“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Anonymous.
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, as well as other marketers of goods and services, now daily lament declining sales.
Finished goods pile up in warehouses begging for buyers who seemed to have vanished into thin air. There is despair everywhere.
Chairmen and Managing Directors are desper- ate for solutions. Apparently, nobody knows what to do.
Fortunately, all is not lost. There is hope; not in a political sense, but, in the sense of tried and true methods for improving turnover during a de- pressed economy.
In a way, I am returning to my early days with Vanguard, starting in 1987, and writing on Mondays under MARKETFACTS.
Lanre Alabi was my Business page Editor and Frank Aigbogun, now Publisher of BusinessDay, was the Editor. I was the Marketing Manager od North Brewery Limited, Kano.
Before that, I was the Country Sales Manager for SmithKline and French – which later merged with Glaxo to become GlaxoSmithKline, GSK. And, before that, I was the National Sales Director for Boots Company Nigeria Limited, BCNL.
Before arriving Nigeria in 1974, I have had six years sales experience after graduation from uni- versity – including two years international sales experience in the Caribbean Islands. I am leaving out part-time sales work which I undertook as an undergraduate from 1965.
Altogether, I must have been involved in selling at least 700 products and services in my lifetime.
I am trying to sell an idea to you now; which might save your company.
I want to return to BCNL because there people still alive who were shareholders of the company in 1978.
BCNL was already the darling of shareholders before I joined in 1975. It became even more for- midable in 1976 and 1977; paying half-year interim dividends and full-year final dividends plus bonus shares.
Then in 1978, Federal Government, under Gen- eral Obasanjo announced Austerity Measures Pro- gramme. For the first time since 1973, the Federal Government would cut expenditure and spend less than 1977 estimated; the states would do the same and taxes were going up.
Marketing and Sales Managers knew there was trouble ahead. Investors in the capital market braced for poor results. They got them – except for BCNL, which still paid interim dividend based on sales performance.
In 1984, breweries were among the worst af- fected sectors in an economy in recession under General Buhari.
The signs of trouble for companies were ap- parent to all the companies in the sector from 1983. Standard Breweries Limited, SBL, at Alomaja,
nearIbadan,wasoneof them.
The brewery had an installed capacity to bottle
up to one million crates a month, but was strug- gling to sell 250,000 per month. It was on the verge of bankruptcyasmanyotherswerecollapsing.
Late Chief Bode Akindele, the Chairman and m a j o r s h a r e h o l d e r, e n g a g e d a n e m p l o y m e n t a g e n c y to head hunt for a Marketing Manager.
I got the job with 150% increase in remuneration package – as well as a target to increase sales to 500,000 crates within a year.
I resumed with SBL in March. By June same year, CLUB lager beer, which was unknown in the North was available in all Northern States; we reached 500,000 crates a month in September; and on December 31 sent out 1 million crates for the month.
How were all these results accomplished during recessions; when competitors were folding up? Sev- eral reasons accounted for the achievements. Only a few would be mentioned now.
However, before touching on the factors required for success in a recession, I want to draw attention to the fact that the current economic situation is in many respects similar to what products manufac- turers experienced in the past.
In March 1990, I joined the Nigerian Institute of Management, NIM, as a Senior Lecturer and Con- sultant (Marketing). In that capacity, I was respon- sible for developing Marketing and Sales training course materials. There were Course Notes being used before my arrival. My first contribution was to write new Course Notes for my courses.
I also inherited some corporate clients whose staff attended NIM Courses every year.
A few requested for in-plant training – which I conducted. I got my first break to go on my own into training consultancy when one of the former participants at NIM was appointed Managing Director of his multinational company – which had been bringing in foreigners to train the sales staff. He asked his bosses for permission to try do- mesticating the training by employing a Nigerian training consultant. It was a big risk because his job was on the line. He got his wish and I had my breakthrough.
A year after, I was asked to add training Ghana to my list of countries; and two years after, I was training sales staff in Uganda. The results spoke for me.
I continued in Marketing/Sales consultancy un- til 2008 when the Vanguard Book Of Quotations was successfully launched.
Soon, after that I focussed fully on writing books; and four more followed. The economy was also rel- atively stable, although not growing by leaps and bounds – until Buhari’s locust years. Like most Nigerians, I firmly believed that no government could ever be worse than Buhari’s; that we could only move up from the abyss.
Today, I am not so sure. But, I also know one thing from a lifetime experience. Nations grow out of economic downturn by producing and selling more goods and services – not less. Companies, big and small, have to learn anew, how to sell their products.
Veterans, like me, can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines and watch companies go down the drain. I was not the only one engaging in training then. Others also contributed their quota.
Nigerian manufacturers need the same sort of intervention – now, more than ever, in order to survive. Success against daunting odds, however, depends on focussing on the factors needed to suc- ceed. Some of them will now be discussed briefly. But, permit me to provide an example.
Lagos Island is perpetually a construction site. So, we sent people out to find out if the main con- tractors had been visited by the salesmen of paint manufacturers. Surprisingly, about 80 per cent had not set eyes on a paint salesman. In the early 2000s, when PRESIDENT Paints was still young, its Chair- man, late Adisa Sebanjo, who was my classmate in Primary School, asked me to help out.
We embarked on a pilot programme in Lagos and Onitsha.
In six months, the two salesmen selected in- creased their sales by more than 60 per cent.
What happened?
Corporate Mind-Set And Attitude.
“A well-ordered mind is a possession more valu-
able than unlimited riches.”
Paul Harris, 1868-1947, VANGUARD BOOK OF
QUOTATIONS,VBQ p 159.
PaulHarris,founderof RotaryInternational,RI, made history by making millions of people change their mind-sets based on the Four-Way Test.
All organisations, irrespective of size, sector or period, can actually alter their fortunes by changing their mind-sets.
In some of my training engagements, I would actually offer to accept to be paid up to 40 per cent of the charges in the company’s products.
I painted an entire house in Ibadan and a large office building at Ikeja by accepting paints as payment….
TO TO BE CONTINUED
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