Work hard, play hard

Monique Forbes, Guardian Business Reporter

What was once a one page web site, telling persons visiting The Bahamas where to stay and what to do, has now evolved into a striving business for Dolores Lleida, President, Bahamas Gateway.com

After a career that included 3 years as an airline stewardess and and 8 years in the banking field, this well traveled young lady says she was ready to become her own boss.

"I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, I always wanted to do something on my own even if it wasn't a top dollar, money-making thing I could experiment with," she said.

Bahamas Gateway.com, is an information web site for people who are thinking about coming to the Bahamas. The web site also lists over 200 local businesses, and according to Lleida, interest in the site is growing daily.

"A lot of people around the world don't know exactly where the Bahamas really is. I am the web master, for my site and I answer an average of 100 questions a day from people all over the world."

She added: "We answer them the best way we can and get the facts. We let them know about the Bahamian people, where the restaurants are, the good prices, the food and the activities that are available to them."

Bahamas Gateway.com has been up and running for the past two years. Lleida who runs the company with just six employees, including herself, and her brother Walter Morgenroth as her partner, said running a web site is a lot of hard work, but admits hard work is a part of being successful.

"We work hard on our site, we're on top of it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and we don't let anything slide," she stated.

Right now the only problem Lleida says she now faces is expanding her sales staff of three persons in Canada, to a sales and marketing team here in the Bahamas.

Despite this the mother of three sons, ranging from 13 to 20 years old, has managed to maintain a balance between business and family life. She said it's all about being organised, and setting aside time for the family, and then for the business.

In fact she acknowledges her husband as one of the most inspirational persons in her life. "My husband Chris works with his family business Premier Importers, a building supply company, so he's always giving me advise or lending a helping hand."

Among others whom she said provided her with inspiration, are her parents who encouraged her to work hard and respect people. She also credited Carmen Lleida, her husband's aunt whom she deems a true business woman, with helping her to be more organised in her business.

Lleida's advice to budding entrepreneurs, is to work hard and play hard.

"Success takes hard work and perseverance. You get nothing in life if you don't work for it. If you work hard you can play hard and you can enjoy life," she explained.

"And don't let anyone discourage you," she urged, "Without hard work nothing comes, unless you inherit something and it's dropped in your lap, and even then it's soon gone if you don't work hard to keep it."

Although the company's short term goals have been met so far, Lleida, who speaks four languages, French, German, English and Italian, said future plans for the business are grand.

"We're in the process right now of having the web site translated into German. We're looking at Spanish, French and even Japanese, to encourage more Japanese visitors."

"The web site is definitely going to be bigger and better too, because we plan to expand our content, and have more local businesses advertising," she added.