Leveling Other People's Cooking for Fun and Profit

Note 4/28/09 - I originally wrote this for a friend on another server who was interested in trying it out.  I'm going to link this from El's Angling soon, so I'm trying to go through and rewrite to make it more accessible to everyone.  For instance, it was originally just for him so it was Horde-centric.  I've done this on the ally side now, too, so I'm trying to adjust for that.

One more disclaimer...  I've never heard of anyone doing anything like this, so everything I know is trial and error throughout 3 months and dozens and dozens of clients.  I've learned an awful lot, and I'll try to impart all the knowledge here.  There will be a great deal to read.  If you're just a little curious it might be a lot to choke down.  If you really want to do it, you can learn from my mistakes and read it all.

The Basics 
I'll try and layout the master plan.  The underlying principle behind this is that leveling any crafting profession is a pain in the ass.  You have to gather up shitloads of mats, which often you can't find in the AH, which leads to farming, which is boring and soul crushing...  The point is that there are absolutely people out there who are willing to pay for the convenience of not having to go through it.  When you start advertising you'll get people that think it's a ripoff, but I guarantee there are people out there who not only pay for this, they'll think it's a bargain.  Your target market is people with money who value their time, and they are out there.  As of 4/28, almost 3 months into the process, I've done this about 70 times.  I can't think of one negative comment from anyone who's gone through it.  Some people are happy, and some are grateful almost to a fault.  I've had at least half a dozen people who have gone out afterwards and leveled their cooking, and actually send me most of the fish they catch since they don't need them anymore.  I've had two people give me guild banks for storage use.  Make no mistake...  people love this service and they'll love you for providing it.

You also need to understand that doing this on a large scale is basically running a small business in game.  Again I'll reiterate that this may not be the most efficient way to make money.  If you did your two dozen dailies a day and gathered ore or herbs along the way you might be just as rich.  But if fishing and being a salesman sound like fun you're all set.

Another reason this works well for me is that I can do the majority of the work while doing other things.  I've got a laptop, and I do the majority of my fishing while watching TV, and even sometimes on the treadmill.  I also have a dual monitor setup on my desktop and two accounts, so I can dual-box.  This lets me fish, advertise, or work with clients all while still playing another toon.  All of those things are maybe 80%+ waiting, so it's a waste to do only that.  (As I'm writing this I've got one account open on the other monitor and I'm advertising.)  This is one of the reasons I feel that this setup works so well, if only for me.  Even if you're flying around mining or looking for herbs, you still need more or less constant control over your character.  The vast majority of the time I spend working I'm standing in one spot.

The Guide
As I mentioned I started with the cooking/fishing guide from El's site.  This is a great starting point, but it's designed to be a companion for fishing.  Since fishing levels more slowly than cooking, you end up with plenty of mats for certain spots in the guide.  I did my best to do away with anything being cooked after the recipe turned green.  Ideally you'd cook only in the orange, then you'd only need 400 meat.  As it is, I think I make it with around 525 which I think is quite good.

One thing to keep in mind is that this isn't written in stone.  When you're just getting started, it helps to have something to follow, both for collecting your stock and guiding the clients through the cooking process.  Once you're comfortable with what you're doing, you can start to change things around.  I've got this entire thing memorized.  Maybe 20 kits in I stopped looking at my guides and now I can do everything off the cuff.

I don't stray too far off of this basic guide, for a couple of reasons.  First, if I have to farm it myself, it's going to be fish.  As I mentioned above, catching fish is way less work than any other type of grinding.  It's great if you can find mats in the AH for cheap, but that can be hit or miss.  Also remember that every new mat you pick up will eat up a little storage space.  You'll also have to track down the recipes, which can be a bit of a pain.  These are things you'll need to work out as you go along; whether it's worth it to buy every scrap of cheap meat you can find and work it into your kits, or just stick with a basic core.

Orgrimmar/Stormwind 0-300 - Any capital city should work, I've just been using Org and SW.  All you need is a cooking trainer where you can pick up Apprentice through Artisan cooking.  I added in the skill levels so I wouldn't have to keep checking back to Wowhead if I needed to switch amount around.  I allow for something like 1.5 meat per yellow point.  I think the only things I ever cook in the green are the Northrend meats, and for those I just always have plenty of extra.  (I should note as a disclaimer that I'm color blind, so the highlights in the guide might not be what you'd expect.  They're supposed to be the basic orange-yellow-green-gray, but I might have ended up with something weird.)

  1. Learn Apprentice Cooking
  2. Cook Spice Bread x 40 (1 30 35 40).  Mats bought from vendor near trainer.
  3. Cook Brilliant Smallfish (1 45 65 85) until skill 50.  Should take about 20 fish.
  4. Train Journeyman Cooking.
  5. Cook Longjaw Mud Snapper (50 90 110 130) until skill 110.  Should take about 75 fish.  
  6. Cook Bristle Whisker Catfish (100 140 160 180) until 125.
  7. Learn Expert Cooking.
  8. Keep cooking catfish to 160. Takes about 70 fish.
  9. Cook Curiously Tasty Omelete (130 170 190 210) until skill 175.  Takes about 15 meat.
  10. Cook Rockscale Cod (175 190 210 230) until skill 190.  Takes 15 fish.
  11. Cook Mithril Head Trout (175 215 235 255) until skill 225.  Takes about 45 fish.
  12. Learn Artisan Cooking
  13. Cook the Redgill or Yellowtail (225 250 262 275), until skill 250.  Takes 25 fish.
  14. Cook Nightfin Snapper or Sunscale Salmon (250 275 285 295) until skill 275. Takes 25 fish.
  15. Cook Darkclaw Lobster or Large Raw Mightfish or Whitescale Salmon (275 300 312 325) until skill 300.  Takes 25 fish.

Northrend 300-400 - There are cooking trainers in each of the two starting areas for both Alliance and Horde, as well as trainers for each faction in Dal.  I generally use Dal because most people have their hearths set there, but if you run into someone low level with the money to train, you might need to use one of the others.  I recently my lowest level clients yet, a level 35 who took the boat to Northrend and got to 400 without any problems.

  1. Learn Master Cooking.
  2. Cook Barbed Gill Trout or Spotted Feltail (300 320 330 340) until your skill reaches 330.  Should take about 40 fish.
  3. Cook Golden Darter or Talbuk Venison or Warped Flesh or Clefthoof Meat (325 345 355 365) until skill 350. Should take about 25 fish.
  4. Learn Grand Master Cooking.
  5. Cook Bonescale Snapper or Barrelhead Goby or Rockfin Grouper. (350 365 380).  I don't stop at a set skill point here, but rather cook 2-3 stacks of this depending on my stock level and how cheap the mats were. 
  6. For the last push to 400 you need basically any Northrend meat, except for the three fish above and Chilled Meat.  They are all (350 382 415).  I use such a large quantity of these that I don't bother fishing them myself anymore.  Early on the cheapest I could find was Fangtooth Herring, and I was paying 25g a stack and still feeling decent about my profits.  Lately (4/28) I've been stocking away huge amounts of stuff I'm buying for less than 10g a stack.  So unless you want to fish it yourself, buy whatever you can get your hands on.  Note that everything is green past 382, so I usually have 5 stacks per kit to be safe.  Most of the time I'll have at least 20-30 left over, but I don't want to run out.




Here's a picture of a full kit.  This is what it looks like in my bank alt's inventory after I'm done organizing it.  It gives me a chance to look it over one last time, double check the amounts and make sure I've gotten the correct recipes.  Another thing to look for is that you've got all raw meat.  I get my leftover raw stuff back from the clients, and occasionally they'll give me stacks of cooked food.  It looks the same, and the name is the same minus the 'Raw' at the beginning.  If you let one of those slip into your kit and you don't have backups readily available, it means at best a run to the AH and at worst a grinding halt to the leveling while you track down a replacement.  Check every stack!

This one differs a little from the one above.  I had a bunch of Red Wolf Meat from some grinding I was doing with my main for something else, so I'm using it up here as a replacement for the Cod/Mithril Head Trout.



When I'm satisfied it's ready to go, I'll mail it to my main, or whoever I'm using as a salesman.  Before with the quest requirements, spices and cookbooks a kit took up 5-6 messages.  After 3.1 it's down to 4.  I always number each group of kits, since at times I've had up to 4 in the mail at once and I want to make sure I don't mix them up. 



Organization
When you're just starting out this isn't something you'll need to worry too much about, but if you want to really expand it's something you'll need to consider.  When I started, I had a single bank alt.  I fished on my main, then sent it to my bank alt since that was the only place I had space for it.  After my first trial run I think I got enough mats for two more kits.  After I had the fish, I ran around and gathered up the recipes, cookbooks and quest requirements and sent all those to the alt. 

Once I decided to try to make 3 or 4 kits at once, things got a little messy.  Remember that if you're going to a bunch of these, it's far more efficient to go to each gathering location as few times as possible.  Early on when I ran down to Tanaris to get recipes I bought 4 at a time, since I knew I'd need more.  The next time I bought 8.  Then I started to buy all my recipes and cookbooks by the dozen, since I was tired of constantly loping around Azeroth picking them up.

Recipes are a pain since they don't stack, so the next thing I added was a recipe alt.  I bought up my recipes by the dozen and shipped them off to the alt, where I stored them in both the mail and the bank.  When I was assembling kits, I'd jump on the recipe alt and get a kits worth at a time and send them back to the fish alt for assembly.  A little tedious, but it worked.

Then I started running out of space on my fish alt.  I needed about 4 empty bags for the assembled kits, so that only left me 8 bags plus the bank for storage.  It filled up faster than I expected, especially when I started buying cheap mats.  My next step was to get yet another fish bank, and start splitting the mats up between them.  That was even messier than before, but it got the job done, and is a cheap option if you can make a couple more alts and don't want to blow the money on the next option.

Salvation came when I saw someone selling a 3-tab guild bank for cheap.  I picked that up, paid for a fourth tab, and I haven't looked back.  I would recommend starting off small, and if you decide you're having fun, you'll have plenty of profits with which to buy guild bank tabs.  For organization you can't beat them.  Here's a look at how I have mine arranged.  (They're much tidier than usual since I was taking screenshots.)

I was originally taking up two tabs just for recipes, but that was a waste and I compressed that to one.  The way I have mine organized is one column per cooking group.  So from the left it's Smallfish, Longjaw, Catfish, Omelet, Cod, Mithril Head, Redgill/Yellowtail, Nightfin/Sunscale, Lobster/Whitescale, Barbed Gill/Feltail, Talbuk/Darter/Clefthoof.  I have some extras in the two rightmost columns.

The meat is all laid out in the same order as the recipes.  I have backstock in my alt's bank bags to keep all the overflow from here.  And to get really silly I have back-backstock on yet another bank alt.  I have trouble turning down any meat if it's cheap enough, since I know that I could probably cut my sales price in half and still make a decent profit, so it can't hurt to stock up. 

Having everything in one spot is a huge plus, because I can take a quick glance and see how many kits I can make, and if I have holes what I need to go farm to fill them.  Also putting the kits together now is very easy.  It's just cycling back and forth between the meat and recipe tabs and right clicking on everything in order.  The kit in the picture above probably took 2 minutes.  Before when I had things spread out between 3 alts it was a lot harder.









Gathering
So where does all that fish come from?  There's a lot of fishing involved, but the more stuff you can get out of the AH the better.  I've sold lots of these kits for 1250g, and if you subtract the cost of the recipes, that means I'm selling fish for an average of around 2g per fish.  Some of the higher end Northrend fish sell for that much, but think how much things cost on the low end.  I routinely find stacks of Smallfish and Longjaw for 10s-20s a stack.

The best way I've found to do this I only started recently, and I wish I'd known about it all along.  First, you need to use auctioneer if you don't already.  What you can do is set up a 'Snatch List'.  Basically you run through and enter in everything you're interested in buying, and then put down the max amount you're willing to pay for it.  For the longest time I did this basically by hand, searching for each item one at a time.  Auctioneer does most of the hard work.  You run a scan, then tell it to seach that scan against your snatch list, and it will give you a list of everything that fits your criteria.  You can go down the list and ignore anything you decide you don't want, then purchase it all.

Buying in the AH is a much better use of your time than farming yourself.  Don't worry, because you'll have plenty of things you'll need to go fish.  If you can buy it, though, do it.  I don't have any sort of set in stone amounts for what I'll pay.  Sometimes it's dependant on what I have in stock, versus what I need.  If I'm short just one or two mats, and having them will let me put a bunch of kits together, I might pay a lot more for them.  For instance, one of the changes I've made is to use Raptor Eggs to get from 160-175 so I don't blow through a bunch of Bristle Whisker Catfish cooking them in the green.  I've farmed a ton of these myself, and I just got sick of it, so I buy the eggs whenever I can.  I've paid around 1g an egg which is more than virtually any other thing I buy, just because I'm tired of doing it myself.  Fishing I like, but chasing raptors around for hours is really tedious.  (And it's harder to watch TV while I do it.)

Certain things will also be in the AH far more frequently than others.  Smallfish and Longjaw are there quite a bit, and they're usually so cheap I buy almost everything I see.  Catfish and Mithril Head Trout are a little rarer on my servers, and those tend to be one of the things I fish a lot of.  Luckily you can get them in the same spot.  My own personal favorite is in the SM Cathedral.  My main is on a PVP server and occasionally someone stabs me while I'm fishing, so I like instances since I don't have to worry about getting jacked.

Raptor Eggs, like I mentioned, are something I pay quite a bit for so I don't have to get them myself.  You could skip them, if you want, but you'll go through a lot more catfish than you would eggs.  If you farm them, the best spot I've found is Whelgar's Excavation Site in the Wetlands near Menethil Harbor.  It's a small bowl in the mountains with a couple dozen raptors running around.  They spawn quickly enough that I can just run in circles and kill all I want.

Cod, Redgill and Yellowtail always seem to be a little sporadic for me.  Sometimes there's nothing, then suddenly a huge glut will show up and I'll grab them.  I actually can't think of one time I've ever fished for any of these, so they must be available enough of the time.

The 250-275 fish are the giant gaping hole.  They're rarely available in the AH, and when they are, I just think they're too expensive to buy.  I see them sometimes upwards of maybe 20g a stack for the Nightfin/Sunscale and 40g a stack for the Lobster/Whitescale.  Luckily there's an easy solution to this problem.  You can fish either inside Dire Maul, or in Jademir Lake in Ferelas.  If you fish at the right time, you can get both Nightfin/Sunscale AND Whitescale, with some Redgill thrown in for good measure.  Check El's for details; it's one of those places where catches change depending on the time of day.  Sometimes you get Plated Armorfish which are useless.  There are times when you don't get any, and those are what I'd shoot for.  Dire Maul is probably my favorite fishing spot.  It's East, by the way.  You fish in Hydrospawn's pool.

I've done some fishing in Outland, but not a lot.  Barbed Gill Trout or Feltail always seems to be available for around 1-2g a stack.  The Talbuk/Clefthoof/Darter is a little harder to find, but you don't use a lot of it, maybe around 25 per kit.  Generally I'll find it often enough at low prices that I can stock up until the next cheap entries show up in the AH.

The Northrend meats I've gone back and forth on.  Early on I usually bought all my Bonescale Snapper because I could find it around 7-8g a stack which wasn't too bad.  Now the prices have dropped dramatically, probably from people doing the new fishing dailies.  If you look for Bonescale or Goby or Grouper you should be able to find one of them for 1-2g a stack. 

The higher level meats I used to farm a lot of because they were expensive.  About the cheapest thing used to be Herring at around 20-25g a stack which I thought was cheap.  Now, again because of the fishing dailies I assume, I'm getting tons and tons of Manta Ray for 5g a stack.  Oddly enough I'm finding a lot of Worm Meat, too, for less than 10g.  Whatever the case, I'm buying until my bank alts overflow because these prices are next to nothing.

At this rate, I could probably drop the rate by a pretty big margin AND still make a tidy profit.  I think that possibly by dropping my fee I'd also get some new customers that shied away because of the price.

Shopping Lists
One thing that worked really well for me was making 'shopping lists'.  Get your guide out and hit your AH and get whatever you can get your hands on at a decent price.  Then decide how many kits you want to try and make, then go down the list and write down how many of each fish you'll need to build your kits.  Don't forget your recipes!  If you're not familiar with where certain things are caught, check El's and find some spots you want to go fish.  Remember you're going to have to pick up recipes along the way, so try and work those into your trip if you'll be nearby.

You can do it all in one marathon session, or you can break things up over a few days if you need a ton of mats.  Weekends when more people are on is a good time to be selling, so gathering is best done during the week when it's slow.  Try to get the kits made and in the mailbox by the end of the week so when Friday night rolls around you're ready to sell.

Advertising
Now that youv'e done all the hard work you just need to get some clients and make some money.  To do that you're gonna have to tell people about your business.  The two main ways I do that is via the Blizzard Forums and in game with trade chat.

Using the forums kills two birds with one stone.  First, you can put up a nice, detailed description of exactly what it is you're selling, much moreso than you'll ever manage to stuff into trade chat.  Second, it gives your customers a place to leave reviews.  Each time you're done training someone, ask them if they wouldn't mind stopping by and leaving a note about their experience.  Having some written reviews is handy because if you ever have someone doubt the legitimacy of what you're doing, you can always point them to your forum post.  Here are my posts on Scilla and Khadgar if you'd like to take a look at them.

Trade chat will be your bread and butter, however.  I feel as though I've been really successful with my ad campaign, mainly because I've tried to break off of the normal things you see in trade chat.  No one is really going to understand what you're talking about, so 'WTS Cooking 1-400 1250g' isn't going to cut it.  I don't make adds that span more than 1 chat post, but you can fit a lot into 255 characters.  You'll also want to make all of these macros, as you'll be using them all the time.  At my peak I think I had almost two dozen different ads written up.  If you advertise a lot it can start to annoy some people, and it's slightly less painful if they're not seeing the same thing over and over again.  I've had a few complaints, but probably 10 times as many people have taken the time to tell me that they love my ads.  So here are some for your viewing pleasure...

WTS all the mats needed to level cooking from 1-400, including recipes and personal instruction.  1250g - PST for details.  References available.

Show mom and your Home Ec teacher you can do more than just make Top Ramen.  Learn to cook with me today!  1-400 in 45 minutes, includes all mats and instruction.  1250g - PST for details.

Like Sam the Butcher bringing Alice the meat, so will I bring it to you, and teach you how to cook it.  1-400 cooking in 45 minutes; 1250g includes all mats and personal instruction.  PST for details.

DO YOU SMELL WHAT THE ROCK IS COOKIN'? Nothing, cause his skill is at 0.  He could train with me and be at 400 in 45 minutes for only 1250g if he played WoW, though.  PST for details.

Now accepting applications for Trischa's Club of Awesome.  All new members receive free 1-400 cooking leveling and a Hertz Doughnut.  Annual dues 1250g - PST for details

Trischa's Culinary Academy is the Concorde of profession leveling.  Speed, service, and maybe a lavatory handjob from a hot flight attendant.  1250g for 1-400 cooking in about 45 minutes.  PST for details. Don't settle for coach.

Almost 85% of cooking leveling attempts end in mutilation or death.  Why not have a professional guide you through the process?  Trischa's Culinary Academy will get you from 1-400 cooking in 45 minutes.  1250g includes everything.  PST for details.

When you go to Arthas's Icecrown potluck, bringing Spice Bread is a surfire way to catch a beatdown.  Why not impress him with Worg Tartare?  I can help you get your cooking from 1-400 in about 45 minutes.  1250g.  PST for details.

My cooking brings all the boys to the yard; and they're like, it's better than yours, damn right, it's better than yours.  I can teach you, but I'd have to charge 1250g for 1-400.  PST for details.  References available.

If you can't cook you'll miss out on the exciting new 3.1 food additions, including kosher, vegan and gluten free items!  1-400 cooking with me is only 1250g and takes about 45 minutes.  PST for details.


Feel free to steal anything that catches your fancy.  I prefer to add a bit of humor to mine, but that's just me.  Sometimes I tailor ads to specific situations.  On April Fools Day I had one that started off "It's no joke, I can level level your cooking..."  When casinos were in their heyday I had one that was a takeoff on that.  "All bets 1250g, roll 1-100 all numbers lose but you get 1-400 cooking as a consolation prize".  Silly things like that.  Have fun with your advertising.

But don't spam.

Some people will get a bug up their butt just because they see you all the time, but if you're keeping a few minutes between your ads there shouldn't be any problem.  That's what trade chat is for.  Just don't be popping them every 20-30 seconds.  That might get you in trouble.  This might not be an issue if you're just doing this occasionally, but I have one server that I'm doing nothing on but this business, just as a test to see if I could do it from scratch.  I'll spend a couple hours at a time in trade, and that can sometimes get a little overwhelming for some people.  If you just want to keep a couple kits in stock and pop a few ads whenever you're in a capital city you should be fine.

Clients
Your kits are ready to go and you've just dropped your first ad.  I can almost guarantee that if you're just starting out, you'll hear from someone almost immediately unless your server is deserted.  People might want to know more about what you're doing, or will be geniunely interested in buying.  I have 'PST for details' in all my ads, so lots of times I'll get a tell that just says 'details'.  This is a great time for another macro.  My standard reply is something like this:

"I've got all the mats and recipes collected, organized and ready to go.  You just stand next to me, I'll hand you things to cook and tell you when to stop.  It's pretty easy."

If they message you back after that then you can flesh out more details, but that's a good start.  It's hard to convey in a single ad that you're really helping people level their cooking.  Some people will assume this entails you logging into their account.  I actually had one guy ready to send his login info with no prompting from me.  Explain right off the bat that there's nothing like that going on here; you're just selling the mats and recipes and explaining what to do with them. 

You'll also want to talk about the fee early on.  I have some ads where I don't mention the price, and that's usually the first thing people want to know.  It can be a lot for some people, so if that turns them off then you don't need to go any further.  If people can't afford it, I actually tend to point them to El's site and tell them that it's not that hard to do, it just takes time.

It's important to realize that convenience is really a big part of what people are paying for.  I tried to sit down and come up with a market price for the mats I use, and came up with something in the 350-400g range.  That was back when I was using up maybe 125g worth of Northrend fish in a kit.  (Right now it's about 25g).  That's a pretty hefty markup, but people are paying for having 400 cooking handed to them on a silver platter.  When you mail something, you can send it Parcel Post for a couple bucks and wait 7-10 days, or you can pay $50 and have your package there tomorrow morning. 

I've very open about explaining what people are paying for, and I'll usually tell them how much the mats might cost if you bought them outright.  I'll also make sure they know that it's rare that you'll find all the mats you need at once, and it might take a bit of time to get everything together.  If they don't think it's worth it, that's cool.  But plenty of people will.  Remember that we're in a world where people will blow thousands of gold on a vanity pet that does absolutely nothing.  It's not hard to believe that people will pay for something useful.

It can get a little harder to come up with prices when people have done part of the work themselves.  I've got price lists on my forum posts above, but I tend to fudge those amount more often than not.  The further someone is along, the less work it would be for them to finish up themselves.  This generally puts me in a awkward position.  Say someone comes up and wants to know what it'll cost for 319-400.  I know from experience that if the stuff is available in the AH I could probably pick up those mats for maybe 50g or less (at current prices).  I could put those mats in a full kit and get a ton for them, so to sell to this guy and make it worth my while I have to charge him a lot.  I have a serious honesty problem, so I'll generally tell the people they just need a couple of things and offer to tell them what to look for in the AH.  If you had a ton of mats to spare and your full kit selling was slow, you might want to tack on a small fee and take on customers like this.  It's up to you.

Another good thing to mention at this point is when to get paid.  You obviously can't fit everything into a trade window, so someone has to put up first.  You could always start by asking for the fee up front.  You'd be surprised at the number of people that have handed me full payment right off the bat.  Lots of people won't have an issue with this, especially if you've got a decent reputation.  I've actually got a couple level 1 salesmen, so that might take a little more convincing.

If they balk at that, suggest they pay half up front and half when you're done.  This is a good middle ground, because even if they were to screw you and walk off without paying, you'd still make a profit.  For the slightly more nervous, offer to level them to 225 first, then they pay half, then the second half when you're done.  That way that can see that you're doing what you said you'd do, but you're getting some payment before getting into the expensive stuff.  (Not that it's that expensive any more.)

For the really paranoid, you can get them to 400 first, then ask for payment.  Just use your judgement and do whatever works.  I can say that after nearly 70 clients I haven't been screwed by anyone yet, and a good number of those paid some or all at the end.  Most people are pretty honest.

Leveling the Cooking
So you're finally ready to start cooking!  This part is easy, as long as you follow your guide.  I start off with a short explanation of what I'll be doing.  I don't just dump all the mats on people, get my money and run, though I suppose you could.  Part of what people are paying for is expert service, and that's what I provide.  I'll hand people a recipe and the meat for that recipe and tell them when I want them to stop cooking.  Make sure they know to stop when you tell them to, and then ask for the raw leftovers back.  (If they give you any cooked stuff, sell it right there so it doesn't go back into your inventory.)

Make sure they stop for training.  Some people just hit 'create all' and then space out.  There are a few places this'll get you into trouble.  Catfish, for instance, we cook to 160, but Journeyman maxes out at 150 skill.  You need to make sure they stop at 125 and pick up Expert or they'll burn through your mats.

It's a good idea if you've got some extras sitting around, so at worst you can log onto your bank alt and transfer a few extra meat over.  If you're careful you can avoid that.  I think I've only had a few screwups in all the people I've trained, and they were easily fixed.

I start in a captial city, train to 300, then hearth to Dal with my client, meet up at the cooking trainer there and continue on to 400.  When you're all done, offer some cheers and congratulations.  Get your fee if they didn't pay you all up front.  Get back any raw stuff they have leftover.  If you've got the time, a nice thing to do is to give the people a quick rundown on the Dal cooking dailies, since they might not have any idea how they work.  If you want to go the extra mile, keep some Chilled Meat, Northern Stew and Rhino Dogs around so you can walk them through their first daily.  It's icing on the cake to have them get their first cooking award a few minutes after they hit 400. 

Sweet!  You're on your way to becoming rich.

How to Expand
If you find this more fun than raiding, you might want to try and start expanding.  After selling maybe a dozen kits or so, I was contacted by someone who had seen my forum post and was interested in training, but his main was Alliance.  (I started on the Horde side.)  I figured that we could transfer everything through a neutral AH, so I got a kit and we headed down to Gadgetzan.  To his credit, he not only paid up front, he paid maybe $1400g+ so that when the AH took their 10% cut I'd still get my 1250g fee.

We were on Vent, so I'd tell him what I was putting up for sale, and he purchased things one at a time until he had the full kit.  Then I walked him through the cooking just like normal.

After that I realized there was an entire faction sitting there ripe for the picking.  So I got another account and opened up shop in Stormwind.  I have a lvl 1 I swam down the coast from SW and a horde DK, both of which are parked in Booty Bay.  I'll get a few kits worth of mats, mail them to the DK, then get on two PCs and move all the mats through the AH to the Alliance toon.  This is trivial on a PVE server, but on PVP I occasionally get killed.  More often than not it's by people doing the Bloodsail Admiral achievement.  It's really annoying when they kill the auctioneer.

So once I have the mats on the Alliance toon, I mail everything to my SW salesperson.  Despite the fact I was selling from a lvl 1 toon, I didn't have much of a problem.  Things were going great and I sold quite a few kits.

As good as things were going, I was having a blast running my business and I wanted more.  I was curious as to whether I could do this on a new server, entirely from scratch.  I also wanted to get a clearer idea of how much money I was bringing in.  On the new server I wasn't going to do anything but run the business, so I could always get an update of how much time I'd spent and how much money I'd made.

If you decide to go this far, it's handy to have a little start up money.  I had a guildie with an alt on a different server who was willing to loan me 500g.  I think, however, that you could start with nothing without too much problem.  Since you'll need to farm stuff in high level areas the only choice is to start a DK.  I got mine out of the starting area, grabbed a fishing pole and started working.  It took maybe a week of working a few hours a night to get my fishing up to 450.  All you need to do is sell one kit and you'll have plenty of funding to get started, including bank space and buying mats for your next few kits.

I followed the same plan as I had with my main.  After maybe a month and a few people expressing interest, I started a toon on the Horde side and repeated my act of moving mats through the neutral AH so I could sell to the other faction.

So to date, this is a rundown of how my operation is set up:  I started with my lvl 80 main on the Horde side of Scilla.  I've got a primary fish alt with a 4-tab guild bank, along with two secondary alts I use for overflow of meat and recipes.  My DK is parked in Booty Bay for AH transfers.  I've sold about 35 kits there.  On Scilla Alliance I've got a level 1 salesman whose bank is overflow for my fish alt.  He's currently leasing a 3 tab guild bank from a very friendly past client.  I've also got another level 1 that I swam down to Booty Bay for the AH transfers.  I've sold a little over 10 kits there. 

My first server expansion was to Khadgar.  My main there is a 59 DK, who is my salesperson and fisherwoman.  I've got a fish alt there with a 3-tab guild bank given to me by yet another friendly past client (I told you they love me).  I didn't feel like running another alt down to BB so when I need to transfer stuff I just run my DK down.  I've sold about 25 kits there.  Finally over on Khadgar Horde I just recently opened up another franchise.  Things are pretty small right now.  I've got a lvl 1 alt in Booty Bay for mat transfers and my lvl 1 salesman in Org.  I haven't expanded much there, so I generally use the Booty Bay toon to build the kits and get them in the mail to the Org toon.

Final Thoughts
I think I may have gone a little overboard, both with my business as well as writing this guide.  One thing you may have noticed is that I've got almost 30,000g on Khadgar with nothing to use it for.  My original plan was to move this back to Scilla.  I can either level my DK up to 70 and I'll be able to move 20,000g, or I can try to spend it all on commodities which I'll have to sell when I get back.  I'm not sure how well that'll work.  Then it's just a $25 transfer fee to Blizz to get it home.  If you didn't know, you can actually have more than 1 DK per server, as long as you transfer them over.  You just can't make a second if you've already got one.

Hot salepersons are awesome!  My main is a Tauren warrior.  Bleh.  The DK I started on Khadgar is a smoking hot female Dranei.  Get a chick, and once you have some cash, buy a Lovely Black Dress.  I think it helps.