We were lucky to catch up with Peggy Hansen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Peggy, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

We knew at the outset that we were going to name the business Nan’s. Nan was my mom and she created the Bloody Mary recipe in 1970 so it was easy to start there. We had a brainstorming sessions while enjoying a family dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and we came up with Nan’s Naughty Or Nice. We wanted to emphasize that you could enjoy Nan’s with alcohol or not and you could also use it as a recipe boost for your favorite dishes. Following this brainstorming session, one of our advisors who was helping me with branding and marketing had an idea to change the name to Nan’s Naughty And Nice vs Nan’s Naughty Or Nice. Nan’s NAN, brilliant! The rest is history.

Peggy, 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 am Peggy Hansen, Founder and Owner of Nan’s Naughty And Nice Bloody Mary Mix And Recipe Boost. I grew up in Wisconsin, attended college at the University of Wisconsin – River Falls. Upon graduation, I began working in the insurance industry and spent the bulk of my career working for insurance carriers. After 35 years working in the corporate world and dealing with the trials and tribulations, I made the decision to embark on a new journey bringing Nan’s to the commercial market. We saw a need to bring a premium, all natural bottled Bloody Mary Mix to market that tasted great and paired well with craft spirits. We knew the original recipe that Nan’s created in 1970 would solve the need. Our goal was to bring the exact recipe, free from artificial preservatives, to the market and we were able to accomplish this goal. Nan’s is made from real tomato juice vs tomato paste and water and has only 11 ingredients; all that you can read and pronounce. Today, we have market the original recipe, a spicy recipe and our newest variety is the medium recipe. All use the same formula with 3 different levels of spice. Delicious!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When you own a small business pivoting seems to be the name of the game. In thinking about a specific example of pivoting would be the outbreak of the pandemic. Nan’s is primarily sold in liquor stores, grocery stores, specialty stores and on premises at restaurants. When the pandemic broke out, and the shut down occurred, we were unable to get out in the market to do product samplings etc. People were not “shopping” in stores so the casual browsing the shelves in the grocery or liquor store was not happening. We needed to think creatively on how we could provide an option to people to purchase Nan’s in alternative ways. At that time, we had a website but we did not have an online catalog. We pivoted and decided to build an online presence to sell Nan’s. We were fortunate to have resources available to us through The Cares Act and the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center who offered a free course to assist business owners to build revenue generating websites. It took about 6 weeks or so to build but it was functional and sales began to grow. I remember the day we published the site, I was relieved that it finally was done and while watching TV with my husband that evening, I looked at my email quick and we had our first order. I was thrilled and shocked at the same time. The order was from a customer in Michigan who had purchased Nan’s in Minnesota while visiting their son at college. The same day we put up the site, he had visited our website to see where he could buy some and saw our online catalog. Wow, timing is everything. Our online sales represent a nice percentage of our sales annually and we have sold Nan’s in almost every state.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

We are a self funded company and have not raised capital from outside sources. Our original plan was to start our business in a slow and methodical way without tapping into our personal investment accounts. Our business plan at the start was to sell Nan’s through boutiques, farmers markets and events. Our funding plan was to reinvest our profits back into the business and that is what we did. Today, we follow the same strategy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nansnaughtyandnice.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nansnaughtyandnice/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nansbloodymary
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nan-s-naughty-and-nice-bloody-mary-mix-and-recipe-boost/?viewAsMember=true
• Twitter: @nansbloodymary
• Youtube: @nansnaughtyandnice