Q: Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Ans: We are an online retailer and wholesaler of bowling gifts, novelties, and party supplies offering quality products at affordable pricing for online retail customers, and building partnerships with bowling centers, pro-shops, and bowling leagues and associations by providing high volume discount pricing.Bowling Delights office is based out of Denville, New Jersey along with our main warehouse which ships most of our orders.
Q: Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Ans: I’m an accountant by trade, and after spending over 10 years in the industry, I wanted to venture into my own business in the new age of online retailing.
Q: What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Ans:
1-Do your homework before you get into any business. Take your time to understand the business financials, and build your business plan to understand how will you grow the business and what will you need to be successful.
2-Retail business is very dynamic and is constantly changing due to the changing competitive landscape, and influencing external factors. So, never stop thinking ahead while running the day-to-day operations.
3-Be prepared to play multiple roles in the company as an entrepreneur who will have to resolve issues on a daily basis without minimal help.
Q: What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans:
1- Ability to look ahead and always stay ahead of the competition.
2 – Understand your customer and their changing needs and buying patterns
3 – Never lose sight on the profitability as the ultimate goal of a business is to make money.
Q: How many hours do you work a day on average?
Ans: Usually, I work 4-6 hours a day.
Q: To what do you most attribute your success?
Ans: I attribute my success to the work-life balance, and understanding and building rapport with my customers.
Q: How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Ans: We spend significant amount of time and resources in marketing online and reaching our wholesale and retail customers via email communications.
Q: Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
Ans: This is a self-funded business.
Q: Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Ans: We plan to expand the business in other niche sports categories over the next few years leveraging our current infrastructure and vendor base.
Q: Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Ans: Amazon, who we do business with, has proven out to be the most innovative leader in online retailing. They have created a vast vendor and supply chain network with a laser focus on customer experience and value creation for their customers.
Q: How important have good employees been to your success?
Ans: Employees that share the same value as yours in serving the customers are critical to any small business.
Q: How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Ans: We evaluate and research our ideas extensively first before committing to it. Upon commitment, we explore all the options to make it successful and adjust as necessary recognizing that no idea or plan is perfect.
Q: What motivates you?
Ans: Recognition and appreciation by our customers for our unique products and excellent customer service keeps us honest and continues to motivate us. As our company name suggests, our motivation is to delight our customers in whatever way possible.
Q: What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Ans: The ability to directly impact the customers by trying new ideas to create customer value and generate profit is the most interesting part of being an entrepreneur.
For more information, visit http://www.bowlingdelights.com/
