Entrepreneur Interview Paper: Small Business, Classic Braids by Mary

This assignment presents an interview with the owner of "Classic Braids by Mary," a sole proprietorship hair salon. The interview covers various aspects of small business management, including general management questions about motivation and challenges, functional business questions about marketing, pricing, inventory, ethics, financing, human resource management, and customer service. The entrepreneur discusses her marketing strategies using social media platforms, target market, and pricing models. She also elaborates on her competitive advantage, which is low pricing and home services. Furthermore, the interview explores the entrepreneur's approach to employee management, customer service, and business ethics. The entrepreneur shares career advice and lessons learned in the workplace, emphasizing the importance of following one's passion and addressing employee challenges. The assignment provides a comprehensive overview of the practical aspects of running a small business, offering valuable insights into the entrepreneur's journey and strategies.

INTERVIEW

TABLE OF CONTENT
3. General Management questions...................................................................................................1
4. Functional business questions......................................................................................................1
5. Other questions............................................................................................................................3

3. General Management questions
1. What is your favorite part of your job as an entrepreneur? Why?
Favourite part of my job is to meet different people, I get an opportunity to interact with different
types of customers. It help me to enhance my communication skills and confidence.
2. What is your least favorite part of your as an entrepreneur? Why?
As an entrepreneur I like to try new and innovative things but I need to listen to my customers
who are not willing to try anything new. It makes me upset sometimes because it becomes a
barrier in my learning or development of new skils as a hair stylist.
3. How do you motivate yourself?
I try different things to get motivated, such as I set personal goals to accomplish, I set my
routine, I listen to motivational videos of various entrepreneurs etc.
4. How do you motivate others?
I believe that motivation is very much important for each and every individual, therefore I use
different strategies for motivating my staff. I have developed impressive reward programs for the
employees like employee of the month, most talented employee etc.
4. Functional business questions
1. What form does your business take?
I have a sole proprietorship business, and I am the sole owner of my salon.
2. How do you approach marketing?
I use different platforms to promote the services offered at my Salon, these platforms includes
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp. My Salon also offers discounts on important dates
such as Women's day, Valentine's day, Christmas etc.
3. What is your target market?
Our salon mainly target women aged 16 to 30 who are interested in getting hair braiding.
4. Do you advertise in-house or use a third party
No, we do not use any third party for promoting our services, we are using in-house advertising
through platforms like Facebook, Instagram etc.
5. Can you describe a recent advertising strategy that you used?
The most recent advertising strategy we used was a flat discount of 20% on the total bill for first
20 customers in the month.
6. How do you price your products or services?
1

My Salon offers different services from simple haircut to a complete hair treatment, colouring or
braiding. The prices starts from $50 to $200, the cheapest service available is a normal haircut
that cost $50 and for braiding and hair smoothing the changes are $150 to $200.
7. How do you manage inventory?
The inventory or stock in my salon is managed by monthly audit that is performed by myself.
Physical audit help me to note down the products available and required on monthly basis.
8. How would you describe business ethics in your firm?
Our salon follows the code of conduct in an effective manner to address the business ethics.
There is no discrimination done with any of the customer, our staff treat them with respect,
ensure that they feel happy and visit us again. Our main motive is to provide satisfactory services
to our customers and attract new ones through ethical practices.
9. How do you handle financing your business?
I started my Salon by taking a bank loan, I also used some my savings for buying equipments for
the Salon.
10. How do you handle the accounting function?
I handle accounting function on my own, I keep records of all the expenses and income to
manage the flow of cash.
11. How do you handle the management of employees? (delegate or do it yourself)
The management of employees is handled by myself, I don't think I need any other party for
managing the employees.
12. How do you handle human resource management? (hiring, firing, staffing, training)
In order to develop and manage the Human resources in the Salon, I advertise for hiring talented
employees. I take the interview myself, conduct training session and also fire any irresponsible
and rude employee by giving them one month probation period.
13. What is your approach to customer service?
Im order to improve customer service, our staff promote friendly environment for the customers,
we have a thanking approach towards our customers and ensure that they get most satisfactory
services.
14. How do you manage supply and demand in the marketplace?
When there is lack of product supply in the market, we need to increase the cost of our services.
But when supply increase we decrease the prices.
2

15. Does your business have any unique policies?
No, we follow the basic regulations and policies applied on every hair salon.
16. What do you consider to be your competitive advantage in the marketplace? Ask the
person to elaborate on any of these areas if they choose, or another area. You may choose
to ask follow up questions on a topic if interest.
The main competitive advantage of our Salon is the low pricing strategy, we don't charge a huge
amount for our services. In addition to low price, we also offer services at home. I think there is a
huge competition in Salon industry, there many Salons or parlour available. Therefore, I think
low prices attract more customers and help to achieve competitive advantage in the marketplace.
5. Other questions
1. What is the best piece of career advice you were given?
I think the best career advice given to me by my parents and teachers was to graduate in
management and attend a hair stylist certificate and diploma as I was interested in this field. It
was a major motivating factor that my family and teachers supported my passion and career
goals.
2. What advice would you give to college students today?
I would like to suggest college students that they should follow their passion and choose a career
path according to their interest as nobody can achieve success without their self interest.
3. What is the hardest lesson you have learned in the workplace?
I have learn many lessons in the workplace, firstly I learned that it is not easy to handle
employees with different mindsets and behaviours. While working with my staff I face many
challenges related to understanding, language barriers, lack of seriousness towards work etc.
3

4