The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Protecting Your Brand at All Costs: The Art of Food Entrepreneurship | Andrea & Derek Johnston
Derek and Andrea Johnston share their journey from enjoying a charcuterie board on their first date to founding The Gathering Board, a successful charcuterie business started during the pandemic.
• Started business without formal planning after discovering no similar services existed in their area
• Built their website in three days and received their first non-friend order while grocery shopping
• Initially operated as a "bootleg" business until securing proper licensing and a commercial space
• Gained traction through Facebook group "Cherokee Connect," generating 500 website visits overnight
• Adopted Gordon Ramsay's quality standards after Andrea watched Hell's Kitchen while recovering from a broken jaw
• Expanded from small home delivery boards to event catering, now representing 75% of their business
• Secured their liquor license to provide full-service events including charcuterie and their signature "Pasta Baby" dish
• Partner with Rally Foundation for childhood cancer research, raising $20,000 through donated services
• Now employ a manager plus several staff members after five years in business
• Maintain the same high standards for every client regardless of size or profile
Follow the same high standards for all your work because you never know when a small job will lead to a major opportunity – many clients try a small order before booking a wedding or large event.
andrea@thegatheringboard.co
https://www.instagram.com/thegatheringboard.co/?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/thegatheringboard.co/?ref=_xav_ig_profile_page_web#
www.thegatheringboard.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-johnston-70a8271bb/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-johnston-4806746a/
#rallyfoundation#pastababy#focaccia#cherokeecountyfacebook#rallyontherunway#charcuterieboard#love#wine#pasta#grazingtables#catering#delivery#Atlanta#smallbusiness#money#entreprenuer
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
We were bootlegging.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Right, so I didn't want anybody coming to us until we were legit.
Speaker 3:Hey, I'm thinking like Duke's a hazard right.
Speaker 2:Remember the I just like moonshine, except for with meat and cheese.
Speaker 3:They're like Derek go Look the back of the car. No go, hit it Go. Roll out of the garage at night with no lights on, with your charcuterie board, the of the garage at night with no lights on, with your charcuterie board the whole time like but I'm here to save lives, I'm here to tell people how to do things the right way, and now you got me out here bootlegging me to Jesus.
Speaker 1:If they choke on the cheese, I can save that, I can fix them.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's how we justify it. Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. We're laughing already, ellen, because eyes on me. Ellen don't do not. Are you staring at my food? Don't you stare at my food? Don't you stare at my food? Oh my God, what are we?
Speaker 2:doing If you don't want to stare. You know, if you don't want somebody to stare at your chest, you shouldn't have your logo there.
Speaker 3:That's kind of why we're yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what I put, you're like eyes up here, big fella that's right, big fella.
Speaker 3:No, I'm like right here, eyes where I want them, the trusted toolbox right here on my chest. Huh, I wonder, is that why Hooters was so popular? I'm not going there. Okay, we're not going there as they are now going bankrupt. I know Crazy, right, it's a turn of the page, isn't it? It is a turn of the page. Now, let's turn the page and talk about what we're going to talk about today. Oh wait.
Speaker 2:I got something to tell you. What's that? Oh, let me guess Weekend's coming.
Speaker 3:Weekend came. Oh, you don't look particularly hungover on a Wednesday.
Speaker 2:Right, I, uh I kept it together for the weekend because I got new clubs. Were those the ones I just saw in the garage? That's right, baby. I almost went over there cause it looked really clean.
Speaker 3:I asked Titleist if they wanted to sponsor the podcast and they said, yeah, you're going to have to get in line because we've got too many others. But I'm like they aren't as cool as us. I need new clubs and I wouldn't mind it if you wanted to kind of comp them for me. So there's no comp, by the way, but I've got them, Titleist Big surprise, yeah, and how are you hitting them?
Speaker 2:I loved it.
Speaker 3:I had a good time so I played one round. Dispersion came down. You know I didn't have a whole lot going on this weekend. Well, so we're doing this podcast in the middle of the week, as we always do.
Speaker 2:There's a golf course literally right there. Have I ever played with Chris?
Speaker 3:No, I won't let him come with me. No.
Speaker 1:I can't Super rude, thank you. Thank you, no, I meant rude that you haven't asked him.
Speaker 3:Right, rude, that I haven't asked him.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:He seems like a nice guy.
Speaker 2:I am a nice guy, he's a nice guy, and I can hit the ball.
Speaker 3:okay, he does hit the ball. Okay, because I did use him in a scramble at a charity event. Yeah, but not here. But just not here, wait, yeah. So guess what I'm doing after we're done with this show. We're doing this during the middle of the week. I've got another big event happening tomorrow, what I'm going to be playing in the 680 the Fan charity golf event for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Very cool.
Speaker 2:I got invited because I do the radio show and they said, hey, we'd love to have you come out there? Because you're a big personality now, so they want the celebrities, I guess.
Speaker 3:So people have to bid on you to be in their foursome. They're like who's this guy? Five cents, I'm your a player? No, we don't want that. No, uh, but I'm going out there with my new sticks and I'm going to show off. Nice, yes, all right. But now speaking of showing off, what do we talk about? Most of the time when we're on, we're always talking about business, when we're always having a drink or two, unless somebody bangs on us about a breathalyzer test. I live here, so we're good. Alan has a bed here, we're fine. If he has to, he can stay and not leave next time, all right. So what else do we talk about all the time? Alan loves to cook. Chris loves to eat. Chris cook, chris loves to eat. Chris loves to cook. I love to cook too, so I and I also being the president of Nary, we had our Nary event earlier this year.
Speaker 2:Notice how he name dropped. He could have just said we had a Nary event, but you know.
Speaker 3:I am the president Resident, you like that? Yes, that's his flax right there.
Speaker 1:It was a little humble, I'm going to genuflect right now, but are you the president of your HOA?
Speaker 3:Oh, gosh, no, I am, oh, no, uh-oh, you know what?
Speaker 2:Oh, God bless you.
Speaker 1:So much power.
Speaker 2:Oh dude, Such a thankless, brutal job.
Speaker 1:We have a really good neighborhood.
Speaker 2:How many homes?
Speaker 1:It's a condo unit.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:So there's 59. You can't hide from each other, then we're in our own little tiny building, three of us, and then everybody else is in there, so I can hide a little bit.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, that's serious power.
Speaker 2:I got called a Nazi because I'm on our board and we won't allow red mulch. I'm like I don't think that was in mind, conf, but you know, just saying thou shall not have red mulch. No, okay, call that nazi I'm the I'm not opposed to that I actually found an article saying trends that you know, bad landscaping trends that are dying, and it was red mulch, I'm like we published it in the next newsletter, attaboy, just double down. Yep in the all right.
Speaker 3:What was the worst thing you've ever had to do at the hoa? Like tell somebody it. You can't do that or you can't shoot somebody. You can't keep your dead mom in a freezer. What was?
Speaker 1:we had a lady that that was feeding the squirrels. So she would throw peanuts out to the squirrels and they got so dependent on that they would sit on the tree branch and scream, screaming at her window for her to throw more down. I mean, that's not the worst, but we have pretty good neighbors. We had a guy that got up on the roof and was going to film a YouTube video up there. He had like a whole contract and everything for the people that he had hired. But like you can't go on a roof, like you'll fall, yeah, there's no ledge.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:It's just kind of weird things like that Screaming squirrels.
Speaker 3:That's not going to be the episode title. Definitely not that intended consequences.
Speaker 1:I don't hate it, it's good people. We have good people.
Speaker 3:All right, let's get into it. Yeah, you ready, yeah, segway that, chris, I can't Screaming squirrels to the charcuterie board.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I'm going to start screaming until we open it up.
Speaker 3:All right, we have the gathering board. All right, andrea and Derek Johnston are here. All right, we have the gathering board. All right, andrea and Derek Johnston are here. And I met them at this event and I just was I really love their food Number one and I just started talking to Andrea and she said, well, we've started this business and we're going all in, we're jumping in and doing this, and I was like, really, I said I really want to have you come on the podcast because I'm talking to somebody next week who thinks that starting your own business is just nothing. But you know, high in the sky, getting new clubs, getting to play golf, doing all the great cool stuff that's 17 years later and I'm still hustling. Bro. He does not realize how hard it's going to be. So I'm excited to talk to somebody who's just getting started, to see what they expected and get into all this stuff. But I would say welcome first, but let's get a little background. So you guys are married.
Speaker 1:Correct, did that happen? Yes, we are.
Speaker 3:And you guys started this business together before you were married.
Speaker 1:We did.
Speaker 3:Do tell.
Speaker 1:So we have only been married for three years. We met in 2018, and Derek lived in our condo that we live in right now, and then I lived up in Canton.
Speaker 2:So Derek's attracted to power is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 3:You brought her in and you made her HOA president.
Speaker 1:She's admired of this. So Derek moved up with me up in Canton because my daughter was in high school and we were living up there until she graduated and we I'm kind of jumping the gun so we met in 2018.
Speaker 3:And you guys are both full-time job. This thing wasn't even around the gathering board not an idea.
Speaker 1:No, not at all.
Speaker 2:Either of you involved in food at all to this point.
Speaker 1:Just loving to eat. Okay, yeah, I just love food. I went through this huge made-from-scratch phase and so when my kids were little, I made them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I made the bread.
Speaker 2:I made them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I made the bread, I made the peanut butter. I love that. I made the jelly.
Speaker 1:Yes, I even had a cow for a while. I was a chicken farmer for a little bit, which sounds just ridiculous to say that now, but it was so much fun. So I've made butter, I've made ice cream, I actually you guys have some ricotta right here. I wish I would have milked the cow to make the ricotta, because it would taste better. But this is second best.
Speaker 2:So my son is a hunter and he married a girl who's basically a farmer and their dream is to have a Thanksgiving where they source all their own ingredients and I think that would just be amazing.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, it tastes, it just tastes better. Be amazing. I love that. Yeah, it tastes, it just tastes better. And there's this satisfaction that you receive from eating a meal that you made yourself.
Speaker 3:All right, so from farm to table, but let's talk about from farm to table to making money, to making money. I love what your uh, your son's going to do, but ain't going to make no money.
Speaker 2:You know he probably could make some money doing that. Okay yeah, all right, challenge accepted I like it, I think.
Speaker 3:So you know he probably could make some money doing that. Okay, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:Challenge accepted, I like it, I think so. You know once a year event and he'd happily go shoot some stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think so All right.
Speaker 1:So Derek and I started dating and Derek took me down to a place in Atlanta, a little Italian restaurant, and we got a charcuterie board. And I'd gone on dates before when I got in a charcuterie board and it was okay, it was fine. But with him it was just totally different.
Speaker 2:Maybe it was a halo effect because of Derek.
Speaker 1:I think I actually liked him. Yeah, you know versus anybody else.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 1:I did like him. The ambiance was better, the wine was delicious, the presentation of the board was really spot on and the flavors were amazing. So we were sharing it. You know, I was hogging all the tomato jam and like totally turning my nose up to the olives like gross, get those out of here. He loved them. I didn't. You know what do you think this is? Let's try some more of that.
Speaker 1:It was just a great experience and I really think that that meal that we shared together over you know, we just shared one plate of food it really was intimate and bonded us in a really interesting way. And so after that, a couple weeks later, we went to another restaurant let's get another charcuterie board and that one was boring and dry. They served it on like a metal cookie sheet. Didn't taste good. We were really disappointed because we had spent a lot of money on it. So we joked around about going on to different restaurants and doing like videos of our food and putting it up on YouTube and maybe doing like charcuterie board reviews doing and putting it up on YouTube and maybe doing like charcuterie board reviews of different restaurants.
Speaker 1:That would be fun, kind of a cool date night idea. But then COVID hit and so we didn't go anywhere. We just stayed home and at home, left to our own devices. We just made a lot of food and drink a lot of alcohol, and I know a lot of people struggled through COVID. We had a great time. We had a good time. I was doing real estate at the time.
Speaker 3:So you were in real estate, I was doing real estate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I have a background in general construction. My ex-husband and I owned a general contracting company up in Michigan, so I'm unique in that I pretty much know how to build a house Most girls don't and it's kind of fun. I have a lot of experience doing things like that.
Speaker 4:So, Derek, do you give her the honey-do list?
Speaker 1:then, of course, he doesn't really need to, because I like doing it, so get it done. You want that mirror hung? I could do that.
Speaker 3:You were in real estate in 2020 and COVID. Actually, people probably don't realize this, but it was not a bad time for you, was it?
Speaker 1:It was not a bad time.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did pretty well. There was a. You know I could still sell houses, but I'd make my own schedule. I could work when I wanted to stay home when I wanted to. Derek owned a CPR company. He's a paramedic and his business is teaching CPR classes to doctors, surgeons, dentists, and COVID shut that down 100%. They weren't allowed to take classes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can't Zoom that one, can you, derek? Not really. No, you're not giving enough pressure there. No, he actually just broke his ribs Right. Oh my gosh. No wrong counts. What do you do? You just shut it down?
Speaker 4:shut it down. I had contracts at several hospitals, uh, and everything just shut down. Hospital shut down, Um, we lost our contracts. So I went from uh over 20 employees to just me, so everything shut down overnight.
Speaker 3:So, uh, you're saying, hey, we had a great time. That doesn't sound like a great time. Were you in the right headspace? Were you like okay, well, this is just meant to be, and I can see the next option in front of me. Or tell me what were you thinking.
Speaker 4:That was a tough time for me because my business just dried up so I had plenty of savings, so I didn't have to worry too much for a while.
Speaker 1:He also did some contract work, so with his paramedic license he went to Congress Center.
Speaker 4:I think they had a Three months as overflow for Grady with COVID patients, did three months there, did three months in Chinle, arizona, at one of the Indian reservations and then did three months in New York. So that was very interesting work to do.
Speaker 3:So we weren't thinking about starting that business then.
Speaker 1:We were. So we're going to back up a little bit. Yeah, we're at home, we're watching movies till 2 in the morning. We're making food, so I was making charcuterie boards for ourselves. It was just fun. My personality is such like the first one I made. It was not impressive, it was just meat cheese.
Speaker 2:You've come a long way, because the one you have right in front of us here is like art.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I think it's maybe our podcast cover art.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no kidding, think it's beautiful. I think it's maybe our podcast cover art.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no kidding, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Well, so my personality is such that I'll look at it and go I can do better. I don't understand the concept of doing something just for the fun of it if you're terrible at it. I know there's a lot of people that are fine with that. That's great For me. Personally, I don't have fun if I'm not somewhat good at what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:It sounds like golf yeah.
Speaker 1:I will. I won't go golfing because I'm not good at it. If I golfed, I might be better at it, but it's not my thing.
Speaker 2:And that's the weird thing about that game is you just really can't ever get good at it.
Speaker 3:No, I mean no. I played with one guy who ever said, man, that was the best shot of my life and it wasn't a hole-in-one. And I'm like, no, you didn't get a hole-in-one.
Speaker 2:You can't master it, you can't master it.
Speaker 3:So you just kept iterating.
Speaker 2:So I just kept making more boards and we just had fun doing that and I was posting pictures to my Facebook.
Speaker 1:How's your sodium level we?
Speaker 3:don't check that Blissful ignorance. Yeah, yeah, but still, I mean she's in shape. They both look great too, so obviously they're not partaking of much of their stuff, or maybe?
Speaker 1:they're running a marathon every day. Well, you can only eat so much charcuterie, day after day after day, and we've been doing this for five years. So I posted pictures on Facebook and his mom saw them and so she asked for one for her birthday. I was like, okay, that's cool. So we went Not really their forte, but they had a pretty nice selection. And then, cause I'm a little bougie, I was like, hey, let's find some cheese knives, make it like a whole package. And cause, also, I wanted to impress future mother-in-law.
Speaker 3:Right Good move.
Speaker 1:Right, so there's. There's not any like real home goods stores down there, so we went to a little antique shop. I said, hey, I'm looking for some knives that could work for a charcuterie board. And right off the bat she goes oh, did you know there's a place that makes and delivers charcuterie boards. And it was this like aha, what, what a cool idea. You can't do that.
Speaker 1:So, that was a cool idea. You can't do that, so that was a cool idea to me. Now I started multiple businesses in my head, never really got around to starting them, but it's sort of like a hobby to find things like the blender bottle. There's a problem they put a powder in a drink. He has to get a whisk and stir it up. Would that be cool if we could just put a whisk right at the bottom? Comes up with this product, millionaire. I love that. I love that concept, and so I would always look at different things and see what's the problem and how could I fix it. I like to fix problems, and so this was something completely unexpected. Nothing I had been looking for to do anything with food, but the concept of something unique like charcuterie boards as a business was.
Speaker 2:I don't know. It was fascinating to me and just stuck. Let me guess what you talked about all the way home from Mississippi, yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 3:I knew that I'm getting a.
Speaker 2:I'm getting a knowing look from Derek.
Speaker 3:I'm pretty sure it wasn't. Hey, do you think your mother liked me? Hey, uh, derek, what do you think about this? Uh, what do you think about this idea? What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:So, would you guys Amazon?
Speaker 1:No, no, we did not. Um, we went home, home, and I just couldn't shake the idea. It wasn't local to their city, it was in a different city. So I just I couldn't shake the idea and I was like I can do that.
Speaker 3:She had a fever. She had a fever for salami and prosciutto and cheese and organizing they make it look so nice. Okay, so you had this fever. It's always good, right Right To have a business plan. What'd you do?
Speaker 1:I winged it.
Speaker 3:That a girl, here we go.
Speaker 1:So this was August 2020. We are smack dab in the middle of COVID. Still, I decided a great business name was calling it the Gathering Board. I wanted people to gather around and get that same feeling like we had on our first date, where you're sharing a meal.
Speaker 2:You're right about that. I mean there is a strong business principle. I mean the bond that you create with somebody over a good meal. It really applies in business 100%. Yeah, and I mean better than a sales call, better than you know, yeah, you sit over a good meal and suddenly you know you. There's a connection there that you wouldn't otherwise have.
Speaker 1:It's a feeling. Right, there's that phrase. You know you always. You don't never forget how somebody made you feel, but if you can evoke that feeling with good food or a unique food experience, it's amazing.
Speaker 3:So she actually did. Do the Simon Sinek. Find your why, her why was bringing people together over a food and bonding and gathering, especially during a time where none of us were gathering?
Speaker 2:Well, and you're hitting a couple extra senses than you would normally get in a sales call, for example.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, all right yeah.
Speaker 1:So Derek started teaching classes again and so there was one specifically that was for some oral surgeons and he had the class set up and there was maybe eight of them and I made a board and I brought it with and I said hey, I brought you guys snacks, and they took one look of it at the board and they just like devoured. They were so excited. Just the response from them like, hey, can I get your business card? Sorry, I don't have one yet. Well, what's your website? Like don't have that yet either. Like this is just R&D at this point, trying to find out, is this even something that I would get good reactions for? There's nothing like this around. There was no other businesses that were specifically focused on charcuterie.
Speaker 2:So far, the first focus group was really positive.
Speaker 1:Very positive yes.
Speaker 3:She went to the right people oral surgeons, lots of money and then Derek probably had them doing CPR all day, working their ass off making sure they didn't have lunch.
Speaker 2:Hail this salami and we're going to go to the Heimlich, by the way how's this stuff look?
Speaker 3:Hey, by the way, can you boost our business? Oh, you guys loved it. Oh, why? Because you haven't eaten since yesterday. Ah, don't worry about that. Ah, good strategy Derek wears them out and you come in and knock them down.
Speaker 1:Hey, we make a great team. I like it yeah.
Speaker 3:All right. So from that great start of no business plan winging it, no business cards, no website, here I go. I'm backing into a business. What'd you do then?
Speaker 1:I started a website. So that took about three days and I took a bunch of pictures. I made some boards you know took my time because I was able to and got pictures with my phone is very homemade and I put together a website and I thought it looked pretty good as basic, came up with some pricing and then let's see here my friend Janine she is my champion has been by my side forever. She made sure she wanted to be my first customer and so she ordered off of our website.
Speaker 3:So you built a website where you could order off the website in three days.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's amazing for me. I have no idea what I'm doing with websites. I don't it was just the.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean I've got so many questions because not only do you have the packaging and the fulfillment and all that, but then okay, there's probably something to do with the health department and starting a food business and you have an entrepreneurial background.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:In real estate and in construction. So you kind of know your way around that registering with the secretary of state and all that stuff. But, then it's like okay, I'm doing a food business. That's a completely different animal.
Speaker 3:La dee, da, dee, da, da, da da insurance. Oh government regulations, screw it.
Speaker 1:Sell stuff. Let's go. You sound like you belong in an HOA. Just saying Thank you Rules.
Speaker 3:Get out of here. Sell that stuff.
Speaker 1:You're correct. So there are some regulations and things like that. We didn't know if this was going to be a legit, if we would have enough business to sustain.
Speaker 2:Is this something that I could sell a board to a couple of friends, a couple of neighbors. Oh, so you started a really black market, backed into the legal stuff. Is that what I'm hearing? True crime, we got true crime again.
Speaker 3:I am totally fine with that big dog. I am so fine with backing in Screw the government. We're libertarian.
Speaker 1:Big time libertarian yes. However, once we determined this is definitely something that we can make a business out of, then we went and found a location and went through the correct path of getting a health department license.
Speaker 2:Do you have a retail location?
Speaker 1:We do.
Speaker 2:Why did you choose to do that? Because that's a big expense you have to.
Speaker 1:So you can make cakes and cookies and crackers as in your own home with a cottage food license. You cannot do that with charcuterie. It's a meat and cheese product has to be refrigerated, so they call that a time temperature control or TCS food. You cannot do that with a cottage food license unless you have a specific kitchen in your home that is separate and is licensed as a commercial kitchen. So we have to If you want to have charcuterie business the chicken salad chick.
Speaker 3:That reminds me of her story of starting out doing it in Auburn, alabama and then realizing she had to have a real commercial grade kitchen that was separate of her own kitchen and ran into all those rules. So when we say you have a retail, do you have actually a storefront? We do. It's open for the public to come walking in.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and where is that located? That's in Holly Springs, which is between Woodstock and Canton, and we were the first charcuterie catering company with a storefront in the state of Georgia.
Speaker 3:So do you have something like we're taping this episode during the week? Do you have somebody there right now, man in the store for you.
Speaker 1:Normally, yes, um, but our gal is on vacation this week, so we put up a sign that says uh, closed for a private event. We'll be back tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Oh, that is so smart, yeah, so smart Cause you know what that makes me want to do Find out how I get my private event there. That's right, all right. So when I met you guys earlier this year, you already had a retail storefront.
Speaker 1:Yes, we signed the lease in March of 2021. So that was about six months after we launched the business and officially got our license in August.
Speaker 3:All right, wanganit, I got to hear about this because there's one thing I do in my business is I definitely don't have a retail storefront and I was always shaken from that, because I started my business in 08 and I realized that there were remodelers who were putting up storefronts quote unquote to put cabinets out, show off product. People just will walk in and buy, which doesn't ever happen in my world. That's a lot of money. So I mean monthly, your outlay there is pretty, pretty pricey and plus the equipment you had to put in there. So that was a pretty big capital investment. So that's a lot of security boards.
Speaker 1:We were fortunate in that the health department did not make us do like an overhead hood, like for the stove. They didn't make us do those big commercial items because we weren't cooking raw meats, we weren't cooking hamburgers, things like that. Everything we did at the time was just preparing already cooked food.
Speaker 2:So no, grease trap.
Speaker 1:So no, grease trap either.
Speaker 2:That's a big savings yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean that is because barrier entry into restaurants I mean that's the biggest one is the build out. It is you think you got grandma's recipes nailed. But it is the build out and then the carrying costs of that place every month is a number.
Speaker 1:It's always twice as expensive as you think it will be and takes two to three times as long.
Speaker 2:Oh, it sounds like my wife. Yeah, every home project I do. Yeah, double the time, triple the budget Okay Sounds like my start.
Speaker 3:Yep, that's what I tell people now. If you can, if you can double the expenses and half the revenue and double the time it's going to take for you to break even, would you still do this business? Then let's go.
Speaker 1:Right and we were fortunate because you know, I told you, I have experience with construction and so I did a lot of the work myself. I had my son helped. He's super, you know, super knowledgeable on building things. His boss came and framed out a wall for us. The city didn't make us well, we had to get a building permit, but they didn't make it difficult. I'm on the DDA, so that's helpful because I know a lot of the people at the city and so you know, pull the permit and they were just easy to work with.
Speaker 3:That's awesome that they were business friendly, because you have enough hurdles, because I was talking about getting started and having the money. Now you've got to get people to show up and buy the stuff. So you're obviously you're having good success on your website through order fulfillment. Buy the stuff.
Speaker 1:So you're obviously having good success on your website through order fulfillment. So I would like to give a shout out to the Facebook group called Cherokee Connect.
Speaker 3:Cherokee Connect, cherokee Connect, cherokee Connect. We're going to put that in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Please. I really feel like they are what launched us in our town, because we were selling the boards when we just got started and I put a post up on there At the time I think they had maybe 27,000 followers and I posted some pictures of what we'd done and I said charcuterie boards delivered. That's a thing. It is now Introducing the gathering board where we make you know blah blah and I posted that onto their site around 5 pm and it was insane. I had immediate, immediate. I had over 500 visits to my website that night.
Speaker 3:Wow, oh, come on, let's go. Hashtag Cherokee Connect, do it again. It's 500.
Speaker 2:Chris, I think you need to get on Cherokee.
Speaker 3:Connect, hey Cherokee Connect. Do you guys need a great handyman?
Speaker 2:What'd you do? You need a commercial real estate guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, commercial real estate. Alan Wyatt, Keller, Willow. All right, so I mean, that's one of those things where you're like we've seen this in the movies like hey, we got an order, hey, we got two, hey, we got 20.
Speaker 2:Hey, we got 40. We got 400. We need to order some more salami now.
Speaker 3:Get the Red Bull. Hey, you ain't going to work tomorrow. Big guy, we got work to do what happened?
Speaker 1:So it was. It was pretty quick response and you know nobody's going to order a charcuterie board immediately, but it got us on their radar and they're like I'm going to have to try that. So, aside from Janine being my first order paid order, I was in the grocery store one day and my phone made this weird dinging sound and I pulled it up and I got a live like I got a legit. I don't know who this person is. Live like I got a legit. I don't know who this person is. They just ordered something on my website. It was so exciting and I may or may not have done this happy dance in the middle of the produce section. Yeah, pretty much it was. It was just phenomenal to me that I could make a product, build a website, put that product on my website and then somebody who doesn't know me ordered it because they liked what I had.
Speaker 2:That's so awesome.
Speaker 1:It was really awesome and I called Derek. I'm like, oh my gosh, we just got an order. It was so exciting.
Speaker 2:Okay. So you put it out there that you'll make all these different charcuterie boards and that you would deliver them. Is that part of it out there that you'll make all these different charcuterie boards and that you would?
Speaker 1:deliver them. We delivered everything at that point because we were bootlegging. I didn't want anybody coming to us until we were legit.
Speaker 3:Hey, I'm thinking like Dukes of Hazzard right it's like Moonshine, except for with meat and cheese.
Speaker 2:Go Go, Roll out like moonshine except for with meat and cheese.
Speaker 3:They're like Derek, go Look the back of the car, no, go Hit it go.
Speaker 2:Roll out of the garage at night with no lights on, with your charcuterie board.
Speaker 3:The whole time like but I'm here to save lives, I'm here to tell people how to do things the right way, and now you got me out here bootlegging meat and cheeses.
Speaker 1:If they choke on the cheese, I can save that, I can fix them.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah, that's how we justified it. Give that, give that driver's seat, bo, we got to go, go, go go. I dropped off another one.
Speaker 1:Go, go, go. So we knew full well like this is something that has to change. If we were going to have a legitimate business, we have to get a storefront. In the meantime I needed to pay for said storefront and so we, you know, sold some boards, but we made sure that we had a process that was exactly like what we would do and we had a commercial kitchen. So I got my serve safe manager license. We had a separate fridge, separate pantry, separate. I don't want anybody reaching in the bag of grapes that are going to be going to a customer. That's not. That's not okay. I wouldn't be okay with that. So we made sure that we did everything like we were supposed to.
Speaker 3:If a grape hypothetically rolls on the ground for five seconds, you pick it up. Is that allowed to still go to the customer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so, because you just wipe it off.
Speaker 1:That is a hard.
Speaker 2:no, it's a hard surface.
Speaker 3:Good for everybody on the podcast that we are not running a restaurant, Because at home that'd be like a ch-ch-ch.
Speaker 1:Dick to what you know, Chris.
Speaker 2:That's a hard no, damn it. You know, mythbusters actually did an experiment on that and it really doesn't pick up that much stuff on the ground If it's a hard surface like that Now, if it was like butter, but not if you serve it to people who you could actually kill.
Speaker 3:It's still a no, that's.
Speaker 1:She's a serve safe.
Speaker 3:She's gone to the other side now I know that doesn't sound very libertarian to me. She's got to serve to other people. I get it.
Speaker 1:So I want to back up the story slightly and explain to you our quality standards and why so. We started the business prior to launching talking about it on Cherokee Connect, and I had launched the website. I think it was up maybe three days and I went, got picked up as a player a girl player it's always hard to find girls playing on softball teams so I got a phone call hey, do you want to play on our team? I said absolutely, Went to play the next day and, maybe like the third inning, I broke my jaw. I got hit with the ball. It wasn't even off the bat.
Speaker 2:I got through it. I didn't expect that. I thought the third inning. She brings out the charcuterie ball.
Speaker 1:No Broke my jaw.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, oh my God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was pretty traumatic.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking. You're probably thinking to yourself this is my moneymaker, this is how I'm making money. I talk.
Speaker 2:I can buy my boards.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, derek, you're going to be the voice from now on, derek and so, yes, bring it in the right arm, get in there, buddy, they're selling. Yeah, oh, but seriously, I mean all jokes aside, how long did that set you down?
Speaker 1:A couple of weeks? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:Starting a business.
Speaker 1:Right after three days, like three days after I launched the website and I was all excited and ready to go, and now I'm in the hospital. I had to have surgery. I couldn't eat anything. I'm just miserable. It didn't hurt that bad. It really didn't, surprisingly.
Speaker 2:Did you get some guilt orders out of it though?
Speaker 1:No, nobody knew, because we hadn't.
Speaker 3:Because she didn't have a chance to talk to him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this was pre. Somebody shut her up.
Speaker 2:She should be on the ground, writhing, holding her jaw and handing out a card.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm thinking. We're going to get to this in a minute because I have seen a. The charcuterie board charcuterie company is popular. I think this is competition. I think somebody took her out. Sweep the leg, danny. I'm going.
Speaker 1:That's a little deep conspiracy theory here.
Speaker 3:Tanya Harding Do it Boom. She will not. You will not. You will not skate again, nancy. Yes, andrea, you will not be starting that thing, all right.
Speaker 1:All right. So I'm in bed, laid up, can't do anything, can't move, can't anything. And uh, I turn on the tv and I don't know what made me start watching it. But hell's kitchen was, was on, and so I started watching hell's kitchen. I'd not watched it before, but I'd heard of, you know, gordon ramsay and all that.
Speaker 2:But that's when you started screaming at people I know, because they couldn't talk.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so I started watching this. I'm like this is ridiculous. I can't even eat, I can just drink my meals. But I'm watching this cooking show, but I enjoyed it. And and I'm watching, he's throwing food and he's yelling at people and I'm trying to figure out why this guy is so crazy about making sure his food looks the way it's supposed to look. And as I'm going from episode to episode, season to season because I'm pretty sure I watched the entire I think we were 16 seasons at that point it dawned on me this is his brand, this is his food, this is his standard, and he's not lowering his standard for anybody. He expects them to come up to his standard and he values the people that come to his business, the people that give him money for a good meal. He values them and what they think of him, and so he makes sure that it's perfect.
Speaker 3:Gold nugget. That is a great gold nugget. You got to bring everybody up to your standards, not lower your standards until everybody come into your business and sell your reputation. That's a great one.
Speaker 1:It's difficult to do.
Speaker 1:It really is difficult to keep your standards and not be like. So you're talking about the grape on the floor. That wasn't my example, my example. But once I started building boards again, it was a couple of weeks later. I distinctly remember cutting a strawberry and the strawberry was fine. I would have eaten it. It wasn't rotten or moldy or anything like that, but it was a little squishy. And I remember going to put it on the board and going it's fine. And I swear to you I heard a voice say would Gordon Ramsay put that on his board?
Speaker 2:What would Gordon do?
Speaker 1:What would Gordon do? There you go.
Speaker 2:WWDD. What would Gordon do?
Speaker 1:And I knew he would not. There is no way that he would have been okay with that.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:And I was like, okay, and I got a different one because I don't like wasting food. No, I don't want to waste it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a huge part of the food service business is waste and I was thinking about that At least with cured meats and cheeses and stuff there is a better shelf life than your average produce.
Speaker 1:But not the produce.
Speaker 2:Not the produce.
Speaker 1:Strawberries. I threw away so many strawberries. We finally quit putting the strawberries on our boards because I was throwing them away faster than I could use them, because they weren't perfect. So from that moment on, I knew I needed to be perfection every single board, every single time.
Speaker 3:Well, that definitely holds that you got blackberries on ours, okay, good. And grapes, um, so we could put it on the ground and then we can eat it. Let's test that. I'm going to throw it on the floor and you can eat it. I love that you did. Again, if you're going to get a board from you, you expect that when they get that, it's one of those aha wow moments and that's what you were thinking to deliver to your customer and the customer experience. Yeah, yes.
Speaker 3:So talk a little bit about your growing it and the customer experience and some of the feedback you've gotten from what you've done.
Speaker 1:Well, what we found is when people would come to our store to pick up their board, the first thing they would do is they would take it and they would look at it. They would instantly. They weren't even looking at me. They're looking at their board and like, oh, it's so pretty every single time. And so what we did at the time we don't do it now because of our volume. It just takes too much time. But we would leave the box on, like we wouldn't have the sticker on the front of it. And when somebody would come to pick up their board, we would pull it out of the fridge, walk it over to them with the front of it facing them and open it and say, here it is, what do you think? And they would drop right down to look at it and that kind of the smells would waft up. And it was an entire experience for them to get to see their board, smell it and anticipate what it was going to be like it was.
Speaker 3:Who thought about doing that presentation like that?
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 3:And so everybody does that. If I walk in right now and I get a board, we don't do that right now, but we have two.
Speaker 1:Our volume's too high. We started wrapping it in this plastic because it just feels like it's If you're taking it somewhere else, it just seems more safe.
Speaker 3:Nobody's you're taking it somewhere else, it just seems more safe, like nobody's tampered with it actually the presentation is still pretty good and smelling it from here and it's already still plastic and we do a lot of things on these platters right here, these palm leaf platters, and you can't open it but you can see through it.
Speaker 1:So they still get to see the experience and I'll try to, you know, hold it up to them still. We still present it with the front facing them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it still looks great. And then I bet the second you open that lid it smells good, it smells real good. Chris told me I couldn't have any right now because he didn't want me smacking into the microphone.
Speaker 3:Hey, chris, I got something else. I gotta say no, you can't. It's horrible radio. Nobody wants to listen to us talking about food. We are going to chop the crap out of this after we're done. All right, so in your biz, retail, walk-in online. And then how? I met you doing events, correct? What is the split on the revenue percentage-wise?
Speaker 1:Originally we did smaller boards like this for two people. You know up to six.
Speaker 2:This is what. Eight inches square. Nine inches square.
Speaker 1:This is eight inch yeah, this that I brought for you guys is off menu.
Speaker 2:Ooh.
Speaker 3:Got it custom. Hey everybody. Hey, if you go to the Gathering Board, you won't be getting the Chris and Ellen special. But I will tell you what. If you go on the Gathering Board and you put in a note that you heard us and you want to order one, they did say they give us, you give you a discount. So check it out, don't worry, it works every time, all right.
Speaker 3:So fine, all right wow, do that on the air, that's nice chris we would be happy to let me tell you the times I can hit up on that one. Yeah, you'd be thrilled, I mean especially if you get 500 more orders off this absolutely do you.
Speaker 1:Do you ship to Australia? We do not ship to Australia.
Speaker 3:How about the US?
Speaker 1:We do not do any shipping right now. We have okay.
Speaker 3:so I'll tell you what. If you do it, you can say that Chris said he would give me a Delta drink voucher to come pick it up. If you have to fly to Atlanta, I will give you a drink voucher. Put that on there.
Speaker 1:I will fly to them. If they would like to hire me to do an event, I would love to do that. That would be phenomenal.
Speaker 2:So you actually? So let's get Chris's question first, but then I'm dying to know because you've branched out into some other stuff.
Speaker 1:Yes, so originally this is what we did the most of. I get super excited if we got a board that served 20 people, like, oh my gosh, this is amazing, huge order. Uh, it would take me so long to put it together. Um, now I can do a box like this in 10 minutes because we have everything prepped and we have everything ready and we have this big, you know sandwich prep cooler and just we're set up really cool meat slicer I'll bet yes, yeah, of course I still want to get one reference now.
Speaker 1:Now now in ones we've seen a shift, especially this last year or two. Instead of the smaller individual boards, now we're doing events, and so I would say, um, we are probably 75 percent events and 25 boards, but the events doesn't have to be like what you, where you met me, it could be. Hey, we're going to order, you know, platters that serve 50 people. We just don't necessarily want a whole grazing table.
Speaker 2:So and of the 25 boards, what percentage are ordered online versus people walking in?
Speaker 1:um, probably 50 50. We don't really get a whole lot of walk-ins. We're not a restaurant, we're not a catering company.
Speaker 3:We're not retail A high walkable area. And so I think, when people are thinking about your city having been through it, no, but I could think.
Speaker 2:So. A realtor is an example. I've got an open house. I'm going to swing by and get a board.
Speaker 1:And we do that. Fridays definitely are busier for that, so we anticipate we're going to have walk-ins and we'll have them ready. We do have a space right now that you can come sit down and eat, but we're not quite set up for that yet. That's why we're a little bit of everything, but nothing specifically.
Speaker 3:So events as you guys right now are thinking, that's probably where we want to focus.
Speaker 1:Events yeah.
Speaker 3:So let's talk about that event, the event that I went to. They had this amazing spread, but they also presented it. So just absolutely, it was a work of art that you didn't want to eat, but you, of course, ate, because I eat. Yeah, how long did that last? Then they had the big Parmesan the wheel, the full wheel, the full wheel, the full wheel. And I said I got to have some. And Derek was working the wheel, he was getting the pasta going. Out came the pasta, here it comes, I eat some.
Speaker 3:I honestly could have sat there and just ate pasta all night, but I had to go talk. So that night I go home and I talked to my wife and my daughter who were in. They were in, they were in South beach and they had just got done doing the same thing and sent me some pictures of it. They they had spent $50 a plate to get. And I said you know what I'm going to bet mine might might've been better and what I got back was but I'll bet our waiter was cuter. I'm like, oh, okay, honey.
Speaker 1:I would disagree with that.
Speaker 3:Right. Well, I can't say that. Look at Derek, I mean come on he's horrible he is, he is, but that was my wife saying that. I was like that didn't feel good.
Speaker 2:So you have the full Parmigiano-Reggiano wheel.
Speaker 3:Correct His name is Reggie and we call the experience Pasta Baby. It is awesome. I mean, I mean, guys, it is one of the best things.
Speaker 2:I really I'm not joking, I have so many questions about that pasta wheel.
Speaker 3:Just off air maybe, but since then, I went to a. We went to an Italian restaurant and I refused to get it because I still remembered how good this one was and I just didn't want to spoil it. Uh, so I did something else, but back to you and the reason I bring that up is because you said something originally was the whole inspiration for this was you sharing a board and the intimacy and the gathering board which your name is, and when I had that wheel and this was a non-intimate moment this was a big networking event. We had 180 people there doing everything and you guys were slinging it moving to happen. It was awesome, though, and I would say it still resonates with me on how good that was.
Speaker 1:It is just phenomenal. It's the best pasta I've ever had. I think it ruins you for other pasta and we've heard it from enough people who've traveled extensively, from just them saying this is the best pasta I've ever had. And you hear it enough time. Like the first couple times you're like they're just being nice, but you hear it enough times you do believe it's good and actually since you had it, we've perfected it even better we've sourced out a different pasta so this is a different business or just part of the whole charcuterie experience it is um.
Speaker 1:It is a product that the gathering board provides right now with, with the intention of launching it as its own the pasta baby shall be launched.
Speaker 3:Yeah, can we birth the pasta baby ellen? Oh my gosh, we're coming to the end of this thing and I'm having so much fun. I hate that we got to end this, but, guys, we're coming to the end, but uh, but there's more to talk about. I mean, they've got wine.
Speaker 2:They've got a charity. They have a charity that they do. Can we give it a mention?
Speaker 1:About that real quick. I'd love to talk about that.
Speaker 3:Let's shout out a charity. I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we, three years ago, got started with this group called Rally Foundation, and it happened because three different clients of ours purchased something from us. Two of them were grazing tables for a charity event and another one was a board Grazing table.
Speaker 2:That sounds like right up your alley.
Speaker 3:Strap on the feedback, bro. I would go right up there and you couldn't get me off. That Moo Moo.
Speaker 1:So I don't even know what to say with that.
Speaker 2:Back to the charity.
Speaker 3:Back to the charity.
Speaker 2:Three Moo.
Speaker 3:Moo.
Speaker 1:Charity. We heard about it from three different people three different times, all naturally, and when you hear something different ways, you want to pay attention, and so we started looking into this charity. It's called Rally Foundation. What they do is they raise money to fund childhood cancer research and so like how do you say no to that?
Speaker 2:you're talking about something with choa.
Speaker 1:it's an incredible, incredible group of people and um, I think they're they give like 97 cents of every dollar towards researchers. They don't hardly keep anything. So we've catered a couple events for them. We did their board of directors meeting last December, and then they have this rally on the runway in April, and two years ago so in 2023, was the first time we were part of it we donated a class, a Shakiri boardmaking class, and that brought in $900.
Speaker 1:So we're pretty excited about that, yeah, that was in their silent auction. And then last year we donated an item for the live auction and so we did a 25-person charcuterie grazing table, pasta baby how much did that go for? And then alcohol as well. So, bar and we raised $6,700 last year.
Speaker 3:Right there, buddy, I would have right there. Hell yes, I want that Right $6,700, right.
Speaker 1:And then this year.
Speaker 2:She might sell a second one if you match.
Speaker 1:This year our same item went for $10,000. And we had a matching.
Speaker 3:A little rich for the internet.
Speaker 1:So we sold two of those for $10,000.
Speaker 3:Let's go Way to go.
Speaker 1:Phenomenal. We were so excited.
Speaker 3:How can people find the Rally Foundation?
Speaker 1:It's rallyfoundationorg.
Speaker 3:Dot org.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:You guys are not dot com, you guys are dot co we are dot co.
Speaker 1:And when we started the business I thought it'll be fine and it's okay, definitely. People struggle sometimes to find us or they'll email at thegatheringboardcom and they'll say it bounced back, but we're co because we're the gathering board co.
Speaker 3:What does thegatheringboardcom do? Cause that's jack man, I hate that one. Those guys suck.
Speaker 1:That's so mean I know, it did flow over to another company and now it's just kind of sitting there.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody. And you know what, if you got it, you better give it to them, because they're giving to kids with cancer and if you don't give to them, you're going to kill the kids.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's all down man.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's over, it's on, it's on now, that's it.
Speaker 2:Chris is going to mess him up, but we got Derek. He can make him feel better. That's right. Derek will bring him back, derek will fix him.
Speaker 3:Chris, it's a crap. I don't cut their tires, dorian, it's not a. Sicilian thing, at all.
Speaker 1:I mean, you're talking about charcuterie to Allen, we do. We got our liquor license last year and so we do bartending. We can bring the alcohol to your event, which is very unusual for most bartenders and caterers because we have our caterer's license in our storefront.
Speaker 3:So you guys enjoy doing these events because you guys do them together. They're so fun.
Speaker 1:Yes, they're so fun. We love doing them. We love feeding people.
Speaker 2:So can I come to Holly Springs, get a little bored and have a bottle of wine at your place? Yet yes, really yes, yep.
Speaker 1:We have some tables in the front and we can pour you a glass of wine. You know, wine by the glass, by the bottle. We can do cocktails.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of verticals, go Quickly.
Speaker 1:We can. That is a COVID-era thing thing that got signed into law Before we get going you guys are making great money, right?
Speaker 3:I mean it worked. I'm going to say great money because everybody else is always killing it right? Oh my God, chris handyman doing this whole thing, oh my God.
Speaker 2:Don't ask him how much. Chris, I know you want to.
Speaker 3:No, no, no but my point is in my business. I'm like I just in fact I'm talking with another handyman potential guy. He's thinking about scaling his business. So I'm like, all right, bud, let's talk. I said because if I had a chance to do it all over again, I'd probably pick something else because it's really flipping hard. So you guys are in the middle of really flipping hard, you're near five which kudos because you are now. You beat nine out of ten, so are you killing it?
Speaker 1:I mean yes and no, yes and no. So Derek worked and taught classes. I sold real estate for the first couple of years, so this was not something and immediately we could have quit our jobs and done Now. I worked longer and more hours doing this business. He supported us more with his business once it started going again and eventually with the goal that we would like to do this full-time. And it's taken a while and we're not rolling in the money but we are both full-time.
Speaker 1:We hired a manager in January and we have, I think, three to four other employees. One is mostly full-time and then a couple of part-time.
Speaker 3:The big question I've got, because a lot of our guys are thinking of starting a business and we just talked about that. Was it as easy as you thought? Once you got into it, did it go as well as you thought, or was it infinitely harder than you?
Speaker 1:thought the feedback and the customer side of it has been phenomenal. We do not have anybody yelling us. We don't have anybody refusing to pay us. We also set it up so that we get paid prior to going to any event. We don't have to collect money after the event. You pay or we don't go and I say it nicer than that, clearly, but that's the way that we set it up from the get-go and to the point that we even our regular boards. Would you like to pay now? Sometimes we'll let them pay when they pick up. So that aspect has been phenomenal. We have some clients that are now friends and we have so many great people we work with.
Speaker 1:Was it hard? Yes, many nights we slept there. You know. We actually finally got a cot so that we didn't have to sleep on the floor anymore, because one time, specifically in October, we had two weddings in one day. We hired somebody to help, like a temp person to help, and he arrived and I was like, hey, how's your knife skills? He was like, oh, they're legit. Like, okay, great, go cut all this up. And it was not legit, it was bad, it was bad, not legit.
Speaker 3:So actually if we were in a knife fight he probably wouldn't have got me and you wouldn't have had to do CPR. Is that what I'm?
Speaker 1:saying no, maybe those knife skills were good he was known right where to put the knife, but he didn't know how to cut salami.
Speaker 1:Well at least he showed up because I could tell you to say andy didn't show up, well, we sent him home. Welcome to my monday. No, we sent him home. He was so bad. So we ended up spending the night twice in a row to get our food done, to get our prep done, to present an event that was worthy of our name, because it's not their fault that we hired somebody that didn't know what they were doing. They wanted good food and we had to provide that.
Speaker 3:I think again back to protecting your brand at all costs. That's the business owner, that's the business owner's thing and that's my gold nugget I'm going to leave with everybody. You have to protect your brand, regardless of what you've tried and you know what. It's not as easy as you think and it's so hard. The reason you think and it's so hard you know, the reason I got into business is I saw all these guys golfing on Friday and I was working my butt off working at a financial institution. And then you come to find out no man, we're working way more than I ever worked in my life. But I do it because I love it. 17 years later still grind and making it happen. So kudos to you guys.
Speaker 3:Five years into it, I think you guys have nothing but upside in front of you. I've started to see a lot more charcuterie board companies out there. I think that just makes the market. Alan wanted to talk about this. He says hey, I think that's competition. I'm like I think that just brings awareness because I don't think people even knew this was a thing. So if you are the top of the thing and other people are just filling it in, I think that's going to help you guys.
Speaker 1:I'm not opposed to competition. It really makes you work harder and make sure that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, and we've been so fortunate to get into these amazing businesses and different places, like where we met you. Can I do a shout out?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:David at Cambria is awesome. He's my favorite person ever and he Hashtag David.
Speaker 3:Leonard.
Speaker 1:Hashtag David Leonard. He's the best. He's introduced us to so many other people Besides you, derek of course they look the same.
Speaker 2:There's a type.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So you're probably top ten, Chris. I'm close.
Speaker 3:I'm almost in there. I'm almost there. Finally, we brought somebody in with the same hairstyle we have.
Speaker 1:That's not really a style, but okay.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is. It depends on how you rock it.
Speaker 3:I like to call it cheap and buzz cut. Yes.
Speaker 1:But no, we've served the governor. I have a selfie with the governor. We've worked with senators, oh, now, we're just jealous. Mayors Are you kidding me.
Speaker 1:And billionaires. Our boards go on private jets and you don't. It's amazing to say that. It feels a little surreal. It's amazing to say that it feels a little surreal, but I really honestly can say we spend as much time putting a board together for the local PTA as we would for the governor, and that's just our standard. And that's where we teach our employees, our team members Pretend every single one is a test run, cause we have had people come in order a box this size and then the next week call us up hey, we ordered a board from you last week. We loved it. We would like you to cater our wedding.
Speaker 3:You know I hate but I love what you just said because that's exactly what happens to me in my business is that they try us out on a handyman job and then they say, okay, you guys did so well on that, you can come do my bathroom now. Well, it's a totally different skill set, but we showed them that we have, and we do have the capability of doing it. But we showed them through our processes and our customer service that, hey, if you go with us, this is the kind of service you're going to get. And that's what you do, regardless of level, regardless if it's a charity or just somebody who's looking a little small coming off it because you have no idea who you've got in front of you. You don't. That's the fun and the gore that happens when you have to serve the general public.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Fun Guys. This has been awesome. Continued success to everything you guys are doing. Let's give a shout out. It's the the gatheringboardco.
Speaker 1:The gatheringboard company.
Speaker 3:Dot co. All WTO, the Gathering Board Company, daco. All right guys, you learned something on this one, and guess what? It's not always sunshine and roses. If you think you're a great cook and start a restaurant, check yourself. Listen to this episode. If you think you love food, keep eating it, but don't think you can make money doing it. If you want to make money doing it, I would not recommend winging it, like Andrea, but I would definitely recommend having a whole lot of passion, like Derek and Andrea. Get out of here, go make a great buck. We'll see you next week. We got to go.
Speaker 2:Cheers everybody.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening to this episode of the small business safari. Remember we're a positive attitude. We'll help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in the wild world small business ownership. And until next time, make it a great day.
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