Always smile at your customers!
On Monday, 15 local entrepreneurs from surrounding villages gathered at the Kulkpene church for a one-day business training session. The training covered limited sections of basic marketing and accounting from the business training curriculum that Videre would use if this were successful. The goal was to see how well the entrepreneurs could understand the concepts and whether they felt this would be helpful to their businesses. John Goslin, a veteran from IMED who has been on many business training trips to other countries, came into Yendi on Sunday to look at the situation and help with the focus group training.
We sat in a circle and had each person introduce themselves and discuss their businesses. As they described the businesses, John and I asked leading questions, using their businesses as examples to teach them to identify their target market, to look at the 4 P’s (Price, Product, Place, Promotion), and to do market research (looking at trends, getting customer referrals, etc). It was amazing how business savvy many of these people were. Some were already building customer relations and differentiating their products in special ways, but had never stopped to think about it or verbalize it before. Others benefited from the discussions as they thought about what was lacking in their own businesses. When one lady explained how she gets customers feedback, another participant proclaimed, “Yes, now I realize that when I lose a customer, I should ask him why, apologize for what I did wrong, and get him back rather than just let him leave.” As discussions continued, the participants were actually teaching each other, and John and I simply prompted with questions.
We asked each of the participants what their priorities are for the expansion of their business. Although not everyone had a clear vision, most did, and one of the outstandings of the group was Adisa. She sells shea butter during the season when shea nuts (pictured above) are plentiful. During the other season, she sells a local cake made out of groundnuts (peanuts to Westerners) and also sells the groundnut oil that she produces in the process. Because she can make more profit by selling the cake and oil, her plan is to get enough money to stock up on groundnuts year-round in order to expand that business line into the off season. In the meantime, during shea nut season, she can hire some women to help her produce the shea butter while she works on the local cakes. Shea butter production is a much more labor-intensive process than producing the local cakes and oil, but shea butter is always in high demand.
She’s a savvy businesswoman with a great business plan. Even though Adisa is illiterate, she knows exactly what she needs and where she’s heading.
We also asked each participant how he or she has been able to use their businesses to share the Gospel, and this truly opened up their eyes to business as mission. During our feedback session at the end, one of the participants, John, said, “I had never thought that I could share Christ with people I sell to. But if people already like what you are selling, then it wouldn’t be difficult to talk to them about Christ.” Another participant, Samuel who sells medicine, said that he has already been telling his sick customers that “Jesus is the real healer and will heal you,” but he had never thought to calculate it into his business and to leverage his business as an opportunity to tell people about Jesus.
One lady said, “I realize that when I am selling, I need to sell to please customers, and not to sell for myself. So I must put on a nice face.”
Another said that he learned the importance of a good location for his business.
Along with the participants, Pastor Abukari and Pastor Azindow, who both translated, felt that this was an extremely positive thing for the people. At the end, one of the pastors prayed for us and said that he would not say “goodbye,” but rather “see you again.” Yes, I hope I will see them again soon.
