while it was a hotsummer day temperature zone. So
I think they were just bitter,that they didn't have leftovers.
Chris Spear (23:04):
So they ate the whole meal, everyone got fed. It
was multiple
Matt Collins (23:07):
meals, it was a malt. It was a three day event
of breakfast, lunch and dinnerfor about a dozen ladies. So it
was a good sum of money. Andthen for whatever reason, some
either the client or the clientsassistant, they canceled the
check, saying they did it wasn'tsigned. But then I just called
them up. It was like, Hey,you're gonna have to literally
pay me today, like via creditcard. This is insane. But they
(23:31):
did some weird thing acting likeI wouldn't notice that, you
know, $4,000 wasn't in my, mychecking. So it came out and
then I got I got hit with a feefrom the bank from the cheque
being cancelled. Because it wasas if I stole their checkbook
and wrote the check I get, I'mnot really sure with some
legality thing. And so I had afee from Bank of America for
(23:52):
either 50 or $100 that I tackedon, and was like, Yeah, I'm not
paying that, like you canceledthe check. Like it because my
balance and my deposit are thesame number. If there's no
changes, if you don't change, soit's the exact same number. So
you know, like you it's noconfusion. It's not like that's
why a lot of people do likesmaller dollar fees. But I never
(24:12):
really understood like, Oh, hey,so $200 to hold the date. That
what is that? $200 If it's acouple $1,000 party,
Chris Spear (24:19):
it's like skin in the game though. Like, I feel
like people won't duck outbecause, you know, I've just
noticed, and I want to get intodeposits. So I'll make this
quick but like, I never chargedthe deposit. If you listen to my
old podcast I talked about likenever having a deposit. And then
maybe a year and a half ago Ijust started to have a lot of
cancellations like not like weweren't even necessarily having
the menu but it would be likethe process of like you want
(24:41):
this date. It's you know, thelast Saturday of this month.
Okay, cool. Then I send you amenu and we go back and forth
and then you like ghost me andthen all of a sudden like I
follow up you're like oh, wedecide to go in another
direction like that had neverhappened to me and like I had
like eight years of that neverhappening and then I had like
three of them in the span of twoFew months, I was like, well,
just something like people, likepeople return their carts to all
(25:04):
the because of a quarter like,that's how cheap people are and
how little it takes to get theminvested. And I was just like,
if they just gave me 100 bucksjust to say like, here we go,
it's 100 bucks, and you will100% be out of that 100 bucks,
if you cancel, that's beenenough to keep people in line
and to not cancel on me.
Matt Collins (25:23):
I think you just have to, like, not let people
know that, you know, you have asoft hold for about a week until
the deposit. I just followed upwith somebody today and was
like, hey, you know how thatmenu look for you? And they
said, You know, I was busy? AndI said, No, no worries. And I
sent them a couple of optionsback. That, to me is pretty
standard. But I have to keeptabs on. I have like a whole
(25:43):
section on my, my calendar andmy notebook of like, these are
the people and I write the datethat I sent them the menu, and
then what I'm supposed to fallback up, if I don't hear from
them, cross them off. And thenyou know, I have people who
follow up in that week span forthat date, like somebody else.
And I just got to tell themlike, you know, hey, I'll know
within 48 hours or whatever. Andthen I know we apply a little
(26:05):
bit of pressure.
Chris Spear (26:07):
What is your amount that you're asking for a
deposit?
Matt Collins (26:10):
I do 50% of the invoice so that way, because I
do different courses anddifferent sized parties, and
then I have different, you know,what are their travel, whatever.
I just like people to agree 100%what they're paying for. Because
if you take a deposit, andsomeone's expectations of what
the dinner is going to cost iscompletely different. Then what
(26:32):
are they going to want to dowith that deposit? If they don't
want to move forward with theevent? Why you have the deposit,
because you held the date,
Chris Spear (26:38):
I don't take a deposit until we've talked
numbers like you know, like,they know, they know straight
out like how much the dinner isgoing to be before I take a
deposit as well. Yeah,
Matt Collins (26:47):
but there's a lot of variables, you know, I mean,
if someone wants to, you know,add something premium to it, or
someone wants to add it on theircourse, or someone wants to do
the main family style. I have tocharge more for that, because
it's a lot more portions. And soI have to tack on that. And so
there is that fluctuation, and Ijust like it to be completely
agreed upon. Before there's adeposit so that way, there's
just zero confusion. You know, Ihad someone recently who went
(27:10):
over all the pricing, theycouldn't hear me well on the
phone, they were walking theirdog. They live in a neighborhood
where you know, cars are drivingby like a you know, more urban
North Jersey neighborhood. Andthen we went over stuff for
about a week and thought
Chris Spear (27:26):
you said $30 ahead, didn't you say $30 ahead,
Matt Collins (27:29):
well wasn't even like that. They were fine with
the menu costs. It was just mystaffing, my my my booking and
travel, and it was all things Isaid on the phone. And I
mentioned the story thatsometimes when people get the
bill, they freak out. So I waslike, you know, just make, I
just wanted to let you know,because I thought I was a little
long winded. They might havejust got bored of listening. But
we laughed about it. And thenfour days later, I send the bill
(27:51):
and they're like, well, there'slike $600 in fees. Because there
was a staffer travel and the$150 booking fee. That's all on
the website. And I was like wewent over this. And so I
apologize, I said we could cutback the menu, but they were
just so like, offended thatthere was additional fees that
they just didn't want to do. AndI turned away three other
dinners for that day. And thatweek span, because I thought
(28:11):
they were a lot because we hadsuch a good conversation on the
phone that I was like, you know,in the referral. And so I was
like, this person's doing thisshit. Like, I don't want to
muddy the waters and and holdpeople on and piss them off.
Because some of the other peoplecall me we're also like regular
people. I do business regularly.
But I didn't want to put them ina weird situation if I didn't
think the person was going tocancel.
Chris Spear (28:32):
Yeah, people are weird. I mean, just this week,
like, I don't know, for somereason I had Friday open. I had
someone reach out to me likelast week and say they wanted a
dinner this week. I was like,Yeah, I've got like, I talked to
him on the phone. And she wasall excited about how her
daughter loves food and cooking.
And she's like, Yeah, we youknow, that sounds great. Send me
a menu. I was like, I'll get itto you in a couple hours. And
like I stopped everything I wasdoing, like made a menu sent it.
(28:54):
And then nothing. And this waslike last Thursday didn't hear
anything. And then likeyesterday, she sends an email
was like, it doesn't sound likeour schedules are gonna align
and our family will be in town.
But it's like, I just talked toyou like three days ago. And you
said Friday. Like, it's not likeI had something else cooking but
just like that, like peopledon't think about things like
(29:16):
that. Like it's a Friday night.
You're new to being ghosted.
Matt Collins (29:19):
I get that all the time where I'll follow people
like a week later, and like, oh,yeah, we're just not doing it.
And I'm like, why didn't youjust say something when you knew
because normally if we're on thephone, we're talking we're, you
know, I'm saying you got you gotthe poll, you got to a week have
a soft toll. I'll follow up withyou. I'm telling you, I'm going
to follow up, you know, I'mgoing to reach out so I when you
(29:39):
just when you decide I didn'tsay we're not doing it and open
it back up for the next personin the queue, because otherwise
I'm leading someone else on it,hey, I'll get back to you in 48
hours. And then they're not evenyou know, making other plans or
they're nervous or they'relooking at other people that do
the event or the dinner. I don'tknow that's like a whole other
(29:59):
thing. thing to the deposit werejust like, like parsing like
human behavior. But I think thepoint of the deposit is having a
number that makes people notwant to cancel. Like my deposit
was refundable, you know, withina certain timeframe, up until,
you know, maybe a year afterCOVID started because it just
got too out of hand. Because itwas just so much rescheduling
(30:22):
that I was like, I can't have,you know, 60 days a year
scheduled then cancelled.
There's only so many Fridays,Saturdays and Sundays that
people want.
Chris Spear (30:31):
But I do feel a lot of chefs, not myself
particularly are specificallydon't want to take that because
they're hoping they're gonna getcash and maybe all that doesn't
get reported, you know, whenyou're taking a deposit check
for $1,500 That has to bedeposited. That's one thing, but
if someone slips you $1,500Cash, maybe they did, maybe they
(30:55):
didn't. And just saying that,like, I know that that's
probably something that nobodywants to talk about. But I know
that that's something thathappens. People love getting
paid in cash.
Matt Collins (31:03):
But that's an unpopular I have an unpopular
opinion of that as I want toclaim everything I do for my
business so I can keep trackyear to year. No one's making
enough money that buy everysingle dinner you do like I do
100 a year if I didn't claim$100 of every dinner I did at
the end of the year. What isthat? That $10,000? If I did
(31:25):
that, well, what am I buyingwith that a new car, then?
Wouldn't I like I'm like askingyou to be audited. You know that
you can even buy a new car for10 grand. But I'm just saying
like, what what is the point ofthat you're not like living
outside your means you're notlike buying a house with it.
Like, you're just doing all thiswork
Chris Spear (31:44):
and Breaking Bad.
You don't have like a stash ofcash like in your heating ducts.
You just
Matt Collins (31:49):
asked him to get audited. And then like I have
like a manila envelope ofreceipts. And then I have like
an Excel of all my spending, whywould I want to have to go
through that with an auditor Ipay somebody a good chunk of
change to do my taxes and tolook over everything? Why am I
going to send them fake numbers,and then keep my real numbers.
So make sure I know how mybusiness is growing. I'm doing
(32:11):
air quotes, because it's such astupid thing.
Chris Spear (32:13):
You have a little notepad under your bed.
Matt Collins (32:15):
I'm just saying.
No, it's just like weird. Iactually have it right here.
Unknown (32:20):
Oh, nice. There you go.
And I have little
Matt Collins (32:23):
up and down arrows and the year before, because I
tally up what I do each monthand I compare it to the year
before. And then I know if I ifI want to spend more on
advertising if I want to workmore on that. But I just think
cash isn't that crazy. Like Idon't want to go on some like
conservative podcasts thingwhere it's like the government
wants you to Venmo everything.
So they can tell you when youcan't and can't spend money. But
(32:44):
I just think cash cash is a niceoption because it makes people
feel more comfortable. Peoplelike being able to hand you cash
so that way you can tip yourstaff in cash so that way they
feel like or they want to giveyour staff cash themselves and
shake their hand or pat them onthe shoulder and say thank you
and have that human element toit. Because that's like an old
(33:06):
school thing. You go to arestaurant, you really like your
server or your bartender youfeel good giving them a tip. And
a lot of times that's like aguest at the event who didn't
have to pay for the dinner andthey just want to say thank you.
They don't want to feel like alike a bum.
Chris Spear (33:20):
I love it when they put it in your chef pocket and
then like tap your chest. Oh myGod ever have that happen? Like
just slide it in that Chefpocket and just like tap you
like There you go. The last
Matt Collins (33:29):
time it happened.
I felt like a stripper and Ifelt disgusting.
Chris Spear (33:32):
Have you ever been asked if you're a stripper when
you show up to do a bacheloretteparty? Like you showed me like,
are you really a chef and I'mlike I can be whatever you want
for the right price.
Matt Collins (33:40):
I just had this conversation because I did a
bachelorette party on Sunday.
And the joke came about and Isaid it happens once in a while
but I think I've moved past thedrunk Santa shirtless wearing
only apron promo photos from twoyears ago. I don't get as many
comments anymore. I have to do anew shoot.
Chris Spear (33:59):
Well, thanks, Matt for coming on the show. And I
know we'll have you back realsoon. Have a good one. As always
is Chris with the Chefs WithoutRestaurants podcast. Thanks for
listening and have a great week.
Go to chefs withoutrestaurants.org To find our
Facebook group, mailing list andcheck database. The community is
free to join. You'll get gigopportunities, advice on
building and growing yourbusiness and you'll never miss
(34:19):
an episode of our podcast. Havea great week.
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