We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kelly Chakerian. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kelly below.

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

I think every business owner is going to have a different view of “success” and what that means to them and their business. For me as a business owner and mom of 4, successful looks like I am still able to pick my kids up from school a lot of days, be at their sports events, and support my family outside of work. The fact that my business is running, profitable and on mission while I am also able to serve my family feels like a big win and success to me! Every business owner will have a different version of what success is for them.

Kelly, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Kelly Chakerian. I am a wife, mother of 4 and owner of Abide Home Shoppe located in the heart of Old Town Murrieta. Abide Home Shoppe is a store that provides intentional gifts, home decor and textiles to fill all the places you abide. We believe that there is a lot of beauty in the simple, mundane moments of the everyday. We have curated pieces with intentionality to celebrate that, whether it is gifting someone something meaningful, a new dish soap and dish brush for the dishes that aren’t going anywhere, or finding that special piece to bring coziness to your home. We offer complimentary in store design consultations for rugs, furniture and more AND/OR help you find the perfect local Interior Designer for a larger scale home remodels!

We hope that when you walk into Abide you have a great experience whether it’s enjoying the shoppe scent that you smell from our local candle maker when you walk in, or sitting down by the coffee table and exploring our faith based gifts and books. Feel free to come in and stay a while!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I love the power of social media and how it provides an avenue for the business to connect direct to the customer! My background previous to owning my shoppe relied heavily on social media marketing. I believe this prepared me well as I opened my business and is how many of my customers have found our store! Here are my key takeaways for building a strong social media presence.

– STORIES. Utilize instagram stories daily to let your customers know when you are open, new products that have arrived, how to use your favorite products in the store, etc. This is an easy way to connect with customers in real time.

– Tag your location! Make sure you are tagging your location of your business in posts, stories, reels, etc.

– Use reels! Utilize reels to showcase events, new products and how they can be used, a tour of your store, etc. great way to reach different customers and give a video presence to your business!

– Support Others! Find opportunities to highlight OTHER businesses you admire, support and recommend! Be sure to tag them!

– Don’t stress about the algorithm. Stay consistent, and your people will find you.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

We have a small team at Abide, but they are all amazing! My concern is not with how skilled they are for the position, but their overall character and if they buy into the mission of Abide.

I truly want every customer to feel warmly greeted, taken care of, and leave feeling like they had a great experience at our store whether they purchased anything or not. People only get one first impression of a store, and customer service is a large part of that first impression.

I make my expectations very clear upfront about our goal for a positive customer experience FIRST, and make sure they feel that they can provide that. I do believe everything else is a detail and is teachable, but quality character and customer service cannot be easily taught so that is who I hire first.

I believe because I have picked a team with high character and a heart to serve others, we have done well as a team!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.abidehomeshoppe.com
• Instagram: @_abidehomeshoppe
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/abide-home-shoppe-murrieta?osq=abide+home+shoppe

Image Credits

Danielle Mancino Photography
Amanda Fietz Photography