Meet Sarah Kleinhans

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

Sarah, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

We weren’t rich but we weren’t poor. Living on the coast of New Hampshire, I had a great childhood but it wasn’t because my parents had money to do all sorts of things, it was, rather, because they found opportunities to give us wonderful experiences. For example, timeshare condos would give not only small tvs, toasters, gold coins, and other treasures for going to their presentations, but they would give us free meals in luxurious settings. My dad would find places to go and we would pile into our station wagon to visit gorgeous lakefront or mountain condos. To be fair, he was truly also looking at potential vacation opportunities so he wasn’t just in it to waste the time of the salesperson. He had a good job and suddenly one day in high school, he came home and told us the company car was going back. Not only did he lose his job due to the company going bankrupt, but he lost his pension that he was counting on for retirement.

Life changed drastically. Almost to retirement age, he had to pivot and find a way to support the family he and my mom had built by having their own children and then adopting 4 more from Korea. He partnered with his coworker and best friend and bought all the inventory from his bankrupt pharmaceitical company. I went from skiing every Sunday, to waking up at 6 to set up for flea markets with my father. Our booth was like a Walgreens on steriods so we were SO busy! I learned to do inventory, sell, and eventually go to auctions looking for flats of new items we could resell. Not only did I get to sell and help my father relieve stress of not having a job, but I was gaining valuable life lessons. LEARN TO PIVOT.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I spent my early life traveling the world as a performer in the international organization, Up With People. It was here that I learned to be flexible, which proved to be an invaluable skill! I also learned to cat nap anywhere on a travel day, but that is a story for another day. We were 115 students from 13 countries, traveling the world and performing in the most epic locations such as Northern Ireland during the IRA conflict, The Ukraine during the Cold War and the tumbling of the Berlin Wall. We stayed in host families in each location which averaged about 88 different homes per year. You stayed with the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. You had to figure out the culture and language in each situation, some very memorable indeed. Sometimes our costumes didn’t make the flight and we had to run to Walmart to create something on a tight budget. Sometimes the stage was less than satisfactory (one location overseas had put extra wax to make it shine- not great for dancers).

There were many conflicts and mishaps and like the old saying goes, “The show must go on”. By the end of the year, we no longer ran to the staff when a conflict arose, instead, we figured it out. I have passed this on to my children and have told them from a young age, pretend I am not here, what can you do to fix the situation? As a small business owner, I have to pivot and solve many problems to make sure my customers are happy. Sometimes, these difficult situations are what was needed to make a massive shift. I make all natural beverage infusions kits out of dried fruit – think a jumbo all natural tea bag of herbs and dehydrated fruit. I used to have them in cute jars but customers had to strain them, they often broke in transit and you had to explain how they could refill it and do it a second time. They were heavy to carry and expensive to ship, but they were my product and I didnt know how else to sell them. One day, 5 minutes before a show, my entire table collapsed and I heard a cacophony of breaking glass, shouting from other vendors watching the disaster unfold, and the sound of my wail of disbelief. After loosing product almost every show to breakage or leakage of some kind, I sat in my car with my employee and said, THAT IS IT. We went back to the drawing board and that was the birth of the current mocktails/cocktail pouches that we sell today. Instead of being in a glass jar, we put the dried fruit and herb mixtures into cloth muslin bags to drop into liquor, juice, coconut water, My retailers love them because they are cheaper to ship, less expensive for the customer since they probably have a jar at home so I don’t need to charge them for one, and they can make a double batch without having to strain after – perfect for vacation!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I have always been annoyingly optimistic. I am that friend who wakes up perky at a slumber party. If my farmer’s market is painfully slow due to weather, I tell myself that the few people who did come out to shop and buy my items are going home excited about something I created! How cool is that?

I have realistic expectations. I like to shoot for the moon, but I also know that you can’t hit the moon straight out of the gate. I make goals that are a bit of a stretch but are also attainable if I put extra effort in to hustle, even when I am exhausted.

I am not shy. I watch vendors at shows who are sitting behind their booth or on their phones and at the end of the day they complain they haven’t sold anything. I talk to everyone BUT I really work on reading the room. If I can tell someone doesn’t want to talk or sample my food, I let them go. Learning to know when to give someone your spiel and when to just smile is a skill that differentiates the successful vendors from the annoying ones.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

I love wearing all the hats of a small business owner, but sometimes you get stuck because you are not an expert in every field. I am stuck currently and have been on this plateau for some time. As soon as I get past it, I will have a rocket boost to propel me forward into the next level of wholesaling and I won’t have to drag my tent to 150 shows each summer through the wind, rain and heat. I am creative but I am not a graphic designer. I can see designs in my head but I can’t get them onto paper smoothly. I just obtained my wholesale license last year so now I can sell in stores nationwide. I need more professional packaging, but it costs money and time. The backbone of our company is giving back to cancer families as My son is a pediatric cancer survivor, so I would rather spend money giving back instead of spending it on packaging, but that is not a savvy business thought. I need to reprogram My brain to understand that once I have my new packaging and can be in more wholesale locations like boutiques and airport stores, THEN I can give back more to the cancer families.

My parents taught me to live debt free and so it is difficult for me to conceptualize taking out a loan or using my credit card to pay thousands of dollars that will cost me to design new packaging and then pay for the 5,000 minimum packages for each of our current 10 flavors. It is coming and we are excited about how many doors that will open for us! We have held off on improving our SEO because I want to wait for my packages to be professional. If you want to be part of our design and package production or you know someone who might be a good fit, we would love to have someone help push me off the proverbial cliff – take a chance- make new professional packages and clear this path for a future where we can give even more back to cancer families!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://the5280Mermaid.com
• Instagram: #the5280mermaid.com
• Facebook: The5280Mermaid
• Linkedin: Sarah Clarke Kleinhans
• Yelp: The 5280 Mermaid