Evaluating your 2015 business/career activities in a sick economy

As 2015 rounds up, it is vital that those who have a purpose in life take stock of how they engaged their life activities in the year 2015 in a confused and cut throat financial rut as we have in Africa.    It is obvious some people are happy with the year and most people from the survey i carried out, are gloomy, depressed considering the harsh economic situations in Africa.

You see, when someone like me talk about economic situations and my discoveries, i do not belong to those group who use the rich to measure the standard of life in Africa. In Nigeria as my focus, the average Nigerians are not enjoying the economic situations here but enter into our big supermarkets and eatries and you will not find space and you see people shopping/eating left and right and, this is not enough to certify Nigeria economy as bubbling for Nigerians.

If you want to get the accurate living standard statistics of a country, you narrow it down to the grassroots. Do not use the affluent!  Take your time to shop in the local markets to compare prices of foodstuffs which the average citizens buy daily.  Visit their houses and ask them the amount of rent they pay  where they are living, school fees,transport etc.  Presently, PHC  in Nigeria crudely increase their electricity rates without even increasing quality of electricity supply.  Our law members simply brush over it and allowed it .   As we speak Nigerians are being served higher electricity bills without enjoying light.  Arrant nonesense and highest human exploitations!!!.   I personally never expected that the present Government could fold their hands and allow this particular cude/criminal attitude  of PHC to prevail. Yes, this is criminal because  even a three year old in this country know so much about the  stale/manipulative  stories of electricity issues in this country for years…so what?   So what…huh?  Sue me if you think the word-‘’criminal ‘’ should not be used to describe PHC rip offs in this country….sue me!!!!   Take me to court and you will be doing me a great favor and giving me the powerful opportunity to expose all the rubbish that has been hunting me concerning this country.   Can you mention one or two things Nigerians are enjoying in this country as citizens?   Just one!!!  Visit houses, almost every house that enjoys water has its own private borehole.  Has it turn out to be a taboo for a government of a country to provide water for its citizens?  In Abuja, i have never even heard of anything like a water corporation. Does it exist? Even if it exist, do they provide water for residents in Abuja?   Every angle you bring up, there must be a k-leg…. I am pretty pissed…so pissssseedddd and angry with the things and stuff that happens in this country.    Ofcourse our lawmakers do not sweat paying  bills ….but is it same for millions of our citizens?  In Nigeria workers keep chasing money and prices of products and services they use keep increasing without no addition in quality. So as we enter a new year, it is vital workers  evaluate their working and career lives and see where to add, maintain or blacklist.

As a career/ business owner in this fraustrating country called Nigeria, you must have to sit yourself down and take charge of how to move ahead and the period to do it is now….2015 and not when you meet 2016.  Nigerians are used to using the fire brigade approach in their life activities and not being proactive.  Do not wait for 2016 to meet you before you start planning how to move forward.   I have coached business owners who borrow money to pay sales persons keeping their shops. Is this good business? The ones who have rich partners use house upkeep money to pay workers at the end of the month without making sales . So how could you continue with such business style in 2016?  You have to sit down and evaluate why your profits dwindle, why you have not been making sales, why and why? So many ‘whys’  to take care of !!

I cannot fully explain how to evaluate your business and how to move ahead today but i will concentrate on those who are into sales/ marketing which is what most Africans do.

I have a client who runs a boutique in Abuja. This lady goes to senegal, turkey, U.K to buy genuine high quality textiles/fabrics/ goods but lo and behold….still uses her private money to pay the sales girl she keeps in her shop. Each time i walk into her well stocked shop, i will meet her sales girl sleeping or watching home movies.   This is not how to run a business and i have made her to understand this.  She keeps complaining about the bad attitude of sales girls in Nigeria which by the way are given to her by some group of job seekers Agents who manage this sales girls/boys.  I told her that she has not put her foot down to tell the so- called agents the calibre of sales girls she wants for her kind of business.  Why must you hire a sales girl who cannot even understand what marketing and effective customer relationship are?  How could you hire a sales girl who cannot understand that the major job of a sales person is to ‘’make sales regularly’’ so that you can use her sales to pay her at the end of the month?  How can you hire a sales girl who has no phone manners? Who does not know how to welcome and attend to customers that walk into your shop? A sales girl who gets grummpy/rude  when asked questions by customers? A lazy sales girl who does not understand keeping your shop sparkling clean?  How do you expect to make profits and sales with such a person in your shop?   A lot of sales persons both in shops and corporate offices has no atom of good CUSTOMER RELATIONS at all. Go to banks and telecommunications outlets and you will ‘swear’ for them. Have you thought about training them on CUSTOMER SERVICE?

For business owners who borrow money to pay sales persons they hire, it is vital you get a good marketing/sales coaching on how to go about getting the appropriate sales person that can move your business ahead and make profits for you in 2016 and after.  What i just narrated here came from my  private  business coaching i conducted with private business owners/companies  and am very sure we have lots of business owners/companies in same business rut who are looking for a ways out and how to improve their business.  Customer service Relations is just one aspect of what you work on.  Do not carry  your business blues into 2016!!

JACLYN IWU