We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jenna Jackley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jenna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

Oh man… I grew up with teachers as parents, so I learned first-hand and young that the education system is not perfect.

First of all, teachers need to be paid more, period. As much as you care about your job or helping children prepare for adulthood, if you’re struggling to make ends meet, your performance and level of care is going to dwindle. Teachers are spread too thin and funding in education needs to change in order to see a difference in our teachers’ and students’ lives.

I would love to see education become a little less standardized. The world is different now than it was decades ago. Less students need to go to college and get a degree to live successful and comfortable lives. Some students may think that college is best for them and their career, while other may find success in a trade school or working right out of high school to save up for the business they dream of starting. Every experience is valuable, and we need to do better at preparing students to solve real-world problems.

When I was in high school and college, I wish I would have learned how to budget and save, search for apartments and jobs, apply for jobs and lines of credit, negotiate a pay raise, register to vote, and how to value myself and set boundaries as an employee and as a person – things that help us add value to our everyday lives.

I believe that young people are going to shape our future in an amazing way. We just need to give them the tools to be confident and self-sufficient enough to change the world in the most positive way possible.

Jenna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I grew up in a small town in Illinois that had ride-your-tractor-to-school day. My town was not diverse or open to much creativity, and I felt like an oddball. I loved writing songs and gravitated toward the local coffeehouse, where I got to play in songwriters circles and meet people of different ages and backgrounds. There, I got to be creative and express myself, and I also learned how uniting coffee can be.

I moved to Tennessee in college and got my first barista job, where I learned how to brew coffee, dial in espresso and steam milk, interact with customers, and a bit about coffee roasting and sales. At that point, I was hooked. I loved the people that coffee introduced me to. I loved being a part of our customers’ routine. I loved being able to hone in a skill.

From there, I jumped from coffee job to coffee job. I was a barista, then a supervisor, then in coffee sales, then in franchise training. I really tried to soak up all the knowledge I could and I felt like each job was turning me into a better person and employee.

I put a lot into my work. Finally, I hit a point where I was working so many hours, I thought “If I’m going to be working this much, it might as well be for myself,” and my husband and I landed on the idea of a mobile coffee business. We researched coffee carts, building, and plumbing, and decided to build our first coffee cart in December of 2020. By April of 2021, I had quit my full-time job and jumped in with both feet as I launched Bloom Coffee Cart.

The first couple of months were really hard to make ends meet, and I had plenty of gigs where I broke even or lost money. I had moments where I thought I had made a mistake, but as quickly as I started to doubt myself, the business started to take off. I’m not sure if it was my hustle (failing did not feel like an option), the luck of building a pop-up concept in the middle of a pandemic, or my passion for serving people, but something just worked. And I rolled with it.

Since then, we have served at over 400 events, added 2 carts to our fleet, and 5 baristas to our team. Our sales have grown over 300% in 2022, and I’m so excited to be planning for even more growth.

I attribute some of the serendipitous growth to hard work, but mostly, I think it’s because my team and I genuinely care about people. I have gotten lucky with a team of like-minded baristas that have a heart for hospitality and want to elevate every event we serve at, with amazing coffee and outstanding service. They care for customers and want Bloom Coffee Cart to be more than just a routine caffeine fix. At the end of the day, my story comes full-circle, back to the local coffeehouse that welcomed people in and let them tell their stories.

At Bloom Coffee Cart, we want to provide you with that same cozy community feeling. We serve everything from corporate events to weddings to employee appreciation, and everything in between. Bloom Coffee Cart is your local coffeehouse, brought to you.

Any advice for managing a team?

Team management is something I’m new to, but really passionate about. I want my team to love coming to work and feel proud of what they do. I try to talk to all of our baristas one-on-one regularly. How is their life outside of work going? Are they enjoying their shifts? What could we do to make work easier or more enjoyable for them? Then I take their suggestions and try to implement the ones that seem doable. Baristas are the lifeblood of my business and they should be treated that way.

Don’t forget compensation : when employees take on more tasks, they get paid more. As the business grows, so will their wages. I want all of them to be able to grow with the business as much as they want to. Maybe one person wants more hours that I don’t have for them yet… I will do what I can to add events to our schedule so they are working as much as they want to work. You want more responsibility and are offering to help with admin work? Let’s write up a new job description for you that accurately depicts the type of work you want to be doing. There is no hierarchy, just personal growth. As they grow, so does my business, and I want to encourage them to be absolutely everything they want to be.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Google and Instagram. I’m not the best at social media, but as soon as I hired a designer to update my website and brand identity, I saw an uptick in booking requests. Showing potential clients exactly what we do and receiving rave reviews from past clients has been a game-changer for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bloomcoffeecart.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/bloomcarttn
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/bloomcoffeecarttn
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jenna-jackley/