HANDLING PROBLEMATIC WORKERS FOR YOUR BRAND.
When we took over the management of a restaurant brand, most of the staff were problematic and gave the outgoing manager headache, particularly the cleaners and cooks.
Over ten months after, the same workers are mostly well behaved and improving daily. What changed? Leadership style. We will use a story to explain what we mean.
A few years ago we had a conversation with a restaurant owner who was frustrated by the attitude of her workers. When we inquired to know the grooming process for her employees, she revealed that they were trained by an international expert. We got further information and discovered what the problem was, the workers were trained with the standard template, not bad, but not enough.
These workers live in ghettos and slums. They fight to use the bathroom every morning. They even quarrel to empty their bowels. Then drama with yard people, keke driver, bus conductor that abused them that morning, and the underlying challenges of life they grapple with.
You cannot rework their attitude without addressing the underlying influences of their background. What works in Milan, Madrid, or Copenhagen, will not work the same way in Nigeria. You must adapt to local realities.
So for our restaurant client, we paid close attention to the background and environmental influences on the workers and gradually established a new way of relating to them.
One thing that provided this insight to us was a song by Phil Collins titled “both sides of the story”. In one line of the song, a ghetto kid with a gun grabbed a passerby by the shoulder and asked “would you respect me if I didn’t have this gun?”
We’ve had very personal experiences with three ghettos and could relate to that question, it is the same mindset behind most low cadre employees in businesses. They want to be respected, they want to be heard, they want to know that they matter, they don’t want to be trampled upon, that desire for dignity in humans is also in them.
When next you feel frustrated by your workers, also do a self-evaluation on yourself.
Do you treat them with disdain or respect?
Do you let them talk or you always hush them?
Do you pay attention to where they are coming from or it doesn’t concern you?
Their presence WILL rub off on your brand, it is a guarantee!
This matter is a major hindrance to the transition of many businesses into fabulous brands. You are putting in the effort but workers are messing things up, it is a real struggle and you have to find a way around it if you want to grow. Some of these workers are set in their ways and I advise for such, you work towards easing them out of your system.
We hope these perspectives will enable you to handle your workers better.
#DoBusinessBetter
HOW BRAND BELIEF CAN TRANSFORM YOUR MARKETING
Source: camper.com
“Opposite yet Complementary. In 1988, we challenged the idea that shoes must be identical by designing a pair where the right shoe was different than the left. Since then, TWINS has been revisited each season through new typologies, treatments, and materials that continue to play with the idea of mismatched design.”
Source: Camper.com
HARNESSING THE POWER OF BRAND IDEOLOGY.
In your effort to market your business, one of the things you can do to gain better visibility and attract your desired target audience is to have what is called a big idea.
A big idea is commonly used for marketing campaigns. Every professional marketing campaign you see has a big idea that drives it whether it is expressly communicated or not. However, a big idea is also used to engineer and drive your entire business or organization.
We all love Nike’s “JUST DO IT”, that is a big idea in itself derived from “Nike pushes your athletic boundaries beyond what you thought was possible, so you can win on your own terms”.
Unilever’s Omo and Persil ran a marketing campaign themed “DIRT IS GOOD” and it was derived from the ideology named “Modern Parenting” which submits that children learn more about their environment and things as they explore their curiosity and mess their clothes up. Therefore, let the children play and as they get dirty, Omo helps you make the clothes clean again.
Because our businesses are often set up for survival, we dismiss these things, but the foreign brands make billions with it from our own pockets. Even in survival mode, you will survive better if you sell better.
Lately, a lot of people are talking about Burna boy in relation to his positioning in the music industry beyond Nigeria. Burna boy is entrenching a strong ideology into his brand that has to do with the African narrative. It gives him access to a far wider audience and makes him hard to ignore even if you don’t enjoy his music or like his personality. Remember Wakanda? The ideology weaved into the narrative, though fictional, was magical.
Once you articulate a significant ideology into your brand – something that affects the story, existence, history, aspirations, desires, or challenges of a people (your target market), your brand immediately begins to stand out from the lot. There are so many bakers out there, not a problem, but WHY do YOU bake? What is it about your own cake business that makes it different from all others? It may not even be about cakes directly, but that thing that drives you internally each day. Capture it, articulate it, and communicate it.
Defining a simple ideology for your business will enable you to get better results with your small efforts.
Through your big idea, you craft strong messages that resonate with your target market and you grow a loyal tribe of customers.
Through your big idea, you attract team members who want more than just a monthly salary. They want to be a part of something remarkable.
Through your big idea, you become more purpose-driven.
Your vision and mission statements (if you have) will stop being fancy statements you display on your walls or wherever.
We can build amazing brands in Africa.
Let’s keep doing it from our small corners of the continent.
We can do better against all odds.
WHAT WE OBSERVED AT FIFI’S FOOD HOUSE.
A few weeks ago, we spent some time with the CEO of Fifi’s Food House, Onimim Fifi Karibo, at her kitchen hub in the city of Port Harcourt where she treaded us to a three-course meal. While we sat in her office, we noticed her people were at work preparing the meal. At some point, a customer called to order a meal, Fifi was still with us all the while as her people brought the message that the meal was ready. Evidently, she had taught her people how to prepare the meals the same way she does.
About a year ago, Mapemond had multiple training jobs at the same time for various clients. We delegated different team members to each of the training and they all did a great job. One of the training had about a hundred and fifty participants and it was handled by a Staff, not our principal.
Even if you are a one-man business, for now, develop the consciousness of raising others to do what you do because you cannot keep doing it all by yourself and you cannot be everywhere at the same time. Yes, some people you train will disappear without first giving value to the system that raised them, but that is not a valid excuse to not raise others at all.
Some people you train will falter and make mistakes, especially if you have the traits of a perfectionist, but be patient with the grooming process and they will become well-primed. Instead of finding reasons and justification to do it all by yourself all the time, fight those excuses and raise your army unless you are fine with being a one-man business perpetually.
If your dream is to build an amazing brand, you cannot escape building people, against all odds.
Build your people. And trust them with the work.
INSIGHTS ON STRUCTURING YOUR BUSINESS.
We came across a Facebook post suggesting that certain businesses perform better when they are unstructured compared to when they are structured. The person asserted that a renowned Nigerian blogger, Linda Ikeji, is struggling ever since she became structured, but that is quite a baseless assertion without specific indices or metrics to measure the performance of her business. The argument had so many holes in it, we didn’t even know which one to address or ignore, but our take away was that many people do not understand what structure means.
Here are some insights on structuring your business:
1. Structuring does not mean leaving your product-market fit. If you were doing very well by selling food to Tricycle Drivers and then you go build a gigantic edifice with air conditioners in the name of structuring, you are just burying your business alive. The drivers won’t follow you but will switch to another option.
2. Structuring does not mean leaving what is working and going to experiment with the unknown. If Linda Ikeji leaves what has been working for her to new terrain, she may struggle before getting it right again, if she does.
3. Structuring does not mean you stop innovating. If you become relaxed simply because you got structured, you will lose out. The more structured you become, the more you have to be on your toes innovating.
4. Structuring does not mean fancy offices and glam. It is not about “I have arrived”, you will be pushed over to the sideline.
5. Structuring is about becoming BETTER ORGANIZED as the business grows gradually. When a bukka woman teaches her daughter to cook the meals as well, it is structuring. When she teaches her Son how to go buy foodstuff from the market, it is structuring. When she keeps proper inventory of the foodstuff to check them against daily sales to ensure there is no theft or unrecorded debts to customers, it is structuring. When she can take a break and business is still ongoing, it is structuring. The list goes on.
6. Structuring is about creating systems and processes, no matter how basic. You cannot seek a serious business loan with your personal account, you need to open a business bank account and that requires BVN, a registered business, Tax identification, etc.
Our investor at Mapemond asked us, “what if I die, what will happen to my investment in your company?” our answer was all around systems, processes and ultimately, structuring.
You cannot desire to be another Dangote, Otedola, Elumelu, Jason Njoku, Ibukun Awosika, and all these people and not be thinking in terms of structure over time.
Davido and WizKid will direct you to their managers if you want to do business with them, even personal brands have their own approach to structuring. That is why they create DMW, Mavin Records, and the likes.
We have to break the fetters and manacles holding us spellbound to the hustle and survival mentality while thinking that we can build a big business by staying unstructured and evading FIRS and the rest perpetually.
Conglomerate this…,
Global Ventures that…
International Empire…
All the fancy desires will not happen by mere wishes, you have to build structures diligently and consistently for several years.
If your clients’ work will be on hold because you have malaria, your business is an endangered specie.
We don’t like to think about it, but what if you die? What happens to the monies you collected from people? Pending salaries? Etc?
Please share this, let’s empower more entrepreneurs with the right knowledge.
If you think otherwise, then this post is not for you.
We wish you well in your endeavors.
YOU CAN BRAND YOUR BUSINESS WITHOUT PLENTY MONEY
Some people say that branding is for big companies with deep pockets, but there are so many big companies with little or no branding.
You can have money and still not get branding right. In fact, there are so many businesses that are making serious money but pay too little attention to branding.
If you are thinking your business is too small or you don’t have money for branding, here’s the story of a ‘poor’ roadside business that has created a good brand image and has been maintaining it since the last time we checked.
There is a bukka sited beside a fence somewhere in Trans Amadi in Port Harcourt. Many decent office workers around that axis eat at her bukka.
We nicknamed her bukka “Clean Pot” because the pots are always sparkling, the environment too and the food processing is so hygienic – she cooks in an open space where customers see everything going on in the kitchen.
This is to paint a very basic picture of someone who doesn’t even have a brand name and is not on social media.
How much does she spend in building and maintaining this brand image?
Waiting until you are big before branding is actually a big mistake. You can start now and keep upgrading as the business grows.
Imagine building on the brand “Clean Pot” and gaining steady visibility to deliver food packs to offices in Trans Amadi using logistics companies.
Imagine the ‘Clean Pot” brand expanding to other strategic locations. As that happens, the branding game goes deeper because systems would have to be in place to maintain the brand image across board.
Relate “Clean Pot” to “Starbucks” or even “Chicken Republic”, can you see the prospect for the brand as it focuses on its own strata of the market. Of course, there will be limiting factors and challenges but they are firstly cultural problems, before economic.
We can go deeper in analysing Clean Pot, but the point is that branding actually begins with your orientation and mindset regardless of your financial status.
#DoBusinessBetter
YOUR ASSOCIATIONS MATTER.
Inspiration for you this August.
George Foreman is a legend in every sense of the word in the world of boxing. His records and history are so enormous that we don’t even know which one to write and which one to leave out. Let’s just give a summary we found on Wikipedia.
“Foreman is the oldest living world heavyweight boxing champion in history, and the second-oldest in any weight class after Bernard Hopkins (at light heavyweight). Foreman retired in 1997 at the age of 48, with a final record of 76 wins (68 knockouts) and five losses.”
Foreman at some point had health concerns related to his weight, so he opted for a lifestyle of healthy eating that yielded results for his weight loss aspirations. When he first returned from retirement before the final retirement, he posited that his victories were due to his new lifestyle of healthy eating.
It was about that time that Salton Inc. approached him to be the pitchman for their fat-reducing grill. As of 2009, the grill which was named ‘George Foreman Grill’ had sold over 100 million units.
Salton paid him $138 million in 1999, for the right to use his name. Prior to that, he was paid about 40% of the profits on each grill sold (earning him $4.5 million a month in payouts at its peak), so he has made an estimated total of over $200 million from the endorsement, substantially more than he earned as a boxer.
One of the most critical elements of branding is association; with the right associations, your brand (whether personal or business brand) will attain greater results. Whether you stand in the place of Foreman or Salton, you need the right associations to accomplish more.
You may not be a celebrity like Foreman and you may not even be interested in brand endorsements, but the point is beyond all of that. The point is that at your place of work, in your career or business aspirations, on social media, and life generally, look out for the right people and organizations and align with them.
May you succeed.
Mapemond Academy Team.
THE HAIR COURT. A JOB WELL DONE!
From when the idea was conceived, we were engaged to work with the owner in birthing this lovely brand. Covid-19 and lockdown obstructed the process a great deal, but the baby is born now in the city of Port Harcourt.
The salon received over 40 new customers (excluding personal friends and relatives of the owner) within the first two weeks, our marketing and sales strategies worked!
Here is a quick rundown of our work with this brand:
1. Brand strategy development
2. Marketing strategy development and implementation
3. Recruitment of stylists, technicians, and front desk staff.
4. Training of all members of staff
5. Setup of social media pages
6. Management of social media pages
7. Running of targeted social media adverts
8. Creation of free e-book for promo
9. General business support and advisory
The clients are already falling in love with the brand, but the journey just began. Branding is one thing, brand management is another.
We loved the client’s open-mindedness, nothing is as important as giving your business the right foundation.
We don’t do mere branding, we ensure that branding coincides perfectly with business model and strategy.
It has been an exciting project and it is another job well done!
Let’s work on your brand and position it better for the market.
SAME TOOLS, DIFFERENT SKILLS.
Letters from our Captain.
My Wife deals in jewelry and needed me to help her fix one of the silver neckpieces, three rings holding parts of the piece together had expanded and caused the piece to separate into two pieces.
So I went to an area in town where I fix my wristwatches to see if they could help me fix the rings to hold the pieces back into one. I had initially tried to fix it myself but the tools I have at home weren’t suitable for such work. In fact, it was in my attempt to fix just one ring originally that two more pulled out, so I had to humbly seek help.
When I got to the first wristwatch repairer, he started working on it before mentioning that I will pay him NGN400, I offered NGN200, he agreed and continued. After 20minutes of struggling, he returned it to me that he couldn’t fix it, he recommended that I meet a blacksmith (he meant a goldsmith).
Anyway, I thought to try a second wristwatch guy who helped me reduce my wristwatch chain some time ago. He looked at the piece of jewelry and told me to go see a blacksmith (again, he meant a goldsmith), I was happy he didn’t try to waste my time.
I left for another area of town where goldsmiths are clustered. A young man seated in front of the very first shop I got to beckoned on me, I heeded and met his Boss.
As we sat, he started working on it. In one minute, the first ring was in. In another minute, the second ring was fixed. And then within the next 3mins, the third and last ring was in place. Jewelry piece back together, perfectly!
And I reflected, both groups of workmen had exactly the same tools, but the skills set differed. I wanted to pay the wristwatch guy NGN200, but I paid the goldsmith NGN1000. The first wristwatch guy apparently wanted to try his luck, but the second refused to waste his time on what he didn’t have the skill for.
A lesson I picked was to focus on your skill, hone it very well, it will bring money and also announce you to the market.
What’s your skill?
Are you becoming a master at it?
If you want to earn higher consistently, keep improving your skill level.
You are valued according to your skill level.
Mister Maple.
THE ONE SKILL THAT IS DELAYING YOUR DREAMS.
We had a meeting with someone recently who has a brilliant idea. She has figured out most of what needs to be in place to execute the idea, but there was a giant wall in front of her – how to get the clients. We spoke with her to provide guidance but we gleaned some insights to share with you in your career or business journey.
Ideas and dreams are exciting.
Doing the groundwork could be fun.
Until it is time to sell yourself, product, or service, cold feet will show up.
Selling is not a skill for entrepreneurs only, it is a skill for everyone.
When you go to the visa office, it is a moment to sell yourself.
When you write application letters, you are selling yourself.
When you sit before a panel at a job interview, you are selling yourself.
When you share thoughts on social media, you are selling yourself.
Selling is a must-have skill for you.
Your dreams won’t come true if you don’t confront the challenge of selling.
Making two million bucks monthly is easy to calculate on paper until it is time to make the numbers a reality.
Confront the challenge of selling.
Selling is the bridge that leads to the land of milk and honey.
Find a way to kill that fear and sell.
Overcome that hesitation and sell.
Change your thinking about selling, you can learn and do it well.
The most successful people in the world are not necessarily those who are the best at what they do, but those who sold themselves better.
How badly do you desire success?
How badly do you desire to see your dreams come true?
Summon courage from within and confront the challenge of selling.
There are various options available to aid you – books, courses, seminars, coaching, mentoring, internship, and so on. Only you can make the move, so you can achieve better results.
What you desire for your career or business is waiting for you across the river called SALES (SELL YOURSELF).
We wish you success!