Today we’d like to introduce you to Noorjahan Bhojani.
Noorjahan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I first came to the United States from Pakistan in 1978. I had just gotten married at the age of 18, and my husband and I had absolutely no money. We started working retail and such to have a source of income, but two years later I got pregnant with my first child. I then decided to start my own home daycare so that I could continue providing for my family, and be able to stay home with my daughter. I ended up running my own home daycare business for 21 years. After that, I wanted to run a business outside of the home to get an opportunity to work with other adults, and I started a daycare center in Skokie, IL. It has been 16 years, and I now operate 4 daycare centers (3 in Skokie, 1 in Chicago).
However, I didn’t want to just stop at running daycare centers. I am a true entrepreneur at heart, and wanted to expand into other professions. I was always interested in having a career in beauty, however, I had no experience in this area. But with the support of my family, I went ahead and opened up Bollywood Salon in 2005. Back then we started with about 3 employees, and it took some time to gain a clientele. However, now we have about 10 employees, and are continuously adding in new services to meet the client’s needs. We also are very fortunate to have a large clientele who are loyal to Bollywood Salon, and are continuously referring our services to their friends and family.
I am now thinking about starting something new as I am an entrepreneur at heart, but that will be for another article!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Running a business has its ups and downs. It definitely is not always a smooth road. There are slow seasons, and then are extremely busy seasons. In both the businesses I run, the biggest challenge is to not have a high turnover in employees. For the daycares especially, the parents who trust us with their children do not appreciate to see new faces every week. And with the salon, it can be tough to find employees who are fantastic at their job and who we can trust to stay with us long term. With both businesses, there are always competitors looking to “steal” our employees because it is known that I train my employees very well, and no matter where they go, the new establishment will have no problems with them. But I do all I can to show my employees that they are valuable to my businesses and that I appreciate them.
However, regardless of everything, I am just grateful every day for having the chance to give jobs to people.
So, you have two great businesses – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Mosaic Early Childhood Centers
The ages we teach and take care of range from 6 weeks – 12 years. At Mosaic, every child is important. Our program is academically rich and designed to promote children’s growth and development. We offer infant and toddler care, preschool, kindergarten, before/after school care with transportation, summer camp, and drop off care. We are not just a typical “baby-sitting facility or daycare center.” We are a very academic oriented school. What sets us apart from other day cares in the area, is our level of commitment in providing each and every child in our school quality education and care. The biggest recognition we have is that all of our locations are NAEYC Accredited. This stands for the National Association of the Education of Young Children. NAEYC Accredited programs show their quality by meeting the 10 NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards, which are based on the latest research on the education and development of young children. Over the years, what makes me proud is when parents contact us after years of their child leaving our facility, and still tell us how they appreciate everything we did for their child and family. In fact, most of our clientele at the schools come by word of mouth, which is the most fulfilling marketing strategy. Just last week, we had a parent enroll her 3 year-old daughter at one of my locations, and she said she found out that I was the owner of Mosaic and had to get her daughter in because she had her now 17 year-old son at my home daycare! When I see and hear things like this, I know all the hard work is worth it.
Bollywood Salon
Bollywood Salon is a full-service salon operating in Skokie since 2005. We are the original Bollywood Salon, and have trademarked our name. In the past, other salons in the area tried to use the name “Bollywood” knowing good and well that our customers would get confused and want to try them out thinking it was the same owner, however, we had to take legal action, and the other salons were forced to change their name. They say “copying is the best form of flattering,” and when this was happening we were very flattered that other salon owners noticed how successful we were, and attempted to take a piece of our success. It made me feel that I was actually doing something right.
Our services in the salon include, hair removal (threading/waxing), nails, facials, hair, eyelash extensions, eyebrow enhancement (tinting/extension), make up, bridal, henna, piercing, etc. Our most popular service is facial hair removal using threading and waxing, and body hair removal using waxing. Our goal is to make sure each client leaves our salon with a refreshing feeling of looking better, and being ready to face that busy world again. I am very hands on with all my clients, and I work with each client individually and offer personal packages. Many clients tell me that when they come in, they feel like they are getting pampered by a friend (and a friend who charges very reasonably).
What sets us apart from others in the area is that we provide home services. There are many people who, for many reasons, can’t make it to the salon to get services done, so we take our service to them in the comfort of their own home. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback for this from many people in the community.
What I am most proud of is being able to brighten up someone’s day. Life is busy, but for the time my clients spend at Bollywood Salon, I get to put a smile on their face and just escape the problems they may be having.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Mosaic Early Childhood Centers
The proudest moment of my career so far is when all my schools got NAEYC Accredited.
This was not an easy task, and it takes years to get accredited. Many schools apply for this prestigious title, however, only 10% get accredited. And I am proud to say that all four of my schools are accredited.
Bollywood Salon
I believe the proudest moment with Bollywood Salon was just starting the salon without any knowledge of the field. I had always frequented salons to get my own services done, but I had no actual “education” in the field. But this is what sparked my interest, and I wanted to open up my own salon to help people feel better about themselves, so I just went for it. And up to this day, I am so glad I took that leap and went after my dream.
After all these years I have learned so much, and I have the opportunity to pass that knowledge on to my employees to make them experts in this field, also.
Contact Info:
- Locations:
Bollywood Salon
4029 Dempster St.; Skokie, Il 60076Mosaic Early Childhood Centers
4023 Dempster St.; Skokie, Il 60076
4035 Dempster St.; Skokie, Il 60076
4700 Oakton St.; Skokie, Il 60076
5334 W. Addison St.; Chicago, Il 60641 - Website: www.bollywoodsalonskokie,com www.mosaicearlychildhoodcenter.com
- Phone: Salon- 847-674-1616 Mosaic- 847-942-0088
- Email: mosaicacademy@gmail.com
