We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kristi Heyer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kristi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

I absolutely love to vacation and have learned that being able to fully disconnect is a necessity not just for me, but also for my family. It’s how we reset and recharge and remind ourselves what we are working for.

Kristi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started Graze & Vines a little over 2 years ago on Thanksgiving Day 2020 during a text exchange with some friends. I sent them a photo of a charcuterie board I’d made, they insisted it should be a business, and within hours we had the business name, domain, and Instagram handle reserved!

This was truly born out of a desire to help people gather together – and what better way to do that than around some delicious food? Our cheese boards are not only beautiful centerpieces, they are also great conversation starters and encourage people to gather around, laugh, and enjoy being together.

Since starting, we’ve grown from helping people host dinner parties in their homes to catering for hundreds at corporate events and weddings! We also host workshops which have been huge team building activities for corporate and private groups.

In everything we do, our aim is to help strengthen people’s relationships and bonds through food.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Most of our growth has come through Instagram – social media is so pivotal to small businesses like ours. We’ve also found a lot of success through sharing on Pinterest and Facebook. Overall, we rely on organic growth and word of mouth referrals. We rarely do paid advertisements.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

I am a people pleaser who has a hard time saying no – I was asked to pull off a last minute catering job for 500 people within 72 hours, I said yes and hustled and barely slept, but made it happen! It was during a season when we’d never done anything that big, so I knew this client was taking a risk on me and I couldn’t let them down. Thankfully, the event was a success!

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.Grazeandvines.Com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/grazeandvines
• Facebook: Facebook.com/grazeandvines

Image Credits
Headshot: @price_lifestyle