We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Beth and Flo Business Partners a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Beth and Flo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

Well Hunny, let me tell you about the risk that Yesss Hunny Tea took! At the end of 2022, we finished the Cartersville Farmers Market in our city for the third year, where we sell loose leaf blends and cold bottled tea and mock tea creations based on those blends through the summer. While we love the market, we also recognized that our current set up with only a tent and tables had its limitations. We had been wanting to take our operation mobile for a few years now with a beverage truck, but weren’t quite sure how to go about it. Should we get something completely new? Should we try to finance? What exactly should we look for?

So we did a lot of searching, through traditional avenues and social media. Eventually, we came across a small 8 foot beverage trailer set just at $5000. It seemed to be a good fit, and when we went to check it out in person, we fell in love! Now the only issue was the trade-off between time and funds. We had a small amount toward the purchase, but we knew we had to act fast before it was sold to other interested buyers…so we decided to take a leap of faith and put out a GoFundMe!

Within a week we were able to raise $2500, which was awesome!…but we still were short. We resolved to let the owners know that we understood they had to sell their trailer, but at the last minute, another donor came in and made up the difference!

Words can’t really express how much shock, gratitude, and awe we felt (and still feel!). But before the month of October ended, we were officially owners of our very own beverage trailer!

There are still some challenges to take on before we get officially rolling, like repainting and outfitting our trailer so that it fits our tea operation. But we’ve learned through taking this risk that anything is possible if you set your mind to it and have faith. So Yesss Hunny take the risk you can do it!

Beth and Flo, 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?

We decided to start Yesss Hunny Tea Company on June 2016 after we found out the teas we were sipping had fragrances to give the smell of a missing ingredient, flavor crystals to “boost” taste, artificial flavors that completely took the place of the advertised herbs and fruits. It was almost unbelievable how little tea was in the “tea” we were drinking! So we set off to find tea that didn’t have those things, and we discovered the world of loose leaf. But we didn’t stop there. We were determined to drink only real tea leaves, herbs, and fruits in our teas…and we figured the best way to do that was to select and blend our own teas. So just like that, the beginnings of our tea company began to brew. So now we had to have a name so me and Flo start throwing around names for the tea business, but nothing really seemed to fit. My oldest son Titus heard us from the living room, and finally he came up to me and said, “Mama, you say ‘Yesss, Hunny’ ALL the time… just call it that!” I’m so glad my son Titus was able to be a big part of the start of Yesss Hunny Tea Co. Because 9 months later after we launched online, my son Titus was killed in a car accident March 2017. and even though healing from losing him has been a journey, it makes me smile knowing that Titus is smiling in heaven and saying, “Yesss Hunny!” right along with us whenever he sees the joy we are able to bring to you through our company!

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We have done both! When we first started out, all we knew was we wanted to sell tea, so we started to look for tea and natural herb companies to see where we could find organic and authentic blends and ingredients. We tried A LOT of different tea and herbal blends…but we finally found a company we loved who grows and curates their blends. As we continued in business, we really wanted to start blending some of the ideas we were having. Through connections with farmers locally, we were able to start buying herbs, fruit pieces, and more, and use those to make different tea blends, as well as some of our cold bottled tea creations!

One of the biggest lessons we learned throughout this whole journey of curation has been to be persistent in securing what you believe fits your vision. Even if it takes you longer than you’d like, there’s nothing more valuable than being able to stand proudly behind what you present to people!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

We think what has had the most impact on our reputation so far is the genuine connection we try to build with people, beyond making a tea sale. Yes, we are most definitely a business, and every business aims to make sales. But we have learned that if you connect with people on purpose, the sales will come. There have been times during the summer at the farmers market that people have wandered over after hearing us call out, “Good morning!” as they pass by…and they end up learning something new about tea as we talk, or they end up becoming convinced to try tea (sometimes even when they say they don’t like tea!). Other times people walk on by, only to come back an hour later because they remember we spoke to them. It’s the small gestures like being kind and connecting with others that can make a big difference in making our customers feel good and giving them encouraging words because we never know what they are going through. That’s how we built our reputation. By letting the people know that Yesss Hunny Tea Is For EveryBodTea and we care not just for the sell but for the individual!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yessshunnytea.com
• Instagram: @yessshunny
• Facebook: @yessshunnytea
• Other: [email protected]