We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Crystal Richardson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Crystal thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.
Starting my pop up Picnic company a year and a half ago, I had one thing in mind. That was to provide luxury service at an affordable price. I had seen so many other picnic companies in my area provide the same service but they were all so expensive. It turns out, there were a lot of customers who agreed because we received a ton of traffic that we are so grateful for. We received so much attention that we decided to create a sister company called “Chic Charcuterie”. One of the add ons we offered for with our picnic was a Charcuterie box. Well, we received a lot of inquiries about just Charcuterie box orders so we decided to create a business that focused solely on Charcuterie box orders. Now, we do both picnics and Charcuterie!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
We started this company because it was important to us that EVERYONE enjoy luxury service no matter their budget. I had this idea for some time but one night I finally decided to just go for it. That night, I stayed awake pretty late designing a logo, price lists, style, locations, etc. The next day, I went and bought everything I needed to get started. Keep in mind that I was determined to do all this with a low budget myself. With the help of my amazing husband, we did a mock setup to take photos for our first Instagram post. From there, Chic Picniques just took off. From Chic Picniques, we received a lot of attention for our Charcuterie platters as well. In an effort to create more attention, we came up with the idea of “Bottles & Boards” which is a Charcuterie board workshop that offers endless wine and you get to bring home the beautiful board you created. I thought, “Why not create a separate business that caters solely to people who are interested in just the charcuterie board without the picnic?” And that is when “Chic Charcuterie” was born. Both of these companies were created in the midst of the pandemic and they both offered a fun experience while the rest of the world was essentially shut down. Now that everyone has more or less gotten back into the swing of things, Chic Picniques and Chic Charcuterie are still great ways to take a lot of the thinking and heavy lifting out of any event. Whether it’s an intimate date night for two or a gathering for a special event.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
We really believe that our businesses wouldn’t be where they were today without Instagram. It started with just one post. Compared to other Instagram accounts, the attention our first post received may not have been much. But for a company that really was created over night and started out with zero followers and no notoriety, 50 likes and 2 followers from just the first post, was a win for us and it really did give us a good insight as to what everyone was interested in and wanted to see. Over the next few months, we tried really hard to make a post everyday and be really interactive with our Instagram stories. We’re now at over 600 followers with most of our traffic coming from Instagram. To anyone starting their own company and wanting to build a strong following, I would say to stay persistent with the posts. Post at least once a day or every other day. Make sure to use a lot of hashtags and don’t forget to also show other accounts love too. You may not attract cash flow from a single Instagram post but you can certainly gain followers who then just might recommend you to a friend or colleague.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Funding for our businesses can definitely be tricky because we want to provide luxury while still maintaining a low budget ourselves but it is most certainly possible. Sourcing a lot of our supplies from second hand stores and thrifting has really helped stay within budget. Creativity and budget consciousness can really turn anything into something beautiful if you learn to think outside the box. Some may pass a dusty, old wine glass on a thrift store shelf but I see an antique goblet that provides our centerpieces with a lot of charm.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/chicpicniques?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=143239fd-0f05-43fd-b7da-1714f1ac034f
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/chiccharcuterietampa?r=nametag
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChicCharcuterieTpa
- Other: Chic Picniques: https://instagram.com/chicpicniques?r=nametag Chic Charcuterie: https://instagram.com/chiccharcuterietampa?r=nametag
Image Credits
Nickstal Photography for the Family photo