Diana Bellissimo

Diana came to the center to get assistance with making her young alpaca farm profitable and set the foundation to grow it.  Her goals when we first met in January 2017 was to be profitable by the end of the year.

Diana attended our Spring 2017 60 Hour Entrepreneurial Training Program.  We had one on one counseling sessions that discussed her business goals, marketing, expansion of a web and farm store, as well as her strategies to be competitive. Diana completed our 60 Hour Entrepreneurial Training Program on 6/6/17 and handed in a completed business plan.

Diana has taken advantage of many workshops and programs at WEDC.  In fact, she has attended the following workshops to help her continue developing her growth plans: Small Business Breakthrough, Social Media Do’s and Don’ts: 5 Tips to Getting Started Today and Rank on the First Page of Google.  She was also one of the participants in our Advanced Micro-Manufacturing Program that was a seven session series on scaling.  We have met many times since graduation and have talked about what steps she needs to take with marketing, costs, advertising mediums, events, etc. to not only meet but exceed her business goals. Diana was thrilled to share that in 2018 her sales increased by 35%.  Significant growth for such a young business.

In fact, Diana said “I truly believe that my WEDC 60 hour class and the friends that I made in the class have been a blessing.  I gained a lot of knowledge in the 60 hour and continue to gain knowledge through their classes offered.  Cynthia and my friends that I made in the class have been a wonderful sounding board in helping me make decisions to make my farm grow.”  We are so glad to be part of making her farm one of the Hudson Valley’s treasures.