We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lizbeth Cervantes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lizbeth, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I get my resilience from the love and support given to me by everyone around me. I am so thankful to have such a powerful and loving support system amongst my family and friends. Another reason why I am so resilient is because my customers give me encouraging and supportive feedback that helps keep me happy and very motivated.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My name is Lizbeth Cervantes and I am a 21 year old small business owner. I opened my store (Kpop & More)when I was only 19 years old with the support of my father who owns his own mechanic shop. I have always been a hard worker since I was young and I have had customer service experience since I was about 13 years old.My first ever official retail job was when I was 17. I have had other jobs as well but eventually I decided to quit my job when I was 19 years old and my father told me he would support me in opening my own shop. Howhever he made it very clear that It would be 100% my full responsibility in managing it and figuring out how to uplift my own business. I decided to open a K-pop store because I knew it was something I would be happy to do everyday. If you are not familiar with K-pop, it is a music genre and it stands for Korean pop music. One thing I must mention is that K-pop is for all ages and everyone can enjoy it, the community is so united and loving with each other. I wanted to create a loving, comfortable and friendly place where K-pop fans could gather and make new friends, as well as enjoy K-pop together. These past 2 years have been extremely hard but rewarding. Although unfortunately I do have to deal with lots of hate comments and hate messages, whenever a customer tells me how much I and my store mean to them, all those hate comments become insignificant. I am so proud of myself and of my customers as together we have made Kpop & More such a loving and successful store. I am so excited to keep on growing and I am looking forward to adding new products in my store.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
In terms of the three qualities, skills or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey of being a K-pop store owner, I would say, kindness, respect and resilience. My advice to any small business owner is to always remain kind, respectful and humble. Being kind to your customers and to everyone can get you very far. A lot of people that were once my customers, turned into my closest friends that I love and cherish so much. I am a firm believer that in order to have a successful business, you must do it with a kind and passionate attitude.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I am always looking to collaborate with companies! We would love to host more fan meetings and fansigns for our Chicago K-pop fans! You are able to contact Kpop & More via our email. Our email is [email protected] .
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kpopandmorechicago?igsh=MW5tMHV3aGxvazIxOA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Other: Tik tok: Kpopandmorechicago
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