Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lane Tunstall. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lane, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

To be successful, you have to fail. You have to try things and the only way you will know if they work is by trying them out. Sometimes things fail and that’s ok. The key is to move on and try a new thing and not dwell on your failures and mistakes. Just move forward.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My youngest son went to kindergarten in Fall 2019 and I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. I wanted to re enter the workforce after being a stay at home Mom for the previous 5 years. I decided on a whim to sell some charcuterie boards to earn some money as a side hustle until I found a full time job. Well pretty quickly I realized that charcuterie boards and running a charcuterie business could actually be my career and what I wanted to do with my life work wise. Those charcuterie boards turned into giant grazing tables at weddings and events and diy charcuterie board building for a fun corporate activity or girls night out. We moved to a new storefront in 2022 and now host baby and bridal showers and other fun events as a venue space, too.

The Board + Brie team cares deeply about the customer experience. We want to make it easy for you to have a party by creating a beautiful board your guests love so you don’t have to go to the store or think about cutting up cheese and cleaning up your kitchen. We want everyone who walks in the door to feel comfortable and welcome and to be excited about trying our beautiful creations. We love making boards for life’s milestones and special events and are so grateful that our customers choose us to do that. Yes, we’ve all made mistakes as everyone does, we are human. But we always make it right and learn from every situation.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

The very first day I made my first board to sell I made a facebook business page. I didn’t overthink it, I just came up with a fun name and started posting pictures of my boards on Facebook and Instagram. My advice is to just start posting! Don’t worry if the picture isn’t perfectly filtered or you don’t know what to write-just do it. You build engagement and a following by consistently posting fun updates and pretty pictures of things going on in your business. It’s a simple as that. Another huge tip is to engage with all of the comments. Don’t just “like” the comments, really take the time to respond to every comment with a genuine response. Your followers are taking the time to leave comments on your page and it’s so important to engage with them. They might have a great tip for you, too. Some of our new boards or class ideas have came from customer suggestions on our social media pages via their comments.

Have you ever had to pivot?

For sure Covid. I started my business in 2019, so when Covid hit I was just beginning to do grazing tables at weddings and lots of in person classes and my business was taking off from these huge gatherings. When covid started I refunded thousands of dollars for upcoming events and cried in my closet. I thought Board + Brie was done for. Then a customer messaged me and asked if I could deliver a smaller board for her and her husband to share for date night in since restaurants were closed. Of course I said sure and started posting on my facebook page that I was going to start delivering charcuterie to homes. I drove all around the metroplex delivering in 2020 until I opened my storefront in Fall 2020. I also started doing virtual classes and they became a huge part of our business in 2021.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.boardbriedfw.com
• Instagram: @boardbrie
• Facebook: @boardandbrie

Image Credits
Ann Starkweather Photography Amber Tice Photography Asher + Grace Photography