[Column] Maria Auma: So you think you can import? (Pt 2)
by Maria Auma
8. Be proactive but also be quick to react when the need arises: When dealing with clearance of consignments, always provide all the necessary documents upfront instead of waiting for the agent to ask them from you. This is why you need to research your clearing agent before signing a contract with them. This especially true in Africa where clearing agents are usually incompetent and basically wait for the regulatory authority to ask for the necessary documents before requesting the same for you. In the Western world, lead time for clearance of stock is not more than three days as almost everything is automated and everyone knows what they are doing. We need to streamline our businesses in the same way in order to improve performance, because every day wasted in query and verification processes is a day in business lost. So do not wait for the clearing agent to write you that email about what document is missing, provide all the document upfront as you log in your request and save yourself at least three business days.
9. Timely Delivery is everything! The client is king: This is tied to knowing and revising your process accordingly. Before approaching a potential client, make sure you have the right delivery time frame. Otherwise you run the risk of having disgruntled clients. Imagine assuring a client that the stock will be at their door within three days of placing the order and then finally delivering the product after three weeks! No client wants to be treated that way, and neither will you. So do not assume a guessed time, cite the actual expected time of delivery. To do this, you compute the time it takes to clear with your agent at customs and then add two days for safety. So if clearing from customs takes five working days as per your agent’s communication and process, add two days to make it seven working days. This way you look very professional when you deliver the stock on day five, you will even get client recommendations because of your timely delivery.
10. Sale for a profit not to break even: Pricing is important. You need to know how to price correctly and how to sell within your margin. Never offer more of a discount than you can afford. Before offering a discount to a potential client, always check with your accounts team for approval. Even a one percent discount higher than what you can afford will cost you. Because of the intensiveness of the sector, you need to sell to make a profit, not too simply break even. Spread your sales activity over a realistic time period, but make sure you are at least hitting the minimum target sales for that period. If you do this from the very beginning it will be easier for you to increase your momentum with every shipment.
11. Your time is your most precious commodity: Never waste your work time or personal slices of time. And by this I am talking about cutting down on time wasters like social media. Adopt platforms that will ease communication between you and your team and always set aside time to carry out checks and balances on these platforms. I personally had to completely cut out whatsapp because not only was it taking up so much of my time responding to messages that were better of written in an email, and of course those unimportant messages that seem urgent but really could be replied to in the evening, but it was also eating up on my storage space. I did not know how much space it had taken until I uninstalled the application and found that I had almost 500MB of free space from the 45MB prior to that move.I recommend using email for all work related communication. Using whatsapp might be easy and convenient at the time, but what happens when you need that document that was sent to you via whatsapp and cannot seem to find it in the myriad of documents on your device? Or if you needed to print or forward a particular conversation on to a third party in order to resolve an issue and realise that whoops! Profile pictures are not appropriate? There are other messaging apps like skypewhich allow you to schedule calls or conversations for a specified period of time in a manner that respects how much time you can give to the conversation. Not to mention, the network is 10 times better than the call connection on whatsapp.
12. Never ever lose your cool: There will come several times when you feel like you really really want to hit the roof or break dishes because someone is not doing their job. Don’t. The easiest way to cool off is to disconnect yourself from the internet and take a walk, make yourself a coffee, or rant to yourself about how incompetent that department is until you have exhausted all your frustration. Doing this will help you keep your cool and composition and prevent you from sending an otherwise nasty email that in hindsight may not have been the best way to handle that particular situation. Even if someone isn’t doing their job efficiently, you need to treat them with respect while still putting your concerns across to them in a manner that they understand and work on it with priority. And as hard as it might be to believe, there might actually be a genuine reason as to why a certain process is not going as planned.
13. Aim for life balance: In this technology driven age, it is so easy to get distracted from your focus. There are deadlines to meet, meetings to attend, proposals to vet, etc. You may feel like the world is caving in on you. That’s called stress. It’s normal. What isn’t is letting it get the better of you. Invest in stress management. This could be by having physical exercise routines (I remember writing about this), reading fiction novels, playing an instrument, carving out time for those you care about, having coffee dates – not working coffees, but actual dates where you do not talk about work at all.
14. Inform your loved ones: This may seem obvious, but the truth is that we sometimes get so caught up in the whole importation business we forget to inform those who will be most affected by our involvement. Before you get into this business, it is only prudent to tell those whom you are in constant communication with or who you live with about your new venture and that you expect it to take up quite a bit of your time. This will help them readjust their expectations from you emotionally and otherwise. It does not mean that you completely neglect these relationships. Try rework your schedule to have quality time for them or to be there for them even if it is not as involved as before, and work towards getting back to the routine that you have with them. There are very few things that compare to precious relationships.
Finally, to be successful you need to make the world run on your time and by your rules. Once you take back your time you will realise that you are more efficient and that you are in love with what you are doing.
Maria Auma is CEO of Blue Luxury Investments, Kampala, Uganda.
