“LESS THAN 10% OF VOCATIONAL PEOPLE IN NIGERIA ARE HONEST.” That is what he told me. Instantly, I felt like a fool. Because at the instant, voices flushed through my head of everything everyone else had told me about trust too easily and being too gullible. I hated that it seemed true after all; I trust too quickly and I love people to easily.
Kemi is Togolese. She has been making hair for people for over 25 years now. She operates in Ikeja Lagos. She’s been making hair for a friend of mine since my friend was a teenager till today. She’s so good (I hear). Over the past 25 years, Kemi has trained well over 100 other people who have been apprentices with her, and have moved on to establish their own businesses
In the current book I am reading “Why Startups Fail”, the Author “Tom Eisenmann”, a Harvard Professor of Entrepreneurship talks about 4 terminologies that I like and will break down for you, viz:
You have invested a great deal of resources to get a very good brand narration: great logo, aesthetic colours, powerful brand name, and world class effizy.
Even your website is like the White House, resplendent with finesse and class… it looks like WHAT GOD CANNOT DO DOES NOT EXIST… you have arrived.. but then someone reaches out to your business and there is trouble.
I have an estimated 7,000 followers on Facebook (5,000 Friends and around 2,000 Followers). Let me now shock you.
LESS THAN 200 of this 7,000 human beings have ever bought ANYTHING from me. LESS THAN 200. That is 2.86%. 🤣😂😂🤣🤣😂😂😂
What this means is that FACEBOOK IS NOT MY PRIMARY MARKET.
From 2015, I have hosted 4 grand events so far. My first ever large event was BCP Conference that held at Unilag (University of Lagos) in November 2015. BCP stands for Behavioural Change Practitioners. The intention was to hold forte for professionals who practice any form of behavioural change work; from social workers to counsellors to therapists to psychologists, etc. The event was free. We spent around 3Million Naira to host the event and had a deficit of more than a million Naira afterwards. After that event, several speakers who attended BCP Conference created their own platforms and that broke the momentum I had for the conference. I threw in the towel immediately.
Anytime I come to Lagos, my go-to hotel is SURU EXPRESS HOTEL on Joel Ogunnaike in Ikeja GRA. I have not been in Lagos since 2019 just before COVID-19 changed our lives; so you can imagine my joy when I had to leave Abuja to go and rest for 1 week in Lagos right after BSG Summit 2021. It felt like a child going on a Christmas trip to their grandparents. 😁😁
It has been 5 years of consistent value and growth. We have invested in people and people have invested in us.
This August, join us as we host a series of events commemorating our brand at 5. More details will come out after the BSG Summit 2021.
The cost of hiring and replacing persons who do your work from outside is so enormous and inconvenient. Have you ever considered this at all?
Your service providers include:
- Consultants
- Artisans
- Printers
- Advertising, Artist, Brands, Business, Career, Communication, Customer Service, Entrepreneur, Governance, Leadership, Money
My hair grows weekly so I visit the barber shop weekly. Because of my characteristic laziness though, it sometimes takes a fortnight and by then, my head already itches and makes me feel uncomfortable. So I must do the visit latest 10 days apart.
