Blog — Covid-19

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found myself daydreaming about what this time last year looked like and felt like. Exactly one year ago, most of us were told to stay home and only travel for essential reasons. I remember walking into the grocery store and the eerie feeling of everyone shopping in masks, avoiding close proximity and definitely no small talk. I also remember loving the time I had at home with my family...playing board games, movie nights, time in the backyard, and getting gobs and gobs of take out food from local small businesses. While it was an uncertain and scary time for our world, I know I wasn’t alone in feeling grateful for the “forced slowdown” and extra time with my family.

In terms of The Elderberry Co, the pandemic skyrocketed us in sales, similarly to toilet paper. Before March 2020, we were making about 300 gallons of fresh elderberry syrup each week. Our busiest week in March 2020, we made over 1,100 gallons of elderberry syrup! It was absolutely nuts! In terms of order volume, we were averaging 4,000 orders per month….March 2020? 13,000 orders! I was mass texting all of my friends and family asking if anyone wanted to come help us fulfill orders. We had to start a night shift just to get everything done in time. All while having to social distance and take all safety protocols.

When our community here in southern Indiana moved to only essential businesses open, our mayor contacted us directly and ensured that we were essential as a manufacturing business, especially as our products help support healthy immune systems. I felt grateful that our business was allowed to stay open; however, I felt a huge responsibility to be responsible and contribute to the solution of getting through the pandemic safely. It was a ton of pressure and a deep dive into leadership and business owning for me. 

So here we are, one year later. Many are vaccinated, stats are improving and we are slowly finding our way back to “normal”. While our business continues to grow, we are finding a steady pace of growth and are able to do exciting things like develop new products (more on that later). As a leader, I am constantly learning how to lead and love my team well. I am thankful for all of you who support us in our mission to empower families to support their immune systems. If this blog is your introduction to our company, welcome and hello! We are so glad you are here. To stay up to date on all things elderberry, you can:

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As always, thank you for supporting our small business. We are excited for what the rest of 2021 has in store for our team and are excited to grow alongside you!

We’ve got just a little over 30 days left in 2020...WHAT. A. YEAR. I’ll be honest, as crappy as 2020 has been for most of us, it’s been a pretty incredible year for me (you may want to punch me for saying that). But it’s true! Here are some recaps (good, bad, ugly) of how my 2020 went:

• This year my business has grown beyond my wildest imagination. I’ve faced some hard leadership decisions but have come out on the other end stronger and wiser. 
• Our team grew from 9 people to 20. Growing that fast brought some challenges, but I am CONVINCED we have the absolute best people on our team. They work hard and value each other. It’s an awesome place to work.
• This summer was a pretty significant awakening for my husband and I on the racial issues in our country. I’m still learning and listening on this journey toward racial reconciliation, as I know many of you are too.
• During the spring quarantine, my kids became BEST FRIENDS.
• Despite the quarantining, we were still able to get our vacations in and make some great family memories.
• I chose to homeschool my kids and while everyone (myself included) thought I was a little crazy, I have loved it so much. 
• My husband stepped down from his job to support me in my business journey, and while it’s only been a few weeks of this new normal, we can feel the peace it has brought our whole family. 
• I developed a brand new product: Elderberry Gummies! And the launch day of these gummies brought our highest sales volume EVER! Developing a product is WAY more complicated than I ever knew. It was not an easy process but so energizing and fun along the way.
• I started to work out early in the mornings 3x weekly. When I’m working out regularly, I am WAY happier and I think more clearly.

I am deeply saddened how Covid has impacted our economy and so many small businesses. It feels odd to be thriving in such a difficult season for most people and I know I have a responsibility to pay it forward however I can and share kindness with those around me. Here’s a few of my FAVORITE small businesses and they can ship their goodies to you wherever you live! I know these small business owners personally and absolutely love everything about them and their amazing businesses!

For the guys in your life: Him Gentleman’s Boutique - www.himgb.com
For the girls in your life: Kozy Candles - www.kozykandles.com

Here’s to the end of 2020 and an amazing (fingers crossed) 2021. Take some time today to show kindness to people around you. We need it :-)

My story is not a normal one. Two years ago I posted on Facebook and that post set me on a WILD journey of entrepreneurship, building a six figure business all while breastfeeding, toddler-rearing and balancing life as a stay-at-home mom. I didn’t cut corners, but worked INSANELY hard to get to where I’m at. I can’t stay silent about how I got here, where I’m going and how you truly can discover what God created you for and live a crazy-fulfilled life. My hope is that my customers can hear my story and be inspired in some way to take a step toward pursuing a dream.

With that said, let me tell you about March. One of my business mentors once described seasons of business as having one arm wrapped around a shooting rocket ship and another hand on an extinguisher, putting out fires. That is the best way to describe how March felt for me. For our country (and entire world), March 2020 will be remembered for the historic events that took place around the pandemic of Covid-19. Our economy essentially closed its doors and we all stayed home in our best effort to "flatten the curve" and prevent our health care system from getting overwhelmed. The middle of the month was especially chaotic where it felt like every minute we were getting news updates on big events cancelling and stay-at-home orders happening in different states. 

As for our business, we made the decision to close our storefront in southern Indiana. We felt that this was the safest move we could make, and as primarily an online business, we knew we could still offer our products to our community even with our doors physically closed. We were FLOODED with online orders the entire month. About 4x what we were used to. In one week, we made over 1,000 gallons of elderberry syrup! My emotions in March were all over the place: 

"How am I supposed to keep up with all of this?"

"We need more help! We need more space!"

"Are we making mistakes?"

"Is our team having fun and feeling valued?"

"This is CRAZY."

"This is fun!"

"I'm exhausted."

"I don't know if I can do this anymore."

I could go on. I had several 3am and 5am mornings that left me with a few emotional breakdowns. This is a photo of one of those mornings (I'll leave the breakdown photo to myself)...

By the end of March, I had some serious doubts about the business I had built and my ability to run it. Yes it was (and still is) incredibly successful but that kind of accelerated growth is not easy to handle. And going through a pandemic is not easy to handle.

I've come out of March with a new appreciation for entrepreneurs and business owners. I've seen the ways that I handle adversity well and other ways I handle it not-so-well. I'm incredibly grateful for a successful business and a product that brings so much health and healing to our community. And I'm especially grateful for our customers who continue to support us and share our product with their friends and family. Our future is looking CRAZY and BRIGHT, and we plan to continue to take you along for the journey!

Have you tried our syrup? Use code ROCKETSHIP to get 15% off your order now through May 1st. Code cannot be combined with bundles or subscriptions. Enjoy!

To healthy and happy families,

 Jenny

Photo Credit: Photo Lulu