🔒The hustle is real

I have been writing this column now for almost two years. I’ve put it all out there, rarely holding anything back, detailing my life as a business owner running my company. Documenting when I was diagnosed with clinical depression and could barely get out of bed, let alone run a business. I’m an open book, that is for sure. The first time I talked with WBJ Editor Brad Kane about starting my own column, I was really going through it and I felt that the struggle was real for me. That’s where the original name for this column came from.

Struggle is just a part of the life of an entrepreneur. But owning a business is like getting on a rollercoaster. You wait in line to get on, playing it cool, thinking you know what it is going to be like. Then, you get on the ride, and you start feeling nervous because you are not prepared like you thought you were. The ride starts, and you are overcome with emotions. You start to like it, and then your stomach gets turned upside down, so you want to get off the ride, but you’re too far in. This happens a few more times while you’re strapped in, and then finally you get off the ride and you are elated for a moment. That is, until you wait in line to get on the next ride. I haven’t needed to go to an amusement park in eight years because I’ve been living it every day.

More recently, with everything the coronavirus has put us all through, I realized I am in a different phase of business. When life changed, so did my business. I realized a strength about myself I didn’t realize I had: problem solving. I immediately thought on my feet, thinking what we could do to have different streams of revenue and get through this pandemic safely while still serving our amazing community around us. Each week since, I have thought about how I can make things better and better; whether that means different packaging ideas, how to fix mistakes and prevent them, how to be more organized with the orders, how to communicate with our customers, and most of all; how to continue to have a strong morale with my team.

It’s during this time, I have become the most grateful for the eight-year rollercoaster. All of the times of struggle have brought me to a place of growth I never thought I was capable of. It’s made me reflect on the times when I wanted to quit and give up on what I had been working on. It has shown me the grit behind the scenes at The Queen’s Cups, and the strong individuals who work for me who have shown up every day when they could have stayed home, making more money collecting unemployment. When I am at work now, I take in each day, because I have no idea what is going to come our way. Five years ago, or even two years ago, if this pandemic happened, The Queen’s Cups doors would have closed eight weeks ago and I would be a mess. Instead, now we are open.

Don’t get me wrong, this pandemic has taken its toll on me. We’ve had to teach ourselves an entire new way of business. Everything I have worked toward has had to shift into a new way of doing things. My patience has been tested, having to answer the same questions over and over, even when I've tried to make things as easy as possible for customers. I’ve been hung up on and gawked at when I explain we have an eight-to-10 day waiting period for online order pick-ups. Dealing with this and watching other businesses struggle has been tough. Will life ever be the same?

There are people that look to me for strength as a friend and as a businesswoman; and I want to show them it will be hard, but we are stronger than we know. So, I left the theme park and got off the struggle bus. The new bus I am on now is much more fitting for me and has room for all my other strong business friends. Our hustle is real, and it is not going anywhere.

Renee Diaz is the owner of The Queen's Cups bakery in Worcester, whose business is facing new challenges in the coronavirus pandemic.