Jade Mountain inc
“I listened and learned from Valerie on the importance of creating a customer data base and how using it would improve customer service and increase my sales. I love talking to my customers so this was easy for me to do and it really paid off!”
Anita Chan was born into a family of entrepreneurs. Her family in Hong Kong had been in the jewelry business for decades. She grew up learning the business from her grandfather and parents. You might say that jewelry is in her blood. Since 1991 she has owned five different businesses – all in San Francisco’s Chinatown district. She now has two jewelry stores on opposite corners – Jade Bazaar sells jade, fine gold, diamond and semi-precious stone jewelry; and Anita’s Jewelry sells fine silver, pearls, beads and jewelry making supplies wholesale and retail for jewelry making do-it-yourselfers. She also offers jewelry repair and custom design work.
During the pandemic, sales had decreased and traffic had slowed. To top it off, one of the jewelry stores had been robbed and vandalized twice. The store was closed for several months while repairs and restoration were done. During the pandemic, the repair work slowed due to supply chain issues. Every day the store was closed meant a loss of revenue.
The SBDC helped the client overcome some of these challenges by providing her with an experience Marketing Advisor, Valerie Camarda who guided the client through marketing plan, website content, database and sales strategy development. As a result of following the marketing and sales strategies, the client was able to increase her sales by 30% over pre-Covid sales.
Developing a database of past customers and prospects and working on and following through on the sales strategy she learned from her marketing advisor.
“I listened and learned from Valerie on the importance of creating a customer data base and how using it would improve customer service and increase my sales. I love talking to my customers so this was easy for me to do and it really paid off!”
Anita chan
Owner and founder Jade Mountain Inc