Ready or Not, Here We Go
It was 95 degrees, humid, and somewhere just down the road thousands of people were gathering for Country Thunder.
Perfect conditions for our very first farmers market, right?
If you've been following my blog, you may remember the secret I revealed earlier this year. My daughter Hannah, her boyfriend Lorenzo, and I started Stay Dirty Italian Soda Co., a mobile beverage business built around colorful Italian sodas, fun flavors, and the idea of creating an experience that makes people smile.
There had been months of dreaming, planning, testing recipes, choosing cups, creating menus, figuring out equipment, working on our little camper, and discussing approximately a million details we hadn't even known existed when we first had this crazy idea.
But eventually, there comes a point when you have to stop preparing and actually do the thing. Our first farmers market was that moment.
We already knew it probably wasn't going to be a busy evening. The market organizers had warned us that attendance might be light, especially with Country Thunder happening just minutes away. Add the oppressive heat and humidity, and let's just say we weren't expecting people to come running.
Still, we were excited.
And nervous.
We got the trailer into place and started setting everything up, trying to determine where everything should go and how our flow would work once customers started ordering.
We had practiced. We had planned. But practicing in your driveway is very different from having an actual customer standing at your window waiting for you to make their drink.
Before the market officially began, the three of us huddled together. I wanted to offer a prayer of good intentions into the air for ourselves and for everyone who might stop by. We hoped to make connections, create a little magic with our drinks, and most of all, enjoy this first experience together.
Since we knew it was going to be slow, we decided we'd be happy if we sold ten drinks.
Ten. That was our goal.
Then, before the market even officially opened, someone came up to order.
Our first customer!
Then there was another.
And another.
We looked at each other with that mixture of excitement and disbelief that said, Wait. People are actually buying our drinks!
It was happening.
About 45 minutes into the market, we got another little surprise. A large truck and trailer pulled in right next to us. They were serving some beverages, although we didn't consider them direct competition.
The bigger issue was their generator. It was huge. And loud. And, as luck would have it or not, positioned so that it blew hot air directly toward us.
Did I mention it was already 95 degrees?
There was practically no breeze, the humidity was thick, and now we had what felt like an industrial strength hair dryer aimed in our direction.
Oh, and there was the occasional bee.
Because apparently our first market needed a few more characters in the story. We laughed. We sweated. We adjusted. And we kept making drinks.
What happened throughout the evening surprised us. The market itself really was slow. There weren't huge crowds wandering past our trailer, yet a large percentage of the people who did come through stopped to give us a try.
Several had never had an Italian soda before. That became one of my favorite parts of the evening. We'd explain what we offered, help them choose a flavor, make their drink, and then watch as they took that first sip.
There is something incredibly rewarding about watching someone's face light up over something you've created.
Some people came back for another drink. Others stopped to talk. We met wonderful people and began making connections we never could have made sitting at home trying to perfect one more detail.
By the end of the evening, we hadn't sold ten drinks.
We had surpassed our goal fivefold.
We were shocked.
And incredibly grateful.
Every single person who walked up to our trailer that evening mattered to us. They weren't just another sale. They were among the very first people willing to try this little dream we'd been working so hard to bring to life.
Looking back, I'm actually glad our first market wasn't huge. It gave us room to learn. We discovered where things needed to be placed. We figured out how the three of us moved around one another in a very small space. We learned what worked, what didn't, and what we'd change next time.
And we were reminded very quickly that there are plenty of things we will never be able to control.
We can't control the weather.
We can't control how many people attend an event.
We can't control the bees.
And we definitely can't control whether someone parks a giant generator next to us and blows 95 degree air directly into our workspace.
What we can control is how we respond.
We can adjust.
We can accept.
We can learn.
We can appreciate the people who do show up instead of focusing on the ones who don't.
I think that lesson extends far beyond a farmers market.
How often do we wait to begin something because we want everything to be perfect first? We want to know exactly how it's going to work. We want all the answers. We want ideal conditions and some guarantee that our effort will pay off.
But most new beginnings don't come with guarantees. At some point, you have to be willing to be new at something. You have to allow yourself to learn while you're doing it. And sometimes you have to celebrate selling ten drinks before you've even sold one.
That first market wasn't our biggest event. It wasn't our smoothest. And it certainly wasn't our coolest.
But I don't think I'll ever forget it.
I'll remember the heat, the bees, that darn generator, the excitement of our first customer, the looks on people's faces as they tried their first Italian soda, and the three of us realizing that this little idea we'd dreamed up was actually becoming real.
Sometimes courage doesn't look like having everything figured out. Sometimes it looks like pulling your little trailer into a farmers market on a 95 degree day, opening for business, smiling at the person standing on the other side, and thinking, ready or not, here we go.
xo, Sheryl
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