APCA News May 2001 Resource Article

Member Profile - GoldenGoose
by Christina Phipps

Meredith Eriksen, better known to most of us by her screen name
"Golden Goose", has figured out the proper balance in life with her
personal chef and retail consulting business. Originally from Con-
necticut, she got her degree in Marketing from Penn State and
started a venturing career track that led her to where she is now.

The name "Whisk for Hire" encompasses both the consulting and the chef sides of her business, based in Maryland just six miles from the Washington, D.C. border, and her Golden Goose handle because she is "just a farm girl at heart". And quite a golden heart she has.

Meredith moved from the busy corporate and retail world partly because she was tired of just writing checks and shuffling money to the charitable organizations that meant the most to her. She really wanted to make a difference hands-on, but she just couldn't find the time.

She didn't even have time to do everyday chores like mowing the lawn, watering the plants or making dinner.

"If only I could pay someone to cook me dinner," she said to herself, and then she thought, "Wait a minute....".

Her mind flooded with ideas and she furiously started researching online for facts and figures on how to make her dreams of working for herself become reality. This was the perfect tie-in to her consulting background.
For years, Meredith had been getting together with a group of friends who vacation in a mountain home. None of them really liked to cook or were very good at it except for her, so she started planning menus, packing up her kitchen, doing all the shopping and prepared meals for everyone all week.

Having done this for over ten years, she realized she already had what it takes to be a personal chef and at the APCA website she found the "support network and business framework" to make a successful go at it.

She started "Whisk for Hire" by continuing to consult with her former employer - the Food Marketing Institute - on food and health related projects. Before she knew it, she started getting personal chef clients.

Her original marketing plan was a simple two-tiered plan with many ideas for expansion. But her business really took off and she still hasn't gotten around to publishing that full-color brochure.

Now, with her perfect balance, she has been able to be more hands-on with the charitable organizations and groups that mean the most to her, and has found the perfect group to help.

She had adopted a racing greyhound as part of her family and decided that it was her calling to educate the public about what they can do to help retired racing greyhounds from being euthanized, used for medical experimentation or worse. Meredith has just adopted her second greyhound and is an Adoption Representative for the group - doing home visits and mentoring new parents through the adoption process.

She is also very involved in her neighborhood association. Each Halloween they close down her street and have a huge street party with elaborately spooky decorations, flying ghosts, eerie music coming out of each house and dramatic vignettes being played out all through the evening.

It takes all year to prepare and has garnered the interest of MSN and the Discovery Channel.

This is all possible because now, a year and a half later with her consulting and personal chef business, she has her week all weighed out - with time built in for special clients or projects.

Mondays she does all of her paperwork, Tuesday through Thursday she has regular personal chef clients, and Fridays she reserves for consulting and finishing what she didn't get to on Monday. One very important part of Meredith's day is her time on the APCA member forum. She gets up very early and starts her day at the computer.

"This is my social time," she said - "kind of my time around the water cooler every morning." Meredith says that her whole career has been about training people and telling people how to do things and that the forum is her only outlet for that now. She is just so used to consulting - she can't stop! And as a reader of the forums, I hope she keeps the insightful, valuable and often hilarious information coming our way.

When asked what advice she would give new PCs, she said to "just remember that it's your own business - you can gain ideas and information from others but you don't have to do anything the same way someone else does it. Everyone has their own mixture."

From thirteen years of retail management, including Williams-Sonoma and Dean & Deluca, and a final stop at the Food Marketing Institute, Meredith has really settled into her new life as a personal chef and private consultant. This career really allows her to have as much time and space as she wants for both her career and the things that mean the most to her. But, she isn't going to stop there.

"I am only happy when I am learning new things," Meredith says.

Next on her agenda is figuring out how to streamline her business so that she can spend as little time as possible doing paperwork and more time in the garden.