Dayana Campos Peña, of Siquirres, Limón, is using her talents to provide tools for entrepreneurs like her. As the pandemic wore on in Costa Rica, she found herself searching for a new income stream to support her family. She decided to use her love of publicity design to fill a huge need: affordable publicity services for small businesses in Costa Rica.
Her Jireh Store is now a member of our Directory 506, a national platform for rural businesses and tourism. Here’s her story, edited for brevity.
Jireh Store was born out of my need for extra income as a mom. I have twins. I don’t have a job with a company, but I do have the ability to do certain things, and I also like to help others. I left it up to God. Jireh means “Jehovah will provide,” and from there I drew strength for my undertaking.
I wanted to help other people who didn’t know how to do those things: advertising, ads, posters, posters, Facebook covers, personalized invoices. I realized that all those little things are so important. There was that need from entrepreneurs who don’t know much about managing social networks, who aren’t very creative about making an ad, for example. There are entrepreneurs who do not have the skills to manage social networks, much less to use an app or advertise. There was that gap, that need. I wanted to help, and in the process generate income for my family.
It has been effective. It’s beneficial for me, and I have satisfied customers. I do my work from one entrepreneur to another. I put myself in their shoes: I know they want to move forward, they want to grow, they want to get more attention, they want to sell more and have more customers. I know what that’s like. I experience it myself.
That’s why I keep my prices so affordable. We know that small entrepreneurs sometimes do not have resources. They can barely make ends meet. They don’t have enough to buy advertising all the time, much less from consolidated, large companies or well-known brands. I believe that this is a blessing for them, and for me as well.
I started in May, so I still can’t say: “Wow, I’m seeing great results.” But from what my clients tell me, they have made progress. They have grown a bit, they have improved, they get more attention. More messages come in.
One thing I have learned about small businesses and marketing is that small businesses must find a way to become known. How? Acquiring a logo, advertising, ads, uploading content to your page. All of this is important, and many of them cannot afford it because it is expensive. Creating a logo, designing the structure of the page, advertising videos, everything is expensive for them. But in the market, everything enters through the eyes. A well-done, eye-catching advertisement will attract customers.
