Chanel Yang. Canadian Corner

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Chanel Yang’s passion, vision and a solid business sense have allowed her to successfully build, grow and sell her business L’Amour du Vin - a popular winemaking store in Vancouver, BC.

Yang started out her professional life working in accounting for five years, but in the back of her mind was always the desire to run her own business. While seeking opportunities online, she noticed a winemaking business for sale. The idea of having a winemaking shop of her own intrigued her.

Her partner has made wine for over 14 years and always got rave reviews. She approached him with her idea. He loved it and they immediately started to research into opening their own shop. "We did everything: we bought a map of the city and put coloured dots on it so we could see what locations didn't have this kind of store. We went to all types of stores to ask people our survey questions. It all went into the business plan," says Yang.

When Yang registered her store's name, she noticed a promotion for Small Business BC's annual province-wide business plan competition. "At first, I thought a business plan wasn't very important, that it was just paperwork. Now we know differently. We looked at the local market and visited our competitors' stores looking for their strengths and weaknesses. We made notes about the character, the staff, etc. so we would remember," she says.
Those notes were the start of a business plan that won the contest and gave her $1, 000 in prize money. Yang feels she won because she considered all the outcomes, including a "Plan B" as backup. Yang's analysis showed her there was market potential for serving the needs of connoisseurs who make their own wine for love of the process and the product.

That knowledge determined her location in an upscale neighbourhood. After much research and looking at various locations, she found the perfect location for their store in the Point Grey area of Vancouver. Yang talked to Women's Enterprise Centre about financing and mentoring and secured funding through them. The store opened its doors in June of 2004.

Since then L'amour du Vin won the Vancouver Courier's Readers Choice Award for the best winemaking shop. L'amour also entered wines made by her customers into an international competition and won two silver and two bronze medals.

Yang knows why this winemaking store has been so successful. "We were clear on what we wanted to do and we knew what we needed for product and service," she says.

Although it was a difficult decision for Yang, she sold L’amour du Vin to new owners last September. “L’amour is still up and running today! We are really happy with the new owners and are sure that if we drive by in 20 years, the business will still be there.”

A true entrepreneur at heart, Yang has created partnerships in China to develop Canadian Corner, her latest venture. “Canadian Corner is an export business to bring Canadian food and drink products to people in China. There are lots of foreigners in China and people who have lived in Canada who have moved back that would like to have access to these products.”

Because of Yang’s business background and bilingualism she was approached by business partners in China to take care of the exporting portion of this new business. “I’m excited to take on this new challenge. Working with other business people and new partners is a wonderful thing because you never stop learning. Always expanding your knowledge is the secret to being successful in business.”

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