Being treated differently

[Who Am I?]

You are a man who is recognising the importance of classical values... values that stay timeless Values that Islam teaches us to hold onto, for our own benefit. Your heart is open and understands the importance of these values... yet you still ask "who am I" ?

You are my brother, that is who you are. I don't care what colour skin you have, I think you are amazing

I believe you are struggling in the way of the deen, the most high struggle, the struggle that Allah loves the most of His creation. And for that, I am proud to call you my brother.

Scimi

Well I am considering changing my name for the last time to "Reverse Coconut" and having my status listed as "brown man trapped in the body of a white man". ;D

But in all seriousness, that pretty much explains everything at this time. I am catching up on 36 years of feeling lost and alien...

 

[PurpleCup]

When you are a convert Muslim you should try to live far from family. Their ways can affect you so much. I once knew someone who was a perfect Muslimah in her husbands country but when she came back to her family she began drinking alcohol. Living near family is not what is good for converts. That means you need to be especially independent.

You should consider to go into business for yourself and not rely on others to employ you! This is so easy. I have written step by step on my website. You can make more money in one month than you could imagine all year long.

habibimatrimonials.com/m/articles/view/Becoming-Self-Employed-by-Opening-up-a-Cart-in-your-Mall

I cannot post the link because of my membership level but just add w w w and h t t p before the link above. OK here is the copy of the post.

Here is what you need to do in order to open up a cart:

1.) Decide what you will sell. Go to other malls and maybe get ideas, search online. Experts say that to target your market for $20.00 or under great way to capture from people walking by because most people carry $20.00 with them. However when you sell items for $50-100 you have to reach your target market. Say like a product sells primarily to Mexicans, you have to find where the Mexican are. All malls depending on location have a different mix of people and you have to think about the ramifications of such details. If your product appeals to 80% Mexican, 20% Asian. Then you need to find where that mix is in your area.
2.) After you find a product you go to the Mall Management and tell them your interest to open up a cart. They will give you various lease terms and rental prices for the mall during non-holiday time and during holiday time. Typical rent for a cart is on average $2500/month. Some larger malls have rental prices higher where there is more traffic (say near a food court) and lower prices where mall traffic is less. Say you pay $2500 a month for non-Holiday time you will pay $6300- $7000 for Holiday time (November & December) It’s a lot of rent so be sure you can cover rent first and foremost. If you cannot you can always cancel your lease by giving 30 days notice for intent to leave. This is usually allowed depending on mall lease agreement. Make sure that is in there so you don’t end up paying a ton of money for an item that did not sell well. Some people choose only to sell during the Holiday season and open up for those two months and close down again. They know their product will never do well any other time.
3.) I should also mention here most malls have for you what they expect you will earn in a month and you can report you earn under it to avoid paying any extra fees. Say like they expect you to make $15,000 /per month, they will take out 15% from any amount over $15,000. So Say in Feb you earn $20,000 the extra $5000 will accrue that 15% fee that goes to the mall.
4.) Also many business owners have to record all of the credit receipts, because that can be regulated if the Tax board wants to see how much you received from your credit cards receipts then you HAVE to calculate that correctly and the best way is to keep a log of each days Cash, Credit and final total. Some business owners don’t record all of the cash they receive. That report maybe 20-30% of the real cash they received. That is illegal but that is what they do.
5.) After you have Mall approval to open up a cart, you will have to take a day to get a few things done.
6.) Go to The Board of Equalization and speak with someone you want to open up a business. The BOE is where you pay your taxes on the sales you make. Typically you will be required to pay taxes quarterly either in person or online.
7.) Go to the City where your business will be located and get your business license. There will be a small fee (under $100.00)
8.) Once you have your business License go to a bank to open a Business Checking Account. (You will need this when you have a credit card machine. Funds will go directly into your business checking.)
9.) You can get a credit card machine (so you can allow customers to charge their order-Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express) from a bank but you can also get them from independent retailers.
10.) You have to have insurance on your cart which is like $200 for the whole year. The mall will recommend someone you can call. I remember there is one called “Arizona Insurance”…
11.) Order your product enough at first to last you at least 2 weeks. You can gauge how often and how much you will need to order when the time comes.
12.) Go to Office Depot or Costco (more expensive) to buy a cash register. About $200.00 a calculator, pens and stapler.
13.) You will often be required to either hire a merchandiser which will make your cart look professional or they will have you do it yourself. They do charge about $500, but some malls can give you a break by giving you reduced rent one month.
14.) If you sell a product where you need mannequins, you can get many off of Craigslist.com buying them new is expensive. Locally we have a ware house of used mannequins that lady sells. You can see or ask around if there is any such in your area. It’s a great place to start.
15.) Once you opened your business, at some point you will need to hire entry level workers. Many of them are sadly poor examples, untrustworthy and lazy. Finding one good one is really a needle in the Hay stack. So if you can know some teens at masjed/friend where you can offer them a job you will have a better chance maybe to find a good employee.
16.) If you choose to hire, don’t try to do payroll on your own. It is very complicated (a lot of tax laws) and a hassle. My strong recommendation is to use ADP. They take care of everything. Paychecks come overnight by FedEx. Never hire illegal workers. As a business owner you will get a tax breaks when you hire employee full time. I think its $5,000 per worker in USA right now as I write this.
17.) Shipments of your items are best shipped to your home, because some malls do not allow shipment to come to the mall. They will even penalize you.
18.) Once you have everything listed above in place, be sure to think of a “Store Policy.” This is like your law. It protects you and the mall management can never dispute with you if you have a policy. Like ours is “No refund Exchange Only within 3 days with receipt. Absolutely no exchanged on dirtied damaged or laundered items.” We have to be strict because we cannot sell an item new and it comes back to us in damaged state and lose our money. You will have customers who act childish to get their way, just calmly tell them you have a store policy it is written on their receipt as well as on the sign on your cart, if they don’t calm down you will have to call security. We have made some customers mad at us but that is all part of the life of being a business owner. You can never please all and if you try you will be penniless.
19.) You may have to put in all your time to make sure it will work. You will see what you can improve and be the most knowledgeable so you can train others to work your cart for you and once you can find a good employee(s) you can step back and take vacations with ease, you can spend more time with your kids. Never be so far from your business that you leave your business in others peoples hands because teens/ young adults often are not around a lot of money and when they see so much they may think to steal. So be sure to count each days totals and leave about $100 cash/coins in the drawer for the next day. Account your worker and let them sign a waver any day there is missing cash (the missing cash +$50.00 fine will be imposed.) This is to discourage stealing. I am not 100% sure that is legal so check before you do this. I remember working for a company in my early twenties and their policy was you could be under 3 times in one year after that if more you were let go. It makes sense and I respected my drawer much more knowing my job could be lost due to my negligence.
20.) Don’t share your success with others. Sure you are happy you are doing well but most business owners are very private about their business. They will always say “It’s slow.” So you will be discouraged to steal their idea. Business owners don’t like to tell you where they get their items from. This is top secret. Many import from China but there are draw back from getting items from China. The length of time it takes in order to get those items can take several months! And never order any shipment during Chinese New Year. The whole month is practically a shut down month and no carries ship from China during that time it seems. Deal with manufactures reps here in USA, let them deal with the bothersome headache of dealing with overseas problems.
21.) Once you have your business license you can go to Manufacture shows. They are often in Las Vegas Convention Center or San Francisco Convention Center. These are fun and you will be like a kid in a Candy store. So many ideas and just fun.
22.) Some Cart common ideas are selling jewelry (works well!) Cell phone covers (Ok but not fantastic sales) Go to any mall and see which cart is fairly busy on the weekends and weekdays. (Weekdays are typically slow.)
23.) Once you do well in one mall you can grow to other malls locally and there are many malls in any city usually. When you do scout out malls visit a couple of time during the weekday. And again another weekday. You will get a feeling for how busy the mall is. Going on weekends are sure to be busy, so that’s no help. I have actually been in very dead malls. So they may lure you with super cheap rent but if many stores are absent from the mall there is really something very wrong.


I think that is it. The biggest most important thing is having an item people would want to buy. I saw those teeth whiting kits with strobe light head set and I thought that would be so cool to sell but I hear they don’t do well during non holiday time.

Best wishes.

PS: There are cash registers called POS Systems, they are a great tool but very expensive. See if your business does well and then you can always later incorporate your POS System into your business. It’s great for keeping track of inventory (what’s low and needs to be reordered.)

You don’t need to hire an Accountant because it all easy stuff to keep track of yourself.

 

[farah-]

I'm really sorry to hear this
It seems so unfair - why can't everyone be treated equal?
- Keep yourself strong and never give up, Inshallah Allah will reward you in the end.