Business Interview

The person I chose to interview for my essay was Saida Omari the owner business of Al- Omari Fashion. Al-Omari Fashion is a store that specializes in sales of Islamic fashion for both genders. The store, located in Bridgeview in Illinois. Although Al-Omari Fashion small store compared with competitors, but it's steadily growing gain a large variety of customers and moving into an unexpected direction. Saida is successful in her business because she follows her father’s plan. Did you want to open a business like how Saida did? Saida Omari is the owner business of Al-Omari Fashion; she started in a small store, then expanded to a bigger store after three years of taking her father’s business. She began to work around age twenty- four years
old. Saida the only one who take responsibility of her father’s business from her siblings because she trusts on herself. Saida Omari said, “I believe in myself, and I can do it” (Omari). Moreover, Saida usually works on the weekdays and her children work on the weekend. Anyway, the business has an Islamic fashion. The business started from 1991 to current. The salary around $25,000 yearly. The highest income is in summer season and last ten days of Ramadan. She makes the order of Abaya and Thoube three times in a year, but she makes the order of the Hijabs thirty times in a year. She offers Quran, Abaya (outer garment like dresses), Thoube (traditional dresses), Hijabs (headscarf), body shirts, Kufi (hat), Shawls, Jersey, frames and two kinds of Ramadan lights are rainbow and lanterns. She orders those from overseas because an Islamic fashion is hard to find in Europe. She demanded the merchandise from overseas, but the most of it from Jordan. She used this business because she wants to share Islamic fashions in America. Saida goes into the business for herself because she took the business from her father after he died in a car accident. The motivated that makes her to be the owner of her father’s business because she wants her father’s business unlimited. Saida chose this particular type of business since of a high quality and a good price. Also, she got the capital from her father’s grocery store to start the business. “Of course I got the help from my dad,” Saida said. In addition, Saida has a business plan when she started the business, but she didn’t conduct market research or prepare financial projections before start business. She just pursues her father plan. The plan was she went overseas to buy the merchandise by herself, and she has experienced from her father. The business is a sole proprietorship, and she selects this form of business because she didn’t want any help, and she wants to be her own boss. Saida has some unique ways to run her own business. Saida works sixty-nine hours a week. Saida employees are her four children. She attracts and motivates her workers by offer gifts, rewards, fair pays, and takes them on vacation in holidays. The management style is the directive leadership. She uses an accountant and a lawyer in her firm to help run the business.
The social media that Saida uses in her business are Facebook and Instagram. She doesn’t have a website. She was marketing the business on convention and Bazaars through Facebook. She attracts customers through discounts of the merchandise price while putting on Facebook. The biggest competitor is Diana’s Fashions. Al-Omari Fashion has cheaper products and gave more discount that make her business different from her competitors because Diana’s Fashions has expensive products and less discount. The firm uses social media to directly engage with their audiences. Saida said, “Use social media for marketing is that it's fast and it doesn't cost money”. Saida runs her business with respect and attention about her customer. Al-Omari Fashion business has been successful because her father was having a large variety of customers, they appreciate his work, and they are still her customers currently.
“A big part of the business is personally wise and contacts,” Saida said. The long-term goals she has for her business is to make more branches of the store. The ethics important to business success because ethics a moral judgement about right and wrong, so her store related to religion by selling Islamic clothes for all genders and that’s made her business successful. The advantages of being self-employed are paying yourself, no boss, and own times. On the other hand, the disadvantages of being self-employed are long hours and no breaks. The personal skills and characteristics she does think business owners need to be successful are likable, talkative, people person, and business person. If Saida starts her business today, she would do differently to have real employees rather than her children because her children want to move to their own business. Saida advice was “never open a business with a partner and don’t take loans to start the business because it will stay with you forever”. This advice to people who want to start a business in successful
ways. In brief, the interview with Saida Omari was helpful to understand how to open a business and to be successful in the business.
When Saida starts her business at a young age, she was able to develop her business. Saida already has the experience in a business from her father. For that reason, she become a successful person in the business. I think the important things to start the business is doing what you love as Omari did. He loves to transfer the Islamic fashion to America and that makes his business to accomplish. Also, when a person wants to open a business, he/she should have a knowledge and managed to handle his/her own business. In a business, everyone should have a manger to reach them in the right way. Opening a business needs a lot of work and attention. To make the business comfortable they have to build a confidence between the owner and the
employees.