Africa Business Communities

Boma Braide: Starting a Business in Africa – it’s remarkably easy not to fail

One of my mentors, Steve Blank, teaches that before starting your next business venture, first create an MVP (minimum viable product), get out of the building and test it to prove that the concept actually works. Resources are scarce in Africa, so it’s wise to start small till you’re sure you’re on to something that can make a hit.

When you start at the bottom, with little to no inventory, rent or employees, it may seem like an easy way to make money and have no expenses, but as things get bigger, it becomes wise to expand accordingly. Here business owners sometimes find themselves being victims of their own success; they burn themselves out trying to juggle a hundred different things.

Good news is there are some tried and tested ways to take your business to the next level, especially as cash is expensive in Africa, without sacrificing your business’s profitability or losing your peace of mind.

As a start-up, focus on a single product or service, and then market it, sell it, promote it.

I own a real estate establishment. One thing that we do very well is project management. You see us come up with different ventures and you wonder if we are not focused, but what drives our entire business is project management.

Another thing we do exceptionally well is content marketing. Content marketing is a part of digital marketing which our entire marketing structure is based on. Some people actually told us that this is Africa and that such things do not work here but it seems to be working for us as we never leave the comfort of our office for marketing, like most Nigerian businesses still do.

You hardly see us make cold outbound telephone calls. Most of our leads are already qualified prospects that came searching for our services. We never sell like most businesses do. All we do is have meaningful and engaging conversations that lead to a sale.

Our business development activities is purely based on relationship and networking. We don’t do anything more or anything less. We keep it stupidly simple.

Expand product line to offer complimentary products or services.

Our immediate background is in the real estate industry but our marketing technique is digital. In order words, we have the best of both worlds. The real estate business is a relationship business which we have been able to use to promote our other service lines. What I mean is since we have experience in digital marketing, we decided to offer it as a service to others to use it effectively to grow their business without breaking the bank.

If you are interested in using digital marketing in growing your business, then join our mailing list and we’ll inform you once the service goes live. Don’t forget to put “Growing my business with Digital Marketing”in the Subject line.

Find ways to increase sales to your existing customers.

It is always easier to sell to existing customers than to find new ones. It’s a lot cheaper too. Even if you cannot expand your product line, you can boost revenues by selling more of your existing product or service to the clients you already have. One easy way to do this is through volume discounts. Especially if your products cost little to produce, offering your customers the chance to buy two for the price of one lets you ring up additional sales without sacrificing much profit. Another common practice is to reward loyal customers by giving them some form of free product or service for every number of items they buy. This technique is currently used by Mall4Africa.

Hire freelancers and staff.

Not only does this free up cash flow by adjusting your expenses to the level of work you bring in, but it also enables you to cultivate a large network of talented people you probably couldn’t afford to hire full time.

In my company, Forterun, we work with a couple of freelancers in the UK, Europe and the US who provide us with exceptional service which we would never have gotten if we had the team in-house. The problem of bureaucracy is completely out of it. They provide us value and we also provide them value. It is a win-win.

As your business grows you can hire staff and get them in-house. At Forterun, we are currently building a list of people who we would love to hire soon and we only hire people with an exceptional “can do spirit.” If you think you fit this description then by all means drop us your details and we would be in touch. We are particularly looking for content writers that can sell simply by writing. We are open to people from all parts of Africa. You don’t have to live in Nigeria to work with us. All you need to have is access to the internet, Skype, Social Media such as LinkedIn, and an email address. In addition, if you can speak and write in a second language such as French, Portuguese, Twi, Swahili, Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw, Igbo, etc., that would be a major plus.

Create a website to create value for your customers.

Most people create a website to advertise their company or sell products online. The internet has long revolutionised out of that mentality that if you are not providing value for your customers and your web visitors, you are ‘just another website’ on the internet. It is one thing to have a website and another thing to market it. And how do you market it? It all starts from the decision to have a website in the first place. Your marketing should drive the design of your website and you need to have traction from day one of launch to be able to scale your business.

If you are interested in redesigning your website or creating a new website from scratch that gets you business from day one, then join our mailing list and we’ll advise once the service goes live. Don’t forget to put “Website that gets you business from Day One”in the subject line.

Collaborate and promote your company.

Partnerships is one of the cheapest and easiest form of marketing that you can employ. If you make cosmetics, for example, you may be able to convince a beauty palour to carry your products in its store by offering a discount to its customers. Likewise, you can send a free, one-day makeup makeover to anybody who buys your lotions and scrubs.

We have partnered with a lot of companies that complement what we do. If you have read this article up to this point then you are considered a prospect and we would love to offer you a discount on your next hotel booking in Africa if you contact us.

Target new markets.

Our European Real Estate Investment programme is targeted at high net worth individuals that are not Europeans. Our biggest enquiries to date are the Chinese, Brazilians, Angolans and of course, Nigerians. These individuals all want to divest their finance by targeting new markets to do real estate investments. All we really did was to change tactics to get into that market.

You don’t need to have a high net worth to target new markets for your business. If you sell a retail oriented product or service, you can sell it wholesale to other markets. If your primary market is young people, you can start marketing to university students. If you target civil servants, you can modify your product and start selling to market traders. Remember you can’t be all things to everybody but with a little change in tactic, you can target a new market.

Expand to another location.

This could simply be renting out a “virtual” office space or sharing office space with another growing business. Regus is known for this. Business centres like these offer everything from conference rooms and receptionist services to remote access voicemail, high-speed Internet connectivity and tech support, offering homebased business owners as much or as little outside office services as they need.

Growing a business in Africa is not as complicated as one might think. The rules are not so different from those that would apply anywhere else; the environment is different and so they just have to be tailored according. And that’s it.

Boma Braide is the CEO of Forterun Global Resources Limited, a real estate and lead generation consultancy using digital marketing. 

 

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