I WALKED AWAY FROM AN 8 FIGURE BUSINESS AND NOW I GUIDE BUSINESS OWNERS AS A BUSINESS COACH IN NIGERIA

In the last few days I have being evaluating my business. I like to do it from time to time especially after certain milestones and I have just hit the 6-month milestone since I started Salestar Africa to work with people to start and grow the business and revenues they truly desire(P.S: Salesstar has now evolved into an arm of Tale Alimi Global 10months(June 2016) into the business).

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As I pondered at why I am confident I can help you start or/and grow your business, I realized I had never told the story of one of my most successful business ventures that I had to walk away from. It was actually brought to my remembrance by one of my group coaching members who knew me in those early days. I have shied away from telling the story because the end of the business relationship was also the end of a personal relationship and I did not want to present that part of me in the public because I believe we should have the gift of good bye and move on.

I decided to share it today because I realize that my story is incomplete and my experience as a business growth expert is missing one of my best achievements if I don’t share the story so here goes…

In 2008, I just gave birth to my son and there were two significant events happening in my life at that time:

1. I was overweight!
2. I was bored!

I was working in consulting at that time and I had worked in that high paced environment till the last week before I had my son. After I had him, he had a lot of people to take care of him so I became bored with the three month maternity leave. I called the office to beg my boss for some work to do from home, but they refused saying I should focus on the baby! Lol!

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I wrote my ICAN exams (professional accounting exams) 6 weeks after giving birth and after that I still had some free time. I decided to use the free time to start shopping for new office clothes in preparation for when I finally resumed work. And that is when I made the discovery that I was overweight! I sincerely did not realize I had gained so much weight in pregnancy. During one of my shopping trips, I went to a store and the attendant showed me some boring work clothes. I told her I wanted some more stylish clothing, but she told me they didn’t make those types for people of my size! I was mad! But like they say; don’t get mad, get even.

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I went home that day and suddenly remembered that sometime between secondary school and university I had taken some fashion design lessons. I bought a sketch pad, made some wobbly sketches and called a trusted tailor who had made some maternity clothes for me. I asked him if we could replicate some of the shirt designs I had drawn and we did it!

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I went ahead to make a bunch of shirts for work and resumed back after maternity as the most stylish lady on the office block! Lol! By the way, I also hit the gym after I realized I was fat o, just in case you are wondering what happened to the fat! I immediately started getting compliments for the shirts and then my entrepreneurial gene gave me a side kick and I started telling people I made them, I started getting orders immediately. I bought an artsy catalogue from Colors of Africa and started cutting out samples of the type of shirts I could make from magazines and that was how my side gig was born. Now when I tell you I can help you start a side or main gig with the startup stars boot camp and mentoring, you know I know what I am talking about, lol.

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I decided to apply my MBA knowledge, so I set aside a working capital of twenty thousand only. The goal was to see how I could grow the business with this amount and not mix my other source of income into it. I also started keeping records of the orders I was getting on an excel sheet but I was not paying close attention to it until a few months later, I looked at the sheet and I have made over 100 shirts! The twenty thousand had become over four hundred thousand in a few short months and I had not made any significant investment in equipment’s. I had been outsourcing production and I only invested in packaging and finishing. That is when I knew this could be a profitable venture and decided to take it more seriously.

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I invested in equipment’s’, hired my own tailors and a production manager who could double as a pattern maker. I also knew we had to do more serious marketing as our production volume would increase. I could not do adverts in newspapers or Magazines for fear that my bosses would see it as I was still working. So I decided to use a new online app at that time called Facebook. I thought it was a good opportunity to put my pictures on Facebook as only my friends could see it. It turned out to be a good decision as I was one of the first people to do that before Facebook became commercialized and the orders started to pour in.

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I was able to quit my job and focus on the business fully after one year and by this time we had started doing six figures consistently. At some point I became dissatisfied with the quality of production we were churning out as we were beginning to get some complaints and rejections. I started exploring alternative sources of production. My friend Uche Nnaji of Ouch encouraged me to move my production abroad, but I decided to wait till they lifted the ban on importation so that I won’t get caught up with the customs issues.

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Once the ban was lifted, my Friend Tara Durotoye called me to say there was a Turkish fair going on in Eko hotel she thought I should check out. I went to the fair, met some potential manufacturers and started making plans to go to Istanbul. I made the trip, fell in love with the quality of products I could get and made my first order. That was when I made my first mistake by the way; growing your business too fast without the right structures and capacity. That is why I can confidently guide the participants of Accelerate boot camp on creating structures and systems if they want to scale their businesses..

Moving production abroad was another kettle of fish and it required a larger capital investment that I did not envisage. I tried to get a bank loan and it did not work out( that is why I always advice people to find out what their bank can offer them ahead of time and not wait to be disappointed when they need the financial assistance). I started looking at getting equity into my business and I was fortunate to meet the owner of an investment company in one of my MBA Alumni meetings. They decided to take a risk and invest in the business and I was able to bring in the first batch of shirts.

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The quality was amazing and gave us the confidence to sell to wider channels. We were approached by e-commerce companies Jumia and Konga in those early days to sell our products because they had heard about the quality and designs. Sales grew rapidly but like I said earlier, we did not have the structure to support it. We had to outsource the business administration to the investment company and so they had a greater leash on the business and in the direction of our growth.

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At the peak of the business, our revenues had reached 8 figures and then we had a fall out on profit sharing and capital management issues. My personal relationship with the owner of the investment company was seriously affected. I took the agreement we signed to my Lawyer friend and that is when I found out I had literarily given away my business because I did not read the fine prints! Lesson: don’t be too quick to sign agreements without reading it properly or getting an expert to guide you.

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It was a horrible situation and at the end, I had to walk away from a business I had spent almost 6 years building.  The positive side to the story is:

1. I have learnt how to build a business and I can confidently show you how to do it.
2. I have made some significant business mistakes and I can guide you not to make it.
3. I have started some new businesses after that, so I can show you how to rise even after you fail or fall down..

Another good thing that came out of that experience was that I validated by business growth skills again and went back to work for an ailing technology company who had been making losses for close to 7 years. In a year of working with them and building the business we grew the revenues over 300% and they were finally looking to make a profit for the first time.

Now I am utilizing :

• My business building skills
• Over N5 million naira investment in education for my MBA, various international certifications like Oracle and a certificate in personal coaching
• and almost 14 years of experience to guide businesses, professionals and would be entrepreneurs to start and grow truly profitable businesses  and great revenues that they desire. .

If you haven’t worked with me yet, here is your chance. We can start with a one hour strategy session via phone or Skype and that would be a good way to get an initial assessment of how we can work better together..

Are you ready to create the widely successful business and life you truly desire?  You can see my various packages and book a session HERE. And let us begin the journey to create the business and life you truly desire.