Interview 14
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A: I mmm, I got married into this business so I began seven years ago but my husband’s had it for about twelve years, he’s been here twelve years. So yeah.
Q: Right so they were in this business for last twelve years?
A: Yeah he himself has been in this for the past twelve years but it’s a family business, his parents owned which got moved down from Wolverhampton to Birmingham mmm so in the family, it’s been in the family for about a good 25/30 years. Yeah probably even longer actually but yeah.
Q: So when you moved to this family, when you got married, what were your expectations and aspirations? What, what, you saw yourself as I’m doing after marriage? What did you see?
A: I didn’t think I would be here. I didn’t invigilate this at all. I mean I’ve got a degree and its in biomedical science.
Q: Right.
A: So it’s completely different from this, totally different mmm I was working before I got married and my husband he mmm had a shop at the bottom of the road, which he rented. So he was always like “don’t go out and find a job, come and help me for a bit, see if you like it and then we’ll decide you know, if you want to get a job or not.” He goes “your ya own boss and etc,”so I kind of thought yeah well you know what I pick and chose my hours do what I want, it seems ok. So I started about a couple of two weeks, two to three weeks after I got married I started into this.
Q: Did he miss you on the shop?
A: Did he… if I’m not there… he does now. But I mmm, when I first got into it, it was all fun and games I loved trying on the outfits, it was ya know it’s, ya girls best friend really, you come in in sharp clothes, what else do you want, and mmm, but then 6/7months later down the line I really got into it, it was very interesting, got to meet the suppliers and started to do the buying…
Q: Ok, yourself?
A: Yeah, yeah.
Q: So what changes have you brought to this shop, since you have joined?
A: We’ve done a lot… mmm…I mean we bought this property, we renovated this property, we changed our style, our output of clothes….
Q: Did you not own the property before?
A: Not this one, no, we rented but then we decided to buy something permanent. I don’t like renting personally me, if you can, if you can buy it, its stronger isn’t it, it’s a better, its less financial output, you know buying your own. So I was very more for buying the property and going into that which is what we did, but the styles we changed the styles, I mean we started bringing in more western looks for the girls. As girls are growing up they don’t really want to stick to the traditional, they’re sort of bouncing between their culture and the western approach. So it’s trying to find that medium sort of ground for them, and that’s what we did.
Q: Tell me what’s Ladypool Road like? I mean what’s the one routine, what the people are like?
A: Very friendly environment, everybody knows each other, everybody gets on with each other, very helpful. So we’re all, it’s like a big community, a big family community. So we all get on very well. Yeah
Q: I mean obviously you’re very young and you joined this business recently with your husband. What was the attitude of people towards you when you joined this business?
A: Oh very young and naïve, they don’t know what they’re doing. That was the approach we got but we had to prove ourselves over the past seven years and work very hard to get the respect from the local shopkeepers nearby and I think we’ve done that now. Yeah
Q: Fantastic! It’s really nice too.
A: Yeah we’ve done that.
Q: What do you want to double up this shop as, what do you see, how do you see the future?
A: Well we’ve done, we’ve done a lot we’ve done a lot of marketing now, and to be honest from the past year we don’t do so much, it’s all word of mouth so we think we’ve got what we actually wanted to achieve. We’ve got the fact that people know us and recommend us, mmm and that’s what we’ve done, yeah.
Q: How do you keep the work life balanced?
A: It’s hard, it’s not easy. Mmm we’ve got, I’ve had a little baby since mmm well, past year or so. So at the moment I don’t come in that much, but it is, it’s very hard to keep it but you have to. You have to balance them both.
Q: Right
A: But having your own business, I think the good thing is you can sort of pick and choose the hours you work and the most important aspect is a very strong staffing team, which we’ve got. You know we all help each other, we rely on each other, it’s no, we don’t come in and think well that’s my job, only I can do it, we all back up each other, so it’s yeah.
Q: So is your staff male dominated or it’s women’s work? It’s women’s work?
A: It’s 50/50 actually, no it’s very 50/50, yeah. We’ve mmm, we do I mean we’ve er started doing men’s as well. Mmm so yeah it’s made a difference and you need to have men to sell men’s.
Q: Yeah, yeah absolutely and, so when you first came to this shop and you decided that yes I want to try it.
A: Yeah.
Q: What was your first thought, er, about getting into, taking over the business or thinking more about becoming a, changing totally a subject that you were doing as a degree and suddenly you move to a different field from biomedical scientist to …..
A: To fashion.
Q: To fashion, yeah. What went into your mind, what process….?
A: I don’t think I really thought of it as that, I mean I, to me it was, it was my husband’s business, I’m just going to be sat in the corner taking the payments. I was quite naïve, that’s all I thought. Chilled out life, you know, come and go as I want.
Q: It wasn’t like that?
A: Definitely not! No it wasn’t.
Q: It was much more demanding?
A: It was more of, she’s coming, and er from my husbands point of view, I can sit back and semi retire now, so that’s what it was. I was too naïve to know that’s what he was planning. Yeah, yeah it’s been a fun ride.
Q: Right ok. Do you think you would like to have more outlets of your err, I mean expanding the business, what type of….
A: Mmm, personally before we did think so but now with the internet there’s no need to do it, mmm. We’re now we’re going online, so now I mean anybody’s got access to the internet to the shop, so having more outlets…….
Q: What’s the website address?
A: It’s all under construction at the moment, so it’s not all up and ready yet, so probably give us another couple of months and it will all be up and running. But yeah with that I don’t think there’s any need for more outlets.
Q: Do you live on your own? Or do you live with your ……….
A: Just me and my husband and my little girl, yeah the three of us.
Q: And do you think that the joint family system supports the businesses more or less.
A: It does, it does. If you’ve got a big, strong family connection and you’ve got the support from your family then it does, but if you don’t, then it can fall, it falls yeah yeah, then it does cause a lot of problems.
Q: So I mean this is obviously a very demanding business, you have to be here it think, I’m sure for long hours. So how do you look after your baby…. and…
A: She comes here. She’s here with me.
Q: When you first moved here what was your shop like?
A: What was it like?
Q: Was it, did it look the same?
A: Not al all, no no.
Q: Or was it very different?
A: Very different. Mmm we used to do jewellery then as well, so I concentrated more on accessories, I was more of an accessories person. So I…. 50% of this shop was just jewellery.
Q: Ok
A: And then the rest it was clothes, and I wasn’t really into the clothes it was something I had to, shall I say fall in love with and then get involved in to it even more. It wasn’t natural to me, trying on the outfits was but selling wasn’t and I still don’t think I can sell, but it just happens. I don’t go out to sell. The one thing I say to my staff as well, don’t force a customer to buy. Some customers are naïve and they can be forced. Don’t, if they want to buy if they ’ll buy it, if they don’t , and please don’t lie to the customers, if it doesn’t look good tell them straight, it doesn’t look good. Last thing I wanna do is have customers that go to a wedding, where’s there’s 2/300 people wearing the wrong outfit, that is not suitable for them. That’s not good business for me, and that’s not we’re about. So I make that mmm a big, big thing.
Q: Right, and what was the first impression of the shop when you came in?
A: The first impression when I walked in was like wow I own 50% of this! That means that clutch suits mine, that suits mine and that suits mine. Yeah I wasn’t looking at it at a business point of view or a permanent fixture in my life, it was more of it’s his business, I come in and I go and I’m going to go out and get my job or do something myself. Then it just happened that I just got more and more involved and I just couldn’t get out really, and I suppose didn’t want to in the end either. So yeah.
Q: Do you see more young women, younger women coming up and joining businesses and starting businesses, taking ownership and venturing into different kind of businesses on Ladypool Road?
A: Definitely mmm yeah I mean I got married 2007, and then I think I was probably the only woman that used to actually come to the shop with her partner on this road. A lot of the shopkeepers at the time were still very orthodox in their thinking it’s more of a male dominated road and business, and now if you look the majority of the shops are all women owned now. We’ve got beauticians on the road we’ve got Jewellery shops on the road and it’s all women. Mmm partners of, their partners come in now as before 2007 when I got married, there wasn’t anybody, I didn’t have any friends on the road. I didn’t interact because they were all males, it was just a nod hello and walk off. Now you can actually stop and actually have a conversation.
Q: Were there any old businesses, I mean err, old ladies who were supporting the businesses at that time when you came….?
A: There was one yes, but she never used to leave the shop. But I think it’s called….. I don’t….I’m not a hundred per cent on the name, but it’s further up at the top. But you go into the shop she’s there, but I’ve never seen her out of the shop, she’s not the one to walk around, but nobody else.
Q: Right so you think that you brought the change?
A: No, no, no. I don’t think I brought the change but I think women are now not so naïve anymore, they are dominant they can do what men can do. Probably do it even better actually, we can multi task as where men can’t, but mmm yeah everybody’s, you know it’s not so much of a male dominated industry anymore. It’s more female dominated, I would say now-a-days. Even the staff, I mean yeah ok if you’re a male that owns a shop you can’t do it without the female staff in there, you still need them, you require them.
Q: And in general, I mean if you look on this road, in general, what did it look like seven years ago and what does it look like in terms of cleanliness……..
A: Colourful now.
Q: And colourful, positive and what about cleanliness and other things…?
A: It’s not changed that much, I mean it was, it’s always been a very clean, clean road and you know shops have always looked good and the standards have always been there, but I think it’s quite multi cultural now. The diversity is there, mmm and it’s just got more friendlier, as times gone on. You know people are not so much actively competing with each other. They might still in their heart of hearts hate each other but verbally we’re all, we’re quite decent, yeah, we can communicate now-a-days.
Q: What do you think is your achievement, what do you think about this shop and your contributions to the business?
A: It’s not, it’s not a personal achievement, its something we’ve done as a family and as a group and when I mean family it means my staff as well. You know we are all one big family and that’s how we like to work. We’ve all been, it’s the same staff for the past seven years, it hasn’t changed. Mmm we all get on very well, and that’s it really you know. Without each others support we can’t do it.
Q: Are there any moment that you felt proud or low while doing… in this journey?
A: There’s always, there’s always is, there’s always up and downs for some or another.
Q: Any specific moment that you would like to share, and you thought oh now it’s not going to work or it’s going to work and I’ve done it?
A: If there’s ever been any situation where we’ve thought something not going to work, we’ve had our rock, which is our Aunty, who’s helped us through everything so the……
Q: So how old is she?
A: This is Aunty there, mmm but you know she’s always talked us round it and she’s always said well look in the direction you want to go and there’s nothing that can stop you and nothing has.
Q: So do you think that experience does help?
A: Yeah and the support, and the support. Mmm she’s our rock.
Q: You’re very grateful, it was really lovely talking to you.
A: Thank you.
Q: Thank you very much.
A: Thank you.
A: Did he… if I’m not there… he does now. But I mmm, when I first got into it, it was all fun and games I loved trying on the outfits, it was ya know it’s, ya girls best friend really, you come in in sharp clothes, what else do you want, and mmm, but then 6/7months later down the line I really got into it, it was very interesting, got to meet the suppliers and started to do the buying…
Q: Ok, yourself?
A: Yeah, yeah.
Q: So what changes have you brought to this shop, since you have joined?
A: We’ve done a lot… mmm…I mean we bought this property, we renovated this property, we changed our style, our output of clothes….
Q: Did you not own the property before?
A: Not this one, no, we rented but then we decided to buy something permanent. I don’t like renting personally me, if you can, if you can buy it, its stronger isn’t it, it’s a better, its less financial output, you know buying your own. So I was very more for buying the property and going into that which is what we did, but the styles we changed the styles, I mean we started bringing in more western looks for the girls. As girls are growing up they don’t really want to stick to the traditional, they’re sort of bouncing between their culture and the western approach. So it’s trying to find that medium sort of ground for them, and that’s what we did.
Q: Tell me what’s Ladypool Road like? I mean what’s the one routine, what the people are like?
A: Very friendly environment, everybody knows each other, everybody gets on with each other, very helpful. So we’re all, it’s like a big community, a big family community. So we all get on very well. Yeah
Q: I mean obviously you’re very young and you joined this business recently with your husband. What was the attitude of people towards you when you joined this business?
A: Oh very young and naïve, they don’t know what they’re doing. That was the approach we got but we had to prove ourselves over the past seven years and work very hard to get the respect from the local shopkeepers nearby and I think we’ve done that now. Yeah
Q: Fantastic! It’s really nice too.
A: Yeah we’ve done that.
Q: What do you want to double up this shop as, what do you see, how do you see the future?
A: Well we’ve done, we’ve done a lot we’ve done a lot of marketing now, and to be honest from the past year we don’t do so much, it’s all word of mouth so we think we’ve got what we actually wanted to achieve. We’ve got the fact that people know us and recommend us, mmm and that’s what we’ve done, yeah.
Q: How do you keep the work life balanced?
A: It’s hard, it’s not easy. Mmm we’ve got, I’ve had a little baby since mmm well, past year or so. So at the moment I don’t come in that much, but it is, it’s very hard to keep it but you have to. You have to balance them both.
Q: Right
A: But having your own business, I think the good thing is you can sort of pick and choose the hours you work and the most important aspect is a very strong staffing team, which we’ve got. You know we all help each other, we rely on each other, it’s no, we don’t come in and think well that’s my job, only I can do it, we all back up each other, so it’s yeah.
Q: So is your staff male dominated or it’s women’s work? It’s women’s work?
A: It’s 50/50 actually, no it’s very 50/50, yeah. We’ve mmm, we do I mean we’ve er started doing men’s as well. Mmm so yeah it’s made a difference and you need to have men to sell men’s.
Q: Yeah, yeah absolutely and, so when you first came to this shop and you decided that yes I want to try it.
A: Yeah.
Q: What was your first thought, er, about getting into, taking over the business or thinking more about becoming a, changing totally a subject that you were doing as a degree and suddenly you move to a different field from biomedical scientist to …..
A: To fashion.
Q: To fashion, yeah. What went into your mind, what process….?
A: I don’t think I really thought of it as that, I mean I, to me it was, it was my husband’s business, I’m just going to be sat in the corner taking the payments. I was quite naïve, that’s all I thought. Chilled out life, you know, come and go as I want.
Q: It wasn’t like that?
A: Definitely not! No it wasn’t.
Q: It was much more demanding?
A: It was more of, she’s coming, and er from my husbands point of view, I can sit back and semi retire now, so that’s what it was. I was too naïve to know that’s what he was planning. Yeah, yeah it’s been a fun ride.
Q: Right ok. Do you think you would like to have more outlets of your err, I mean expanding the business, what type of….
A: Mmm, personally before we did think so but now with the internet there’s no need to do it, mmm. We’re now we’re going online, so now I mean anybody’s got access to the internet to the shop, so having more outlets…….
Q: What’s the website address?
A: It’s all under construction at the moment, so it’s not all up and ready yet, so probably give us another couple of months and it will all be up and running. But yeah with that I don’t think there’s any need for more outlets.
Q: Do you live on your own? Or do you live with your ……….
A: Just me and my husband and my little girl, yeah the three of us.
Q: And do you think that the joint family system supports the businesses more or less.
A: It does, it does. If you’ve got a big, strong family connection and you’ve got the support from your family then it does, but if you don’t, then it can fall, it falls yeah yeah, then it does cause a lot of problems.
Q: So I mean this is obviously a very demanding business, you have to be here it think, I’m sure for long hours. So how do you look after your baby…. and…
A: She comes here. She’s here with me.
Q: When you first moved here what was your shop like?
A: What was it like?
Q: Was it, did it look the same?
A: Not al all, no no.
Q: Or was it very different?
A: Very different. Mmm we used to do jewellery then as well, so I concentrated more on accessories, I was more of an accessories person. So I…. 50% of this shop was just jewellery.
Q: Ok
A: And then the rest it was clothes, and I wasn’t really into the clothes it was something I had to, shall I say fall in love with and then get involved in to it even more. It wasn’t natural to me, trying on the outfits was but selling wasn’t and I still don’t think I can sell, but it just happens. I don’t go out to sell. The one thing I say to my staff as well, don’t force a customer to buy. Some customers are naïve and they can be forced. Don’t, if they want to buy if they ’ll buy it, if they don’t , and please don’t lie to the customers, if it doesn’t look good tell them straight, it doesn’t look good. Last thing I wanna do is have customers that go to a wedding, where’s there’s 2/300 people wearing the wrong outfit, that is not suitable for them. That’s not good business for me, and that’s not we’re about. So I make that mmm a big, big thing.
Q: Right, and what was the first impression of the shop when you came in?
A: The first impression when I walked in was like wow I own 50% of this! That means that clutch suits mine, that suits mine and that suits mine. Yeah I wasn’t looking at it at a business point of view or a permanent fixture in my life, it was more of it’s his business, I come in and I go and I’m going to go out and get my job or do something myself. Then it just happened that I just got more and more involved and I just couldn’t get out really, and I suppose didn’t want to in the end either. So yeah.
Q: Do you see more young women, younger women coming up and joining businesses and starting businesses, taking ownership and venturing into different kind of businesses on Ladypool Road?
A: Definitely mmm yeah I mean I got married 2007, and then I think I was probably the only woman that used to actually come to the shop with her partner on this road. A lot of the shopkeepers at the time were still very orthodox in their thinking it’s more of a male dominated road and business, and now if you look the majority of the shops are all women owned now. We’ve got beauticians on the road we’ve got Jewellery shops on the road and it’s all women. Mmm partners of, their partners come in now as before 2007 when I got married, there wasn’t anybody, I didn’t have any friends on the road. I didn’t interact because they were all males, it was just a nod hello and walk off. Now you can actually stop and actually have a conversation.
Q: Were there any old businesses, I mean err, old ladies who were supporting the businesses at that time when you came….?
A: There was one yes, but she never used to leave the shop. But I think it’s called….. I don’t….I’m not a hundred per cent on the name, but it’s further up at the top. But you go into the shop she’s there, but I’ve never seen her out of the shop, she’s not the one to walk around, but nobody else.
Q: Right so you think that you brought the change?
A: No, no, no. I don’t think I brought the change but I think women are now not so naïve anymore, they are dominant they can do what men can do. Probably do it even better actually, we can multi task as where men can’t, but mmm yeah everybody’s, you know it’s not so much of a male dominated industry anymore. It’s more female dominated, I would say now-a-days. Even the staff, I mean yeah ok if you’re a male that owns a shop you can’t do it without the female staff in there, you still need them, you require them.
Q: And in general, I mean if you look on this road, in general, what did it look like seven years ago and what does it look like in terms of cleanliness……..
A: Colourful now.
Q: And colourful, positive and what about cleanliness and other things…?
A: It’s not changed that much, I mean it was, it’s always been a very clean, clean road and you know shops have always looked good and the standards have always been there, but I think it’s quite multi cultural now. The diversity is there, mmm and it’s just got more friendlier, as times gone on. You know people are not so much actively competing with each other. They might still in their heart of hearts hate each other but verbally we’re all, we’re quite decent, yeah, we can communicate now-a-days.
Q: What do you think is your achievement, what do you think about this shop and your contributions to the business?
A: It’s not, it’s not a personal achievement, its something we’ve done as a family and as a group and when I mean family it means my staff as well. You know we are all one big family and that’s how we like to work. We’ve all been, it’s the same staff for the past seven years, it hasn’t changed. Mmm we all get on very well, and that’s it really you know. Without each others support we can’t do it.
Q: Are there any moment that you felt proud or low while doing… in this journey?
A: There’s always, there’s always is, there’s always up and downs for some or another.
Q: Any specific moment that you would like to share, and you thought oh now it’s not going to work or it’s going to work and I’ve done it?
A: If there’s ever been any situation where we’ve thought something not going to work, we’ve had our rock, which is our Aunty, who’s helped us through everything so the……
Q: So how old is she?
A: This is Aunty there, mmm but you know she’s always talked us round it and she’s always said well look in the direction you want to go and there’s nothing that can stop you and nothing has.
Q: So do you think that experience does help?
A: Yeah and the support, and the support. Mmm she’s our rock.
Q: You’re very grateful, it was really lovely talking to you.
A: Thank you.
Q: Thank you very much.
A: Thank you.
Sonia Sabri Company, 202 Moseley Street, Birmingham B12 0RT UK