Sarah Plamann - Making Dreams Attainable
Welcome back to our fourth and final article in our mini-series about women conquering their own brave, intimidating thing of starting a business. Our final interview was with Sarah Plamann, founder and owner of Wisco Family Travels LLC. Though this is now a family endeavor, Sarah had to make the brave choice to not only move from “talk” to “action,” but also overcome her own battle with self-doubt and anxiety. Hers is a story that many of us will be able to relate to the root of, and then be encouraged to make our own outcomes.
Sarah comes from a long line of Wisconsin-born family, and she is also a descendant of the Oneida Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. Both sides of her family instilled their love and reverence for nature early on, and she enjoyed many opportunities to explore Wisconsin, particularly at her grandparents’ summer campground home in Wild Rose. But she also did not have the opportunity to travel outside of the state until she was a teenager. She knew that she wanted a different story for her own family someday
In 2010, Sarah had to leave a full-time corporate career as a Compliance Risk Manager due to health complications caused by her battle with endometriosis and adenomyosis. Over the next few years, as Surprise Babies 1 & 2 came along, Sarah worked to control her health as well as work to see what changes could be made in their family life so that her kids could routinely learn about the world outside of their own community. She endured a couple of tough surgeries in 2016 & 2017 that improved her health to this day. So what do you do when you finally feel good again and want your kids to experience the world? You get out in it! Sarah and her husband, Andy, had some experience camping together in their early years. But now, in 2018, with a 3- and 5-year old, road trips were much different. In their attempt to design a new story for their family, they planned a huge, 5,000-mile road trip. They learned so much more than expected about traveling with kids, from planning breaks and activities to camping and other lodging options. Though it was a tricky (but doable!) feat, Sarah was sold on developing this lifestyle for their family. From then on, they planned other trips to continue learning, and started involving the kids in the planning as they got older.
For the next couple of years, Sarah returned to the workforce and stayed busy with volunteer opportunities at her kids’ school and her community. They had also planned a Great Smoky Mountains road trip in 2020, which was canceled - as were many of our plans. However, in this time of stay-at-home, Sarah realized the world gave her time to breathe and really evaluate what she wanted her life to look like while considering her degree, interests, and family. She missed her country upbringing and wanted her own kids to experience more of Wisconsin as she had. During this “reset period,” Sarah started realizing more and more just how important it is to see other people’s lives and perspectives in order to attempt to understand the world around you. Life wasn’t meant to be lived in a vacuum. She knew that a change would need to happen if she wanted a more calm, more open space for her children to grow and learn about the world and their place in it.
You might be wondering if we’ve lost track of the “business” aspect to this week’s article, but rest assured, you need this backstory first. See, many women, myself included, could not imagine camping with littles. I have triggering memories of the one time we tried camping with the kids only to be kept up all night by the dog who wondered what on earth we were still doing outside at 3 am.
Sarah knew it was intimidating. She also knew there were online resources to help her plan and problem-solve. She spent time researching “how to make camping easier with kids,” and came to the realization that many families may want to give it a try, but aren’t ready to commit. It can be a big financial undertaking - the gear, the reservations, the equipment. But what if there was a place to rent equipment and try it out with your family first? Would that take away some of the intimidation?
So in early 2023, Sarah began Wisco Family Travels, a Milwaukee-based company that rents camping gear and setup time to anyone wanting to “try it before you buy it.” From basic needs like tent and sleeping bags to fun add-ons like fans and speakers, Sarah offers the opportunity to give your family a camping experience that is sure to make memories. It’s as easy as ordering online, picking up your order, using at your reserved camping spot, and returning for them to clean. Wisco Family Travels makes it easy to tell your kids, “Sure, we can try camping!” without the stress of choosing the right equipment or buying gear you may never use again.
What Sarah suspected would be a great idea came with its own dose of self-doubt and anxiety. Remember that full-time corporate career? Sarah remembers her old job “was literally to find the problem.” She really had to overcome anxiety of the unknown and the potential failure of starting this business. Sarah says, “I was really putting myself out there, and I was too afraid to fail.” Not a natural risk-taker, she felt she could see the potential problems as reasons to stop. But she made the brave choice to go for it, telling herself to “do things differently this time.” She ignored what was programmed in her brain and started moving forward.
Sarah continued to remind herself that other people take risks every day and live to tell about it. She chose to focus on little successes that motivated her to keep moving. She continued her research and set up ideas so that even if one part “failed,” the whole idea wouldn’t break. And when Sarah hit “publish” on her website, she really felt she had overcome a huge hurdle for herself. Utilizing research and resources that surrounded her were key to seeing this journey not as an anxious choice, but as a strong business opportunity.
If you are on the fence about taking the steps you need to change your story, consider taking Sarah’s advice. “Just do one small thing.” There will always be days that feel too overwhelming or risks that feel too great. “Just do one small thing” now and watch it snowball into confidence. And don’t be afraid to reach out to others who’ve “been there, done that.” Sarah remembers being in a seminar on branding as the “tipping point where I finally decided to be brave and go for it.” She spent a lot of time reaching out to successful business owners who were more than happy to give time and resources to help her be successful.
In this new and emerging market of equipment rental, Sarah isn’t giving up. She knows it’s both a struggle and a gift to be the new kid on the block. But she is spending her time now looking into more marketing ideas (on both Facebook and Instagram), more equipment options to add to their catalog, and more adventures to go on with their own family. She is building the life she wants for her family through her own courageous decisions to weigh risks, push past fear, and choose success.
