How AI tools and social media skills helped a jewelry business more than double holiday sales
Anastasia Volynsky creates custom charm jewelry at in-person events. Photo credit: Gabriela Hasbun
At a glance
- AI skills for a solo entrepreneur: Verizon’s free training helped a jewelry company owner develop practical AI skills that save time and support smarter business decisions.
- AI put into practice: Volynsky uses AI to help automate invoicing, draft contracts, plan her week and make inventory decisions.
- More than 2x holiday sales: Sales during Lucky Goldie’s busiest season more than doubled compared with the previous year.
For solo entrepreneurs, putting AI and digital skills to work can create more time for what matters most: growing their business. Anastasia Volynsky, owner of the custom charm jewelry company Lucky Goldie, used Verizon’s free training to learn about AI tools that helped her automate tasks, sharpen her social media strategy and make more informed business decisions. In one year, her social media following grew by 80%, while sales during the holiday season, her busiest time of year, more than doubled over the previous year.
Volynsky had dreamed of making jewelry and owning her own business since childhood. When she became an entrepreneur, she went looking for guidance and found free small business AI courses through Verizon Small Business Digital Ready. Lucky Goldie is now “truly like a dream come true,” she says. “I just didn’t know how I was going to get here.”
Watch Anastasia Volynsky put her AI skills into action at her jewelry company.
She describes Verizon as a resource that helped her find the way forward: “I kind of look at Verizon as a mentor.”
Her experience reflects the goal of Verizon’s new Verizon AI Skills for America, which offers free AI training and certifications to help people build skills for an AI-driven workplace.
How AI tools help this small business owner save time
Volynsky credits the AI skills she developed through Verizon courses with helping her save time and automate routine business processes. As a solo entrepreneur, she found that AI could take on work she otherwise might not have time to do.
“I took a course called ‘Getting started with AI,’” she says. “It opened up my eyes to AI in general and made me understand what other platforms I could be using to make my life a little easier, especially because it’s just me.”
She has since automated invoicing, experimented with sales-generating chatbots and looked for other practical uses of AI. After taking a Verizon course on writing contracts, she used AI to draft a contract for corporate events. “I put two things that I learned together and ended up with a final contract that I now use,” she says.
Build your AI skills with free training from Verizon.
Volynsky also turns to AI for help planning her week and managing inventory. After she entered information about her sales, for example, an AI tool estimated how many necklaces and bracelets she could expect to sell at each event—and how much inventory she should have on hand.
For small business owners, AI automation can save time by streamlining routine tasks, supporting business planning and turning existing data into useful insights.
How digital skills helped grow Lucky Goldie’s audience
Social media strategies Volynsky learned through the program also helped grow Lucky Goldie’s audience dramatically. “A lot of clients end up finding Lucky Goldie through social media,” she says. “So it’s a very important tool.” At an in-person Verizon training event, Volynsky learned to post consistently, create an editorial calendar and promote new products and pop-up events. She also began sharing behind-the-scenes content to make the brand more personal. “It definitely makes [customers] feel like a real person is behind the brand,” she says. Over the course of a year, her social media following grew by 80%.
Practical skills for what comes next
While the free resources from Verizon aren’t the only place Volynsky goes for business ideas, she considers the program a step above other resources. “The courses that are on Verizon are from real people in the industry,” she says. “So I definitely trust what they’re saying, because I can see that they’re very successful.”
She also values Verizon as a learning platform she can return to again and again, thanks to its regularly refreshed offerings on AI tools. “One thing that they are really good at is keeping up with their courses and adding new things depending on what’s going on and what’s trending,” Volynsky says. “They’re really good at adding new things like that.”
Volynsky’s experience shows how easy-to-access training can help small-business owners translate AI from an abstract idea into practical tools that save time and support their businesses.
Ready to learn about new AI tools for work? Verizon AI Skills for America offers free access to AI training, certifications and resources designed to help workers prepare for the evolving AI economy.
An individual user’s experience may vary and results are not guaranteed.
