How to grow your small business on a very tight budget in Nigeria

The ultimate fantasy of most people running a micro business is to run into a Dangote-like character who listens to your business ideas and then asks you to bring a proposal. You submit your proposal, he reads it and the following week, "Bam!", he gives you 100 million naira to fund the growth of your business. If you have these fantasies, you're not alone. I've been there. Those fantasies rarely come true. You're better off starting from the scratch. Nobody has it that easy. No one. An speaker once remarked that your chances of raising millions to grow your small business in Nigeria is almost equal to your chances of being struck by lightening on a very sunny day. Believe me, that speaker was very optimistic. Your chances aren't that good.


So what does a small business owner do to jumpstart growth in his business. Here are a few tips.

1. Focus your efforts on selling more to your current customer base.

Analyze the list of all clients and customers who buy from you regularly. If you don't have such a list, now would be a good time to start collecting that information.

Run promos focused at your current customers. You already have crossed the trust barriers with them so come up with creative promos that will ensure that they buy more from you. Before you decide to go about spending scarce naira on advertising and marketing to new customers, ensure that your current clients and customers are actually buying more from you. With web2sms, it's easy to keep in touch with current customers and it's also cheap. Just ensure that you have permission from them before you start sending out SMS to them so that your text messages aren't intrusive. You might want to send your web2sms one in two weeks or once in a month depending on the type of products you sell. A spa on Lagos island schedules highly discounted facials for clients regularly during off-peak periods. As result almost all the clients show up more regularly and they generate more sales during periods which were usually slow.

2. Brainstorm on new products and services you can sell to existing customers.

It's easier to sell new products to your existing customer base than it is to sell to complete strangers. So again, before you focus on attracting new customers, think of complementary products and services you can add to your offers and inform your current customers about them. My barber recently introduced scalp treatment services (just imagine!) and all his current customers including me now pay for 30minutes of scalp treatment once every month. That single service has increased his monthly revenue by 50%. He didn't even have to spend anything on advertising the new service.

3. Ask for referrals.
You won't believe how incredibly effective this can be. Focus your initial energies not on advertising to strangers but on convincing your current customers to refer you to their friends, family and associates. You might want to make it easy for them to tell others about you. Here's where you develop a word of mouth tool- a gift that you give them that can spark up conversations about you and your business. Let me give you my own example- in running my market strategy firm- market intel, I am actively on the look out for opportunities, books, trade fairs, seminars and sessions that can benefit my clients. Most times I make arrangements for these little gifts and inform my clients about them. I have booked expo seats for clients who were thrilled at an opportunity to meet industry leaders. I didn't need to do it. It wasn't in our service offer, but these gifts have a way of cementing business relationships. As a result, I have gotten some very powerful referrals from current clients who tell their colleagues of how amazing their market strategy consultants are.

So don't be afraid to allocate funds to buying and giving meaningful gifts to your current customers. It is more rewarding than pumping that money into advertising to complete strangers who more often will ignore your adverts.

4. Sell to strangers.

Once you have ensured that you are milking your current customer base of every possible sale, then you can take on the unenviable task of attracting new customers. I call it unenviable because it can cost you ten more times to get a new customer than to manage relationships with existing ones. If you have effectively implemented steps one to three, you should have made enough profit to finance your marketing to new customers. It's a necessary evil at times but from my professional experience as a market strategy consultant, if you find yourself always selling to new customers, you have a war on your hands.

You can't rush business growth. Like every veteran businessman knows, it takes time, patience and persistence to build a great enterprise. But I'm sure that you are more than up to the task. After all, you're still running your business.

Nobody was listening

I watched the guy with amusement. He carried a loudspeaker and was shouting at the top of his voice. It was annoying. Everyone at the bus stop was irritated.

But this guy kept preaching and preaching only to have everyone ignore him.

No, they didn't ignore him. they were irritated by his noise. Not his message. Just the noise that the rambling megaphone was making.
 
When you try to pass your message across, try to avoid getting your message lost in the medium conveying your message.

Three kinds of people

those who make things happen,
those who watch things happen
and those who ask what's happening?



marketing to Nigerians, that quote has changed-

three kinds of people
those who make products and services
those who try to sell them by trying to get our attention
and those who ignore them.

we live in an attention deficit age. You need to find creative ways to to cut through the noise.

Thanks, I just needed your attention.

A guy stood up in my university class when I was in 200level.

He kept asking the entire class- 'can I have your attention'.

When the class quietened down and we all waited to hear what he would say. He just smiled and said-

'Thanks. I just needed your attention.'

Etisalat ran an ad that got my attention but it didn't sell me anything. Two guys with broken limbs riding  together on a bike. I don't understand the message.

Just trying to get our attention without saying anything meaningful can be very annoying. And today, most of the ads we run do just that.

From storyteller to story seller.

Here's what every smart Nigerian politician should know- all politicians are now marketers. If you are a politician, you are selling something. You are selling hope, you are selling a belief to your constituency. You are selling a promise of a certain kind of future.

And every candidate should have a story. A story he tells and makes us want to believe. Because if you don't tell your own story, we will create one for you

Be a better liar

If you intend to tell lies to sway the next elections, just try to ensure that your lies can become true.


In the beginning, we told ourselves stories. Stories about how the earth was flat. Stories about how the world was created by a god who came down from heaven with a horn filled with sand in one hand and a chicken in the other that spread the sand to all corners of the earth. We heard stories about thunder being the wrath of a god called sango or amadioha. As little kids we heard stories about how masquerades were spirits from heaven and how the tortoise was the craftiest creature on earth. We were told that if you eat while standing at the doorway, you will never be satisfied. We were told these stories because they made life bearable and gave explanations for the aberrations of life. Our fathers and grandfathers told us this stories because they taught us morales in the absence of a written code and doctrine to guide our way of life.

These stories were effective in guiding and leading our community until a new breed of storytellers came along. These new storytellers didn't just tell us stories that made life bearable. They told us stories which gave us hope and which we desperately wanted to believe because we needed to believe. However, over time their stories constantly brought us to the brink of unbelief. Their stories never came through. Their stories became lies. You know these new breed of storytellers because you see them everyday. You know them because they live among us. You know them by another name. You call them politicians.

If the stories they tell can not possibly be true, then politicians are a special breed of liars.
 
And the sories they tell are the same age old stories. They promise electric power supply, water and jobs. They promise good roads and free education for all. They promise all this and then...
 
We ask the question- "how?"
 
How sir, will you do all these?
 
...and he stares with a blank face
 
please tell a better lie. The old ones insult our intelligence

My mother hated me in the past. She just didn't know it.

In my early years, a recurring theme in my home was how much my mother hated selling. She and my father were the professional service people and they both detested anything that involved selling- especially commodities. I'm not sure which one my mother hated more- the selling or the salesman. Which is a pity because that was what I ended up becoming. I became a salesman.And my mother hated salesmen.


When I first founded my company in 2004- Darkpore Media Company- I was responsible for 100% of new clients and I had to overcome my deep fear of selling Interestingly, 7 years after as I now sit on board 3 different organisations- something amazing has happened. everywhere, I go, I meet salesmen.
 
Everyone is selling me something.
 
Ideas, products, services, faith in God, proposals. I don't understand but all of a sudden, We're all salesmen- although most don't realise. The earlier you polish your sales skills, the better off you'll be.
 
We're in the salesmen economy