Successful Business Stroy

By early 2011, life was more like a holiday, and I was living it up. There wasn't much to live for. Neither was there much to worry about. Business-wise, I'd say I was almost out of the woods, but things were yet to gel or square up. My only shop then - the very one at Oba Akran - was now more or less a marketing office, with a few couple of products on the rack serving as samples.

I would go around town and scout for companies in need of those products, especially ACP (Alucopanels). ACP, of course, was one line of business I was passionately trusting God to stand me up in. But since it would take multi-millions to penetrate, I had no option than to chill, work hard and save up for it, or find a willing partner.

While I waited on God, I was studying the rudiments and dynamics of the business, building a network of customers and a few importers of the very product. Every now and then, I would meet a customer who wanted a couple of sheets. And I would make a call or two, and run to the few dealers I knew, to fetch the products.

On one special occasion, a customer I had met online, had ordered for some particular colour of the products. And after scouting around, I found them at one company I had recently discovered. The company's salesperson would offer to sell to me at a higher price than I had budgeted for. And while I negotiated for a bargain, I said something like -

'Bro, you can't sell these products to me at this price. Even me too, I AM AN IMPORTER OF THESE PRODUCTS. And If I had them, I bet I wouldn't sell at this rate to end users, let alone, to a reseller....''

That particular line caught him, I guess. And he went ahead and sold the goods to me at a little discounted price, and saved my number with a suffix 'IMPORTER'. (Mind you, this was at a time I had just about 5 sheets of these products in my small container shop. Even so, I didn't know any jack about importation, neither did I have a tenth of the money needed to import the goods. )

Now, about that time, a small Lagos-based Korean branding company - Base Camp Ltd - had won a contract to rebrand all LG & Samsung shop outlets. And the deal would require a huge amount of white ACP. They had just started the rollout and were now going around town, mopping up every of white ACP they could find.

Their first major port of call was that very company whose salesperson I had exchanged contact with. They (Base Camp) would buy off every of their available stock in no time. And as their stocks depleted, the Base Camp purchasing officer sought to be referred to other companies where they could get the products. The project needed not to stop for a single day.

''Please, which other importers of these products can you refer us to? We actually can't wait untill your next consignments arrive...'', the Base Camp purchasing officer was quoted to have desperately enquired from that company's salesperson.

As fate would have it, of all the major dealers of ACP then, the company's salesperson only could remember one 'importer' - the very one who had recently come to patronise him.

And that very 'importer' was my humble self.

He would quickly call me, to find out if I had those products in stock. And everyone who knows me so well knows that I rarely say 'NO' when asked about anything I can or cannot solve. To cut it short, he eventually gave my contact to the purchasing officer of Base Camp. And that marked the miraculous beginning of a major chapter for me in the ACP business.

Of course, I didn't have those products in my shop then. But I had built up networks of contacts of companies that stocked them in large quantities. And I was able to meet about 80% of all the ACP requirements that Base Camp needed while the project lasted.

I needn't tell you that I made huge profits from the supply deals which lasted about a year and a half.

But then, guess what - the projects did not stop until I became an 'importer' myself. I guess the very branding project only stopped while I was taking delivery of my 4th container. Truth is - I made the bulk of money with which I started importation from supply deals with Base Camp. (Unfortunately, that fateful company would fold and close shop during the first year of Buhari government)

Now, why did I tell this story? I did, so I can reinforce in us the need to always stay positive, and project a humble but a powerful image of ourselves. I mean, we must endeavour to package and sell ourselves in line with the way we trust God to make us. I needn't emphasize the fact that our value or people's perceptions of us, basically flows from our own projection of ourselves.

If I hadn't told that young man that I was an importer, even when I didn't know anything about importation, I doubt he would have remembered me when the opportunity for importers came calling.\

It indeed pays to always openly declare that which you trust God for, and act as if it is already in existence. Somehow, that lifestyle itself attracts the very ingredients necessary to berth your beliefs into existence.

Peace!

Credit : Kech Simons