We were lucky to catch up with Alessia Benavides recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alessia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them?
I always ask my customers what kind of pastry/desserts they would like to learn, I always listen to them because without them I wouldn’t have the business that I have. I am so grateful for my customers and when I see repeated customers, I always try to compensate them with discounts or free chocolates.
I’m always fair, because when I see other businesses giving free or discounted prices to new customers, I feel bad , so I try to give discounts to everyone, not just new customers.
Alessia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a Pastry Chef, with over 15 years of experience. I love to keep training myself to learn new and modern things. I have been a pastry Chef instructor for around 12 years, so for this reason I really enjoy teaching baking and pastry classes. I am also a chocolatier, so I make chocolate bonbons and confections for sale, and also baking and pastry classes.
I am confident that I am different in both from my competitors, on the chocolate side, I feel we don’t have such elevated chocolate bonbons here in San Antonio, I formulate my recipes so my fillings have an amazing smooth melt in you mouth texture, that also taste amazing! like I said, I am always enrolled in classes, so every time I feel more and more confident of my work .
About the classes, yes, we have some classes here in San Antonio, but I am a professional pastry Chef, I always explain to my participants the why pf everything, that’s what makes a class successful, not just do it like this and you will be fine, but also the why are we doing it like that and sometimes even with other options available.
I also encourage my participants to message me if they have any questions while trying to make it at home.
It makes my heart full when they send me pictures of the pastries that they bake at home from our class.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
The most effective place that I grew my clientele, is Facebook, I advertise in groups, my page, and sponsored content as well, so most of my clients come from there. I feel I steel need to work on marketing, but I am happy with the results so far. I try to post everyday some content on my page, because once someone told me, if you don’t post, people forget about you, or you name, like ” ooh what was the name of that chef that teaches classes?’, so if you keep posting, it’s easier to remember or to purchase at the time.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
I feel what helps me is that I listen to my customers, I am very friendly, but I really love my job, you can always tell when someone enjoys something, and someone that is just doing it for the money. My customers are my bosses, without customers, I wouldn’t be doing what I love the most.
Another thing is responsibility, I am always there, I always show up for my classes and customers, that is another important thing to do when you have a business, also having a plan B for that time that me or my kids get sick.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.chefalessb.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chocolatl.tx/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CHEFAB1
Image Credits
Only the first picture ( myself in a black chefs coat) was taken by Erika michelle photography