For catering sales managers
How Catering Sales Managers Get Corporate Catering Leads
Your number is catering revenue. You are measured on it every month, and right now the pipeline behind it depends on who happens to call and what the marketplace happens to send.
Catering Funnels is a done-for-you lead generation and automation platform built for restaurants with active catering operations. It runs the outbound that fills a catering manager's pipeline, LinkedIn outreach, cold email, and follow-up, so qualified corporate conversations arrive whether or not the phone rings.
Talk catering with Traé30 minutes with our Founding Account Executive. No pitch deck.
What working with us looks like, from an operator who did it
Mark from Fob Grill walks through the whole arc in this interview: what the catering pipeline looked like before outreach started, how the first corporate conversations came in, and what closed. Watch it before the call so you can ask Traé about the parts that match your operation.
The confirmed result: a 600-person, $22,000 corporate holiday party, booked direct. No marketplace, no commission, and the relationship stays with the restaurant. The full account is in the Fob Grill case study.
Why does a catering manager's pipeline stall?
Because the number is yours and the inputs are not. Four things show up in almost every conversation we have with someone in this seat.
Inbound is not a pipeline
Inquiries arrive in clusters around the holidays and go quiet in the summer. You cannot forecast a number from a phone that rings when it wants to, and you cannot hit a target by waiting.
Marketplace orders are not your accounts
The order comes through, the commission comes off, and the client belongs to the platform. There is no name to follow up with, no review to request, and no second order you can drive. Every marketplace booking resets to zero.
There is no time for outbound while running events
Prospecting is the first thing dropped when a 200-person event is on the calendar, and it is the one activity that would have put the next event on it. The job rewards fulfillment today and punishes it next quarter.
You own the target, not the tools
The CRM, the ad budget, and the marketplace listing were all decided upstream. What you control is who gets contacted and how fast a reply gets worked. That is exactly the part outbound fixes.
How does Catering Funnels get corporate catering leads for a catering manager?
It runs the outbound for you, so the conversations land in your inbox already started. Three parts, all operated by our team.
- 1
LinkedIn outreach to the titles that order
Connection requests and messages to office managers, executive assistants, HR and people teams, and event coordinators at companies within your delivery range. The targeting logic is laid out in the guide to getting corporate catering clients.
- 2
Cold email to a targeted list
A second channel to the same buyers, built for the ones who live in their inbox rather than on LinkedIn. Same territory, same titles, a different door.
- 3
Follow-up on every reply
Replies get worked, AI-powered with human review, typically within 24 hours on business days. You step in when the conversation is qualified: a real buyer, a real headcount, a real date.
The plan built for this seat
Delivery, $747 a month
- Outreach, cold email, and follow-up run for you
- At least 15 qualified corporate leads per month
- Every contact and every order stays in your CRM
- $997 one-time activation. No long-term contract.
The guarantee: We run the campaign until you have earned back at least what you paid.
Requires attending onboarding calls and completing setup. See full terms.
Full plan details are on the pricing page. If you would rather run the outreach yourself first, the free Corporate Catering Playbook has the LinkedIn scripts and cold email templates we use.
What the pipeline produces
Still listed on ezCater? Keep it. The ezCater comparison covers what the marketplace costs, what it does well, and why a direct pipeline runs alongside it rather than instead of it.
Talk to Traé
Traé
Founding Account Executive, Catering Funnels
Traé runs the intro call. She will ask about your catering number, what the pipeline looks like today, and whether the Delivery plan fits how your operation runs. If it does not, she will tell you, and you will still leave with a clearer read on where the leads should be coming from.
Talk catering with TraéCommon questions
How do catering sales managers get corporate catering leads?
By reaching the people who place corporate orders before they go looking for a caterer: office managers, executive assistants, HR and people teams, and event coordinators at companies within delivery range. That means LinkedIn outreach and cold email on a steady cadence, plus follow-up on every reply. Inbound inquiries and marketplace listings supplement that pipeline. They do not replace it.
How do you increase catering sales without a bigger team?
Separate prospecting from selling. A catering manager's time is best spent on qualified conversations, tastings, and proposals, not on sending connection requests. Catering Funnels runs the outreach and the first-touch follow-up so the manager's calendar fills with buyers who already replied. The free Corporate Catering Playbook covers the same approach for managers who want to run it themselves first.
What is a realistic catering sales strategy for a restaurant group?
Treat each location as its own market and build a direct corporate account base around it. The buyers are local, so the outreach is local: companies within that location's delivery range, contacted by the titles that order. Recurring accounts compound at each site, and the group's catering number becomes the sum of owned pipelines instead of the sum of whatever each location happened to receive.
How do you get corporate catering accounts instead of one-off orders?
Own the relationship from the first order and follow up on a schedule. A client acquired directly gives you a name, an email, and a reason to reach out after the event, which is where the second order comes from. Bain Barbecue's $5,550 order came from one LinkedIn message and the client stated intent to reorder. That path is closed when the order arrives through a marketplace, because the platform holds the relationship.
Do I need owner approval to use Catering Funnels?
Usually, yes, and the intro call is built for that. The Delivery plan is $747 a month plus a one-time activation fee, with no long-term contract, so the decision is a monthly line item against catering revenue rather than a capital commitment. Traé will give you the numbers, the guarantee wording, and its conditions to take to ownership.
Does Catering Funnels replace ezCater for a catering manager?
No. It runs alongside the marketplace and builds the direct pipeline the marketplace cannot give you. Many operators keep the listing for discovery while direct accounts become a larger share of catering revenue over time. The ezCater comparison covers what each channel costs and who owns the client in each case.
Bring your catering number. Leave with a plan for it.
30 minutes with Traé. Your current pipeline, what a direct outreach program would add to it, and whether the Delivery plan is the right fit.
Talk catering with Traé