[piano, guitar,
and marimba arrangement]

(woman)
It's my husband's favorite,
and I love it on wings.

We love it on our burgers,
but I love it mostly--

(narrator)
Meet Kissie Stroup
from Davidson County

by way of High Point,
here busily sampling

her line of all-natural
refrigerated salad dressings

in a Wake Forest
grocery store.

Kissie loves her work
and her products,

which have names
like "Far East Flair,"

"Honey, It's Dijon Dill!,"
and "It Takes Three to Tango,"

which combines ranch
and Thousand Island

with blue cheese crumbles.

Oh, and by the way,
her name really is "Kissie."

(Kissie, voice-over)
My real name is Christine.

They called me Chrissy.

My cousin, he couldn't say
"Chrissy," said "Kissie."

They thought it was cute.

When you're two,
it's really cute.

When you're 50,
it's not cute anymore,

especially
when you're in business.

That does not
say a lot for me,

when I walk
into a corporate board meeting

and I'm five feet tall
and my name's Kissie.

I really
have to assert myself.

[piano leads
string orchestration]

(narrator)
Kissie created the Little
Black Dressing line herself

in her kitchen.

The first one,
Dreamy Creamy Vinaigrette,

was based
on her grandmother's recipe.

(Kissie)
She was
the salad-dressing maker.

She had an organic garden.

My brother and I
worked it, um.

We never ate anything
in a bottle.

We do everything
to this dressing

that my grandmother did
50 years ago.

Mix it and put it
in the refrigerator.

That's it.

(narrator)
Like many kitchen-table
entrepreneurs,

the timing
was right for Kissie,

and people encouraged her.

[violins lead
busy arrangement]

(Kissie)
The economic turndown in 2008

prompted me to realize

that as an able, working body
in the household--

the kids were older,
so it was a lot easier.

I started from doin'
salad dressing at home

for friends,
and they liked it so much,

and then it just
turned into a business.

I thought, well,
I'll just do that.

(narrator)
In case you hadn't noticed,

Kissie has
the wonderful ability

to talk and smile
at the same time,

which she can turn on
like a light switch

when people approach
her sampling table.

♪

Of course,
she also has a great product.

"Catchy on the outside
and yummy on the inside,"

she says, and clearly got

some important things right
from the get-go,

her brand
and her package design.

But there were a few
business-development issues

along the way.

Nothing--
I knew nothing.

I graduated
from Meredith in 1988

with a degree in fine arts

and a concentration
in graphic design.

So the design part was easy.

I liked doin' the name.

I like a play on words.

As far as doing a wholesale
manufacturing business,

I thought it was supposed
to go into a cute package.

I would drop it off
at the grocery store.

They would think it was
awesome and buy it.

That was
the end of the story.

I was gonna be
successful after that.

Well, that's not
the way it works.

(narrator)
Starting and growing
a small business

can seem unreal.

You ask yourself,
is it really happening?

Can I make it?

And then
something unexpected happens

to boost your confidence,

like what happened
to Kissie in 2014

in the form of an inquiry

from a caterer
serving the US Open.

(Kissie)
Actually, they sent me
an e-mail,

and I thought that the family
was prankin' me, uh.

We're a big golfing family,
so when I got the--the...

summons to send samples,
I went around

to everyone in the family
and said, "That's not funny.

"You guys
have got to quit this

'cause you're gonna
get me excited for nothin'."

Finally my husband said,

"Kissie, we did not
send that e-mail.

You've got to call
these people."

I didn't buy it
for a whole month.

So I sent samples
not expecting anything,

and they loved it.

The first order was OK.

I knocked it out
in three days.

I thought, yeah,
I've got this.

The second order I think was--
it was like 2,000 bottles,

and I had to have it done
in less than a week,

so we called in the troops.

My--thank goodness my family
and friends helped me

'cause that was the only way
I was gonna make it.

(narrator)
Kissie has been fortunate
to find help along the way

not only from her family

but the North Carolina
Department of Agriculture

and a group in Greensboro

where entrepreneurs
share their experience.

She found
food-safety regulations

particularly daunting.

(Kissie)
There's a lotta paperwork
that goes into it.

Everything is noted
from the time

it walks in the door
until the time it leaves.

That way,
if we ever had a recall,

I would know where
those ingredients came from,

when they came in,
when they left,

what bottle they were in,

and it all
has to be written down.

So it--75% of my time
is spent doin' paperwork,

and 25% is spent
actually making the dressing.

(narrator)
Unless you can get advice
from somebody who's done it,

the idea of pitching
your product

to a grocery store

and having them greet you
like you're the next big thing

seems to make sense,
but that's not how it works.

(Kissie)
They have to make sure

that you're in it
for a long time--

you're not gonna be
fly-by-night,

and two months from now
you decide,

really I don't wanna do this;
it's too hard.

(narrator)
A big plus
is that Kissie's products

are locally made during a time
when grocery stores

want to offer more local
products to their customers.

But perseverance helps too,
as Richard McKellogg,

a senior produce executive

with North Carolina-based
Lowes Foods confirmed

during a store reopening event
in the town of Wake Forest.

(Richard)
When someone like Kissie
gets in front of you,

it's hard to say no.

And you can just
see her passion

and just her willingness

to go about things
the right way.

She comes
to every one of these events.

She's out in the community.

She talks to our guests, uh.

She educates them
and really educates us.

We have a lot of people
that bang down our door

and would like to get in,

but not quite as many
as a Kissie,

who literally is so committed
to just saying,

I wanna learn.

I got a great product,

and I wanna deliver it
to your guests.

So it's been pretty exciting
to work with her.

(narrator)
What's a typical day like
for Kissie Stroup?

First off, she faces
the task she likes least.

(Kissie)
I do my terrible accounting
in the mornings.

Yes, I get that over with,
and then I either--

I'm at
a grocery store sampling.

We're--we really, if--
to be successful

and to just talk to people

and get it in people's mouths
one bottle at a time.

Settin' up a table
and talking,

settin' up a table
and talking.

That's all I do,
which obviously, I'm good at.

I like that better
than the accounting part.

But it's long days.

It's hard work,
but when you produce it also,

you have to make sure
that you're there

and it gets made 'cause you
don't have anything to sell.

So, um, typical day,

I'm either in the car drivin'
or, um, at the office mixin'.

My father-in-law
does all the bottling now,

so he's taken some
of the pressure off of me.

We don't have weekends.

I don't know
what day it is sometimes.

(narrator)
But all the hard work,

even the occasional
70-hour week,

appears to have been
well worth it

to this
high-energy country girl

with the full-speed-ahead
attitude.

Besides,
how can you go wrong

with an award-winning dressing
for every occasion,

each one
straight from the heart,

handcrafted with pride
and presented with love,

plus a great line of chatter.

Truth tell, your salad
never had it so good!

♪