the entrepreneurial bug
This post is about some remarkable people/professions I have come across in the past few days.
I met the first 2 on field trips with another best friend for her March wedding. I could not help but think more about them and the professions they have chosen. And hence the post follows.
Small beauty parlors, specially the one's run by females for females are a specialty of India. Pardon me, but the US offered mostly unisex salons and hence that pretty much forms the world for me. May be other countries also have such salons, but I haven't visited, hence don't know and hence can't comment. Got the drift ? ;-) (convenient generalization) The point is these ladies amaze me. Because I personally think beauty treatment is a precarious business, with a varied and equally challenging customer set each of them wanting to look/feel the best when they get out of that parlor. So the whole business kind of runs on customer satisfaction, no ? Well, if you have a really good knack of what you are doing i.e. gentle ways to cut hair or do eyebrows even waxing/facial/bleaching for that matter, all this should not be difficult right ? But for that one needs practice, experience, good customer feedback to thrive. So we are running in a circle it seems. Plus the market is not very lucrative, most of the middle class (a major proportion of the client base) in India does not want to spend lots at such places. So the prices have to be very competitive so as not to lose a segment of customer just because you wanted to compete with bigger more professional names.
But these days there are institutions which offer certified courses which add to the credibility in this really high risk business. Think about it, a hair cut gone wrong and not only do you lose a customer, but also a referral chain thereby. It sustains on word of mouth marketing. So I really really commend these ladies who day after day not only get things done properly in such a personal space (I remember if my hair cut used to go even slightly haywire I would refuse to get out of the house for at least 7 days :P) for every individual and make people feel better about themselves by changing a few aspects of their personality every once in a while.
[From personal experience more than once a hair cut or a visit to the parlor has pepped me up]
Another set of ladies who really amazed me during these field trips were the Bridal Mehendi (henna) putting ones. The set I met were Devrani-Jethani from a Marwari family. They use the really basic skills that they have without any training (apart from practice) to start a small business sitting right out of their home. The Jethani indulges in the bridal henna whereas the Devrani does the other hands, as we have it in normal Indian weddings during the Mehendi ceremony. And for your reference they provide the satisfied ex-customer's catalog in the form of pictures taken on their cell phones. Very tech savvy. I instantly like them. To be self employed in such a diverse Indian culture, using some of your basic skills to fit in and maintaining the customer relationships through sheer warm conversations, is really appreciable no ?
The last remarkable lady I came across is the house maid who comes at brother's place. She is from a well to do family, owns her own place, has her children studying in colleges. The only reason she works - I don't want to sit at home. Pretty difficult to digest considering all the above facts. But her logic is whatever 4000-5000 Rs. (I am still not used to the new rupee symbol) she earns, add to her two daughters' wedding fund, so that she will be able to give them more gold (a symbol of prosperity and good investment in times of need in most Indian homes) than intended. I like her industriousness. She is in a very strange way passionate about her work and respects it.
I have seen people not being happy with what they do or crib about a lack of respect for the work. I think all the above mentioned ladies are a very good example.
Of being the ideal employee of one self.
~nightflier
I met the first 2 on field trips with another best friend for her March wedding. I could not help but think more about them and the professions they have chosen. And hence the post follows.
Small beauty parlors, specially the one's run by females for females are a specialty of India. Pardon me, but the US offered mostly unisex salons and hence that pretty much forms the world for me. May be other countries also have such salons, but I haven't visited, hence don't know and hence can't comment. Got the drift ? ;-) (convenient generalization) The point is these ladies amaze me. Because I personally think beauty treatment is a precarious business, with a varied and equally challenging customer set each of them wanting to look/feel the best when they get out of that parlor. So the whole business kind of runs on customer satisfaction, no ? Well, if you have a really good knack of what you are doing i.e. gentle ways to cut hair or do eyebrows even waxing/facial/bleaching for that matter, all this should not be difficult right ? But for that one needs practice, experience, good customer feedback to thrive. So we are running in a circle it seems. Plus the market is not very lucrative, most of the middle class (a major proportion of the client base) in India does not want to spend lots at such places. So the prices have to be very competitive so as not to lose a segment of customer just because you wanted to compete with bigger more professional names.
But these days there are institutions which offer certified courses which add to the credibility in this really high risk business. Think about it, a hair cut gone wrong and not only do you lose a customer, but also a referral chain thereby. It sustains on word of mouth marketing. So I really really commend these ladies who day after day not only get things done properly in such a personal space (I remember if my hair cut used to go even slightly haywire I would refuse to get out of the house for at least 7 days :P) for every individual and make people feel better about themselves by changing a few aspects of their personality every once in a while.
[From personal experience more than once a hair cut or a visit to the parlor has pepped me up]
Another set of ladies who really amazed me during these field trips were the Bridal Mehendi (henna) putting ones. The set I met were Devrani-Jethani from a Marwari family. They use the really basic skills that they have without any training (apart from practice) to start a small business sitting right out of their home. The Jethani indulges in the bridal henna whereas the Devrani does the other hands, as we have it in normal Indian weddings during the Mehendi ceremony. And for your reference they provide the satisfied ex-customer's catalog in the form of pictures taken on their cell phones. Very tech savvy. I instantly like them. To be self employed in such a diverse Indian culture, using some of your basic skills to fit in and maintaining the customer relationships through sheer warm conversations, is really appreciable no ?
The last remarkable lady I came across is the house maid who comes at brother's place. She is from a well to do family, owns her own place, has her children studying in colleges. The only reason she works - I don't want to sit at home. Pretty difficult to digest considering all the above facts. But her logic is whatever 4000-5000 Rs. (I am still not used to the new rupee symbol) she earns, add to her two daughters' wedding fund, so that she will be able to give them more gold (a symbol of prosperity and good investment in times of need in most Indian homes) than intended. I like her industriousness. She is in a very strange way passionate about her work and respects it.
I have seen people not being happy with what they do or crib about a lack of respect for the work. I think all the above mentioned ladies are a very good example.
Of being the ideal employee of one self.
~nightflier