We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelly Rose Sarno a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kelly Rose thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

I was with a Network/Multi Level Marketing company for 6 years before I started my own company. I was very successful within this company and worked my way to being a top leader and top income earner. I always knew that there was more that I wanted to do and that I wanted to do it for MYSELF. I had been working as an employee since I was 14 and wanted to finally be the boss, the owner. I wanted to have CEO next to my name. I decided to take a major risk and start my own business. Even though I was very successful in my journey with the company I was with, I decided to part ways and go ALL IN on a dream of my own. As the sole income earner in my household, and a new mom to my second kid, it was scary taking the leap and hoping that it would all work in my favor. But with a lot of hard work, sleepless nights, and consistency, I am now proud to say that I am the CEO and Founder of a very successful small business, Declan’s Mining Co.

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?

My name is Kelly Rose Sarno and I am the owner and founder of Declan’s Mining Co. I’ve been sharing my life online for the last decade and working hard to create a legacy for my two sons, Declan and Everett. I married my high school sweetheart 10 years ago and we created our life together in our home state of Massachusetts.

Declan’s Mining Co. was born in the height of the pandemic in 2020. My son had a love of mining for crystals and fossils from our typical family vacations. In the year of 2020 everything was shut down so we decided to make our own mining experience at home. Once we shared it online, friends and family asked us to make them for them! Before we knew it we had a tiny business selling mining buckets so that everyone could enjoy an activity at home or over Zoom with friends.

We made our first bucket in the spring of 2020 and didn’t put it on TikTok until March of 2021. Our second video we ever posted went VIRAL! We sold 1,000 buckets overnight and have been chasing the craziness ever since.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I started to share my life on social media about 15 years ago. I didn’t even realize that I was doing it!

I decided one day that I was going to go for a change of scenery and move from Boston to Yellowstone National Park. It was quite a drastic move and most of my friends and family weren’t expecting something like that out of me. I promised everyone that I would keep in touch and send pictures. This was before everyone had fancy phones and enough social media to stay well connected.

I quickly realized that I wasn’t the best at keeping my work about communications. I was living such a care free life and it felt amazing to have a new found freedom. So at the end of each day, I would log onto Facebook, upload a new photo album and write a quick blurb about my travels and adventures to keep my friends and family in the loop.

What I didn’t think would happen is that everyone would start to become so invested in my life. They were living vicariously through me sharing my life in Wyoming. People started to share and reach out to tell me their stories and before I knew it I had a virtual connection to those I loved and people who were finding me through them.

As the years went on, and social media live streaming came into play, I always continued to share my life and journey through it. I consistently (EVERY DAY!) post about what I’m doing, big life moments, the things I love and stand by. And with that my audience has grown authentically and organically.

Social media is so different now. The term “TikTok Famous” is thrown around so loosely that now it seems like everyone is just creating to go viral instead of creating to create and connect. Connection is the key. You can have 1 million followers and only 1% of them engage with you. Or you can have 10,000 followers and every single one of them are showing up and participating. Focus on connection and engagement and being your authentic self and the rest will follow.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

I had been a business owner for a year as myself. My website was my name and I did a few small things. I decided once to create Declan’s Mining Bucket and put it on my website. It didn’t really fit in to the clothing sales and little crystal bundles that I was selling. But it was a big hit. We were selling a few dozen of them a week consistently.

I knew I had a great product but I wasn’t marketing it as it’s own hero product. One day I decided that our fun and interactive product should have an entire company built around it. I ripped the Band-Aid off pretty quickly and created Declan’s Mining Co. I knew from experience that if you’re going to do it, you have to go all in! So, I created a social media account on all social platforms and made some video content in the same day.

On day 2, after taking this scary leap into the unknown of owning an E-Commerce business, our second video ever posted went viral! I woke up to almost 1000 sales of Declan’s Mining Bucket! It was the craziest thing in the world.

That will forever be my favorite story of taking a marketing risk and having it work out in your favor.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.declansminingco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/declansminingco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeclansMiningCo/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQsA3kFibCHyncak9GdCSVg
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@declansminingco