We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kaneshea Wilson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kaneshea , appreciate you joining us today. Taking care of customers isn’t just good business – it is often one of the main reasons folks went into business in the first place. So, we’d love to get a conversation going around how to best help clients feel appreciated – maybe you can share something you’ve done or seen someone do that’s been really effective at helping a customer feel valued?
I have some of the BEST customers! One in particular, came up to me one day because they noticed we had the same accent. That led to us discussing our businesses, in which I mentioned I just launched Holy City Spice dedicated to our city. They were so ecstatic for me, they wanted to purchase- but since my spices were only sold locally at that time, it was sort of a bummer. This customer promised they will return in 2 weeks just to try my spice Dorchester because they wanted to support that much. Two weeks later indeed, they came back and I gifted them with the whole spice line in a custom box. Unknowingly, their birthday was in a week, and they said the blends was going to top any gift they were going to receive. Their support and determination to get the blends mean everything to me to this day.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Kaneshea Wilson, personal chef, born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. I’ve loved cooking since I was about 13 years old -which helped me make the decision to go to college for culinary arts. I attended the Art Institute of Tampa but was grateful to be able to return to my roots in Charleston and learn more once I was done with school. With the instructions from God with a whisper of just the name about a year ago, I created the brand Holy City Spice, which is a seasoning blend company dedicated to Charleston, SC. All of the blends are named after prominent places or roads in the city for intentional inspiration.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
The best source has been word of mouth. whether I have booked an event for my chef services and guests spark conversation with me or someone just buys a blend and tells someone else about the seasoning, it brings more and more people to buy.
Can you talk to us about how’d you funded your business?
To build my business, I started out taking one step at a time. I spent so many hours researching what I needed for the brand, what was the price for licensing, permits, ingredients, packaging, label, shipping, and other factors that would go into just making 1 blend for 1 customer. Once I had the numbers, I decided to get a side job that would be solely for HCS to get things rolling without stressing something else would have to be put aside. I wish I would have known about local grants back then because I sure would have applied for them. After the money was there to get started, I started posting on Instagram about launching and here we are – and I’m very grateful how things are going.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.holycityspice.com
- Instagram: @holycityspice @cantgetenoughoffood
- Facebook: @HolyCitySpice
- Other: Email @[email protected] to place any orders for restaurants
Image Credits
Holy City Spice reserve the rights to photos.