We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anna Desuyo . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anna below.
Anna , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
When we first started our business we had 2 ponies, a horse, and one pig named Kevin Bacon. We had a piece of beautiful but very needy land that needed a lot of help. We didn’t have much starter funds and we were winging it on a dream and prayer. We began building things ourselves and expanding. We had many hardships, life lessons, and asking for help. It’s amazing how many people want to help you when you’re starting off if you just ask. When we began to ask for help we got more volunteers than we even needed. People would show up to help us feed, clean, and in turn became our best friends. We’re more than a petting zoo farm we’ve become a community.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Crosswind Mobile Petting Zoo is a traveling petting zoo that opened in September of 2016 but we also have a 10 acre activity farm. We offer horse rides, baby kangaroo holding, educational classes and events for homeschoolers, Birthday parties, festivals. I believe we are set apart from others because we do some many events where we give back to the community. We do tons of fundraisers, free events, and strive to help where needed even if funds aren’t there. I think we are most proud of the customer service we provide and the ability to serve lots of customers due to how large our mobile petting zoo is.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
So when we first started our business we were an event venue only. We were doing really well and we’re becoming very successful every weekend. Our venue was constantly booked and we even had times where we had to turn people away…. Then COVID hit. We almost lost everything we had. We had a hard time feeding our animals and ourselves as everything shut down. Then I decided to launch our mobile petting zoo side. We would show up to people’s homes and stay a safe distance and let kids pet the animals. We exploded overnight. It was a huge shift in our business but we learned how to accommodate extremely quickly.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Building a reputable reputation can be extremely hard. Especially if you’re new to the community and are offering a business that people want. When we moved here no one knew us. Having a business plan you stick to is an extremely important part of business. With our business we require a deposit to hold a date and have rules surrounding the deposit. If it rains out the customer gets a full refund. Being true to your word is the most important. I struggled with cancer during my farm ownership and no one knew because I kept our events running with staff. They were my salvation. When you say you’re going to offer a service do what you say. Never back down and never compromise. Always give more than you say you will but never ever give any less. Be consistent and people will keep coming back. A returning customer is a good sign you’re doing a great job.
Contact Info:
- Website: Crosswindfarmsc.com
- Instagram: Crosswindfarmsc
- Facebook: Facebook.com/crosswindfarmsc