We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kelly Schexnaildre. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kelly below.
Kelly, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.
We all start businesses for a variety of reasons: passion, love, altruism, solving a problem or need in the marketplace, and many others, but the main purpose of business is to make money doing something you love. Prior to starting Merfs Condiments, I identified my target market: American and breakfast restaurants, grocery stores, and people ages 25-44. Once I identified my target market, I had to explore both the possibilities within this market and any barriers to market penetration. I expected that Merfs prices would be higher than the national hot sauce brands, so what would be my unique selling proposition to convince restaurants and grocery stores to spend a little extra money? Merfs products are local, vegan, gluten free, sugar free, and preservative free. The cultural climate of Colorado promotes local above all other things, and since I had this edge, I figured price would be a secondary concern. I was right.
I said earlier that the main point of starting a business is to make money doing what you love. So how did I go about doing just that? I started small at the South Pearl Street Farmer’s Market in Denver. I got feedback from consumers of all ages that tried the products and loved them. I refined my recipes, and created a few new ones to round out my product line. Once I found success on the direct to consumer level, I thought it was time to try my hand at cold call sales with restaurants and specialty grocery stores. The grocery stores proved to be a pretty easy sell, and I got many of them in the first few months. Restaurants, on the other hand, proved to be tricky. My first major win with a restaurant was Ale House in LoHi. Chef Robert tried my products and loved them and brought them on for table use in this restaurant that seats over 300 people at a time. I was finally in the door, and I could use that credibility to gain other accounts in the industry. Hard work and determination always pays off. I discovered true courage through cold call sales, as it allowed me the opportunity to experience rejection on a level I had never before. Throughout the process of growing my business from the ground up, I learned many valuable things: I have the right to be here and take up space as a young woman in a fiercely competitive industry, I don’t have to know everything to experience success, and it’s okay to learn as you go.
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?
Kelly Schexnaildre is the founder of Merfs Condiments, which manufactures, sells, and distributes a diversified portfolio of high-quality, shelf-stable spicy foods across the United States and Canada. Kelly has been the CEO of Merfs Condiments for eight years, during which she’s developed a variety of professional skills. She has a strong command of business and management principles as they pertain to product development and recipe creation, manufacturing equipment and processes, warehouse management, cold and warm sales, and leading others. She is a motivated team player with excellent public speaking ability, and oral, written, and interpersonal communication. She is an innovative problem solver that uses creativity, resourcefulness, and ingenuity to overcome business challenges. Kelly has mastered the art of building effective industry relationships that drive company growth, and she is a numbers wizard that is experienced in analyzing and using financial data to achieve planned revenue outcomes. Kelly has fifteen years of restaurant experience and excels at recipe development, managing food cost and inventory, and possesses an ongoing awareness of new culinary trends. She is passionate about mealtime as an opportunity to build community and creates products that will bring joy to every dish. Kelly moonlights as a writer, speaker, and guest personality on podcasts such as Endless Hustle and Best Served. Kelly is currently working on expanding her career into public speaking and writing, with the goal of doing what she loves most while addressing: homophobia within the Christian church, the substance abuse and mental health crisis in the food service industry, and LGBTQ entrepreneurship.
Kelly has a bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and is a certified Primal Health Coach. Kelly can be found in South Florida spending time fishing, writing, reading, attending recovery meetings, talking about God, going to church, and playing softball. She drinks a lot of coffee, is a Scrabble master, does crossword puzzles and Sudoku, and loves to take walks. She is incredibly passionate about physical health and wellness, follows the Paleo diet, and enjoys lifting weights, running, and yoga.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
There’s no one on the planet that hasn’t been affected by the COVID19 pandemic, and Merfs was no exception. Merfs lost 70% of its revenue overnight for a period of more than 300 days, which was economically devastating. Merfs was able to avoid bankruptcy and collapse with the help of the Paycheck Protection Program, the Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, and various grants from the City and County of Denver, Colorado. As a result of securing this funding, Merfs was able to pivot towards making e-commerce 50% of its revenue, and retail and grocery 20% of its revenue. We have seen a huge shift away from shopping in stores to online shopping over the last decade, and the pandemic accelerated this growing trend. Merfs is using a lot of its resources to leverage this channel, which should insulate the company from any further harm caused by future pandemics or other natural disasters. I hired Feed Media to manage and create content for our social media channels, and I hired Gatorworks, a digital marketing company in Baton Rouge, LA, to create and run effective social media advertising. I also hired TNT E-Commerce to set up and optimize Merfs’ Amazon store. Merfs e-commerce revenue has tripled in the last few months, and I expect to reach our goal by the end of the year.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
The point of any business is to make money, right? I knew when I started Merfs that I’d have to make cold call sales to restaurants and retail stores, and I set about doing just that. At the end of year 3, Merfs had 150 wholesale accounts, and was rapidly growing. At year five, I got a recommendation from my buddy Aaron Wagner at Elevation Ketchup. He suggested I try to get Merfs into Centerplate, the foodservice provider for the Denver Center for Performing Arts. This was going to be my biggest cold call ever. I walked down the loading dock, into the back door of the kitchen, and right into the head chef’s office. I used my usual lines: “Hi, I’m Kelly and I make hot sauce here in Denver. I have a variety of different flavors and heat levels, and they’re vegan, gluten free, preservative free, and sugar free. You should try them.” I handed her some samples and we chatted for a bit about the company and the sauce’s various uses. She agreed to try the products and I agreed to reach back out in a couple days. It worked, and I scored a large yearly contract with Centerplate; they use Merfs in a lot of their recipes, and set out small bottles for folks to use when they cater. It’s my most proud moment in sales to date!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.merfscondiments.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/merfscondiments
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/merfscondiments
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/kellyschexnaildre
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/merfscondiments
Image Credits
Marco Robinson Photography Mcleod9Creative Trever Bennett Photography