Porn Valley- Today I spoke to Jerry, the sales manager over at Stardust Industries, www.stardustindustries.com. From the way he talks it sounds like Stardust, owned by Tommy Sinonpolis is reeling from some deadbeat accounts sanctioned by their previous sales force and is trying to gets its ass back in gear. But it’s working.
Jerry has been at the helm of Stardust for about four months and used to be in customer service with Toshi Gold at Astral Ocean. He worked there about a year. “They went through a big management change and after I left, Sacred Pools [ a video offshoot of Astral Ocean] went down the tubes. His sales manager screwed him over.”
Jerry says he loves the deadbeat stories I’ve been posting.
“I really appreciate the forum you’ve got,” Jerry tells me. “When I first walked in here it was a madhouse, a nightmare. I’ve got an entire new staff.” Jerry also tells me about a filmmaker named Eyal Gayel who’s apparently shooting product for them. “Tommy has the Stardust Hall of Famer Video line,” Jerry informs me, noting that there’s about 20 to 25 titles under the Stardust name and he’s working the room to get them some exposure.
“I’ve put together an entirely new marketing campaign for us,” says Jerry. “We’re also developing a new online presentation.”
Among the things that got the company into trouble, Jerry tells me was being a one-stop. “When I came in there was another sales manager who had taken over for the previous guy. It seemed like she was carrying the paper. She was shipping stuff on automatic.”
“That had to do with one of the bum accounts [Adult Phantasy] you were writing me about?” I ask. “That was a lady salesman?”
“That was both,” says Jerry. “It was a male salesman and he’s working at DVD Empire now. But he’s the one that opened the accounts and when he got fired, this girl who selfishly took over all his accounts started doing the same thing that he did. Of course it took me a long while to start catching on. In four months I’ve managed to get us a little bit of cash to keep the doors open and the lights on. All the basic stuff- the website up. And we’ve got four warehouses over here at this property.” The offices are located Noble & Raymer, off of Sepulveda and Roscoe.
Jerry tells me he’s managed to expand sales into Japan. “And I’m getting ready to send out a promo box to Greece.”
But video is the least of the company’s inventory because Stardust specializes mainly in magazines and herbal products. “Herbal products are our base,” says Jerry. “That’s what I’m going back to. We said screw the one-stop stuff. The previous people got us into trouble with that. We’re stopping the one-stop thing and going back and concentrating on herbal products. We have a desensitzer. That’s one of our main products and very popular with the gay crowd. We have five different shavers. We have our own line of an herbal viagra called Stiffy. Tommy’s had this line for a longtime. This is very big over in Japan.”