Whilst Cheshire Chocolate Studio is a new business, it’s not the first business I’ve run. Infact my first business was very similar to Cheshire Chocolate Studio – about 9 years ago I set up one of the first pony party businesses in the UK – I sort of ‘fell into’ running it – I’m (very) horsey and my young daughter always had a gaggle of friends round during the holidays to play with the ponies – it suddenly occurred to me that I could get the ponies to earn their keep – so I started the pony party business.
That was a very steep learning curve, however I started just at the time Facebook, WordPress etc were getting going. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the children and the parents and was complemented numerous times on my interaction with the children/ how good I was with the children.
Move on 7 years and my kids are now teenagers and my daughter has well and truly grown out of the tiny ponies I used in the pony party business. I was mucking out 5 ponies all year round whilst visitors preferred to come when it was Sunny! I just decided I’d had enough of mucking out ‘extra’s’ to my competition horses and so 3 of the ponies were found lovely homes where they’d be cherished and loved.
I was then itching to get something else going – I’ve looked at LOTS of opportunities and for one reason or another they weren’t quite right. Then a friend shared HER friend’s post on Facebook which was advertising her chocolate workshops – it was honestly one of those lightbulb moments for me – I knew all the ‘back office’ ‘stuff’ – it was almost identical to the pony parties, just the ‘product’ was different. AND it’s not so sensitive to the weather AND it attracts both adults AND children – so for me it broadened my customer base and my season – Plus it’s not a bad product to work with!
That was mid Feb 2017 – by the end of Feb I had a party booking and it was all systems go! My new business had started whether I liked it or not and the rollercoaster started – deciding a business name, creating a website, deciding on branding and colours, researching all about chocolate (tricky!), buying equipment and my first 10KG of chocolate and testing out chocolate creations to offer to my customers.
Cheshire Chocolate Studio now offers kids and adult chocolate parties, chocolate workshops for adults and kids (in the school holidays), hen parties suitable for all the family (!) and fabulous school workshops and corporate events, all accompanied by my unique brand of warmth, chat and interaction.
If you’ve got an event coming up feel free to call me for an informal chat on 07954 016179.
Amanda Keech
Cheshire Chocolate Studio
www.CheshireChocolateStudio.co.uk