Talent Small Business Owner, Tammy Sona, of Sona CBD
Tammy Sona started Sona CBD in Talent in July of 2019. She was located over near the Crown Market, Julek’s Polish Restaurant, Subway, and the Talent Café. Her small shop was a haven for her and for many people seeking the benefits of CBD ingestible and topical treatments.
She had never owned a retail business before, but from her own life experience she had seen what CBD products could do to help people and she became passionate about providing access to them, educating people on how CBD works, and the best way to use it for their personal needs. When she first set up the business, many of her customers were seniors and needed solutions to pain and health concerns.
Although Tammy has lived in South Medford for 25 years, and the story of how she got there is quite interesting, she found that only Talent welcomed her business with open arms. So many people have misconceptions about CBD, what it really is and how it works. There are fears and associations with cannabis products that contain THC, so few people really understand the healing and calming properties of CBD, which contains no THC at all. They associate it with marijuana products and are reluctant to embrace it or to recognize its true properties. Therefore, she was turned down in many locations, but Talent said, “Welcome!”
First, in this story of recovery from the Almeda Fire, you have to realize that Sona CBD had only been open for eight months when the covid pandemic hit, and all doors were closed in March, six months before the fire. In spite of this, Tammy reports that her fledgling business was doing well. She had a customer base, and she was off and running, until she had to close the doors. When that occurred, small business owners in the area (Talent and Phoenix) started really drawing together and supporting each other. Tammy’s first stimulus check from the government was spent on gift certificates to other small businesses in the area: Bee Sweet, The Oregon Cheese Cave, Talent Café, Daddy Ramen, Chai Kitchen, the Grotto, Julek’s, and more. They were supporting each other online too, liking each other’s posts and sharing posts. Tammy says, “When I feel a need, I give that need.” So, she gave to the success of other small businesses in her genre. She claims that the other small businesses in our area helped her get through the pandemic mentally and emotionally.
Then in September of 2020, the Almeda Fire devasted homes and businesses in Talent, Phoenix, and Medford (the very southern part, almost indistinguishable from Phoenix except by address). Tammy says, “By that time, it seemed like we were living the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’.” After the fire, it took a while for Tammy to realize the level of devastation, both physically in the town and also in her business. Her business on the east side of Highway 99 burned to the ground, along with all the other businesses in that plaza. Many of her clients had lived in homes that were destroyed, in trailer parks and apartments, and they had no insurance. She said that her client base disappeared, and she actually lost contact with them. A few have returned.
During that dark crisis, small businesses pulled together again and helped each other. Tammy thanks Will Ropert of Travel Phoenix, who helped organize quite a bit of local support. His efforts began after the Almeda fire and Tammy Sona’s return to Talent. He helped unify the Phoenix business recovery.
When Sona CBD found its new spot at 316 E. Main Street, the business had to diversify in order to survive. “I’m in the middle of downtown now,” Tammy explained, “I desired to give Talent residents value in the location, so I added locally crafted gifts and cards.” The new shop is located next to Biscuits and Vinyl Record Store and in front of Bear Creek Malt Supply in the Wagner Plaza at the corner of E. Main and Talent avenue across from the Camelot Theater. It was through this new collective cohabitating, that Sona CBD was able to afford to return to Talent. Tammy and a few other small business owners got together to do Pop-Up events in the new area—to let people know they were there, to welcome new customers, and to draw more business into the City of Talent.
“I had to get comfortable with change, both personally and professionally,” she said. “Even now, I constantly think, what can I change to make things better?”
I personally believe that this adaptive thinking and behavior started long ago in Tammy’s history. She and her husband came from the Midwest in a 25-foot motorhome in 1997. They were seeking a better life for themselves and their children. They had built a nice home back there, but instead of living in it, they chose to rent the house out and travel in the motorhome to seek out a different kind of life for them all. They went to the California coast, but then made their way northward eventually to Medford, where they decided to settle.
“I think that wheat or corn blowing in the wind is a beautiful sight,” Tammy says, “but I would never give up the mountains, our beautiful valley, the coast, and the weather here. I would never go back.” They lived in the motorhome for a few months while they hunted for the right house at the right price and finally found it in South Medford. Their children were small then. During this time their values shifted. Tammy explains, “We became a family that wanted to do things instead of own things. Instead of fancy homes and expensive cars, we took our children traveling all over the world.”
A changing economy and some serious health issues made Tammy and her family very glad that they had avoided big debts. It was her experience with CBD personally that made her want to start her own business in order to share CBD with others, not a belief that she would make a lot of money as a small business owner. Her passion for CBD was very strong and she holds herself to a high standard in making sure each product is pure and has been vetted before putting it on sale in her shop.
It is fortunate, both for Tammy and for our community that she has this outlook and is still with us here in Talent because disasters followed one after the other in the wake of the opening of her business, and she has had to start completely over three times. She started her business up for a third time (the first opening in 2019, the second restart at the Rogue Valley Mall after Almeda and then, the third start when I returned to Talent in January 2021). Tammy says, “I really know how to start a business now. I can do a start up in just a few weeks. I’m an expert. I’ve had so much practice!”
Tammy has made her business very attractive and has totally developed a whole new client base. She recounts, “Everything I have here in the shop, I love. I found that by showing who I am and what I love made other people love it too. I also do an online business. It is mostly from people who have visited and seen things they like or need, from the CBD line, or from people who are friends or relatives of regular customers. Many are from out of state.”
For a while Tammy Sona had survival guilt. She had not lost her home like so many of her clients did. But it did eventually dawn on her that she was majorly victimized by the fire. The community rushed in to assist people who lost their homes, and this was only right, but no one actually rushed in to help the business owners like herself. She had not been in business long enough to qualify for grants and low-interest small business loans. Because of the status of CBD in our society, she was at a disadvantage in many ways. People had prejudices against the business, banking regulations are the same as for marijuana, and pretty ridiculous for business owners in those genres. More roadblocks turned up.
She could not salvage inventory from her business, and she had to fight, very hard, to get her insurance to pay what she was due for the loss. They never did pay all that was due to her, and she lost $20,000 to $30,000 in the fire, even after insurance paid. She picked herself up, dusted herself off, and opened a small outlet in the Mall in Medford for about six months, just to keep going. When she was able to return to Talent, she did. She had actually fallen in love with Talent and wanted to come back and make a go of it and to advocate for all small business owners in the town. We are still benefitting from Tammy’s drive to move forward at all times.
With relief, she explains that she is just now getting back to the level of business she had developed before the March 14, 2020 and September 8, 2020 disasters hit.
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.