We were lucky to catch up with Brittany Hall recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brittany , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

The first step to being successful is having a dream…a mental picture of yourself living the kind of life you want…doing the thing that you’re passionate about that truly fulfills your purpose. Once you have a dream, you have to lay out a plan to make that dream come true. Now, don’t get me wrong this is real life and things don’t always go as planned and sometimes we end up detouring from our original path, but the key is to keep going. Life is going to life and you just have to keep going despite all obstacles. With that, it’s important to keep in mind that things will happen and things will not always go as you hope they will. It is my advance to remain realistic in achieving your goals for success because if you’re going in expecting everything to work out perfectly every step of the way and when it doesn’t it can become easy to give up. Lastly, put yourself in an environment and around people who support you and want you to succeed. People who will help you when you’re starting out with no capital. They genuinely just want to see you make it and do not ask or expect anything in return.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got into baking during Covid. As a school teacher we were out of school during this time, and I was sitting on the couch watching tv with my husband and I heard, “You should bake cakes”. I looked at my husband to see if he had said anything and he wasn’t even looking in my direction. So I sat back on the couch and shortly after I heard it again, “You should bake cakes”. I looked at my husband again and he still watching tv. It was such a crazy experience, but I was like “Okay.” I started experimenting while we were still out during Covid and once we were allowed to go back to work I brought my cakes and cupcakes in for my co-workers to taste and eventually they started asking me if I sold my products and I was like, “No, but I can”! From there, I started thinking that maybe I could have a real baking business. So next, I needed a name! I’m from the Delta of Mississippi. Clarksdale, Mississippi to be exact. I wanted my business to represent home. To provide a little back story, Clarksdale is a small agricultural town where many blues legends got their start. Muddy Waters, Son House, John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke, and of course the infamous Robert Johnson which legend has it sold his sold to the devil at The Crossroad (Hwy 49 and 61) to become a better blues musician. Clarksdale is also birth place of Ike Turner. Morgan Freeman even had an upscale restaurant called Madidi’s and he had a very popular blues joint with good food and live blues called Ground Zero before it burned down a few years ago, as he too, is from the Delta. My town is full of history and I wanted to incorporate that in my business. So as I was throwing out names that I thought represented home, my husband said Queen Cotton. There are still a couple of plantations left in Clarksdale and cotton fields that stretch for miles. In prior history there was a term referred to as King Cotton, and my husband said take it (the name) back…it’s yours. It’s ours. Queen Cotton was born. I set out to creat out of the box cupcakes. I’ve gone to different bakeries and they all offer the same products and the same flavors just slight variations of a particular recipe. With my business, I wanted customers to say, “WHAT! I’ve never heard of that!”, and I have been successful in providing that shock factor. At Queen Cotton, my customers can literally have it there way! I not only bake cakes and cupcakes, but I also do cookies, pies, beignets, fried cheesecake egg rolls, lemon squares, etc. The cupcake flavors that I offer that I’m pretty sure you won’t find at your typical cupcake shop (e.g. Pina Colada, Crème Brûlée, Apple Crumble, PIneapple Upside Down, Orange Dreamsicle, Banana Pudding, Fruity Pebbles, Swiss Roll, Hershey’s Cookies n’ Cream, Red Velvet Oreo, Fried Twinkie, Peach Cobbler, Chicken n’ Waffles, Pancake and Bacon, Buttered Pecan, etc…) are truly like no other, and that is what I am most proud of with my business. When people tase my products, I want them to taste the history and the soul of the Delta.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Starting a small business with three kids, a husband, and working full-time is not for the weak. Growing your business from your home with no capital, no prior entrepreneurial experience is hard. There are time when business is really good and you see the growth, and then there are times when the phone isn’t ringing, the inquiries aren’t coming in and you begin to question yourself and doubt if this is for you. It’s not pretty everyday. There are customers whose sole purpose is cause chaos and nothing you do or say will satisfy them…everything is a problem, and you have to understand that it’s not you. It’s them. It’s who they are. And it’s hard to smile and say you’re right when you know they aren’t. However, the dream…the vision…the life…I want it bad enough to keep going. I want it bad enough to use the bad utilize the down times, the bad times as learning opportunities to help me continue to grow.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In any endeavor that I take on in life, I always make it a point to keep family first. I can always obtain a position in my teaching career. If my business fails for whatever reason, I know that I had a vision and I set out to do and I wouldn’t not live with the regret of not having gone for it and I could technically also go out and try it again if I wasn’t successful the first time. However, family is the only thing that can not be replaced. Everything in this physical world comes secondary to family. Therefore, planning and time management is of the utmost importance when operating a business. For instance, I know that there are certain times throughout the year that I’m going to get a high volume of orders. I do not make any family plans during those times. I know that there are times throughout the school year that my kids are on break from school so I have black-out dates that I do not take orders because I have dedicated that time for my family. I will not respond to inquiries or anything business related after 6pm because I am with my family. My customers have been very respectful of that and has not been issue for me. It’s just something that I have to actively remain cognizant of. Fortunately, I have a family that wants me to succeed in my business so there has not been a time that I can recall that I had to make an extreme pivot to do one thing or another. But in the event that there was an unexpected occurrence, it would always be family first.

Contact Info:

• Website: Queencottonbakingco.net
• Instagram: Queencottonbakingco
• Facebook: Queencottonbakingco
• Yelp: Queencottonbakingco

Image Credits
Photos by Queen Cotton Baking Co. Owner: Brittany Lane-Hall