I have been doing a series that follows my hustle, If you have not read them, check the links and see how I started with an idea and ended up with a product.
Now, I am a very ambitious entrepreneur and one thing I knew is that most retail store in Kenya if not all, would want to stock my product. In this article, I will show you just how greatly I was humbled, though did not lose hope and quick i had to pick myself up and get on another selling strategy.
I got into agribusiness, value addition to be precise. For me, I really wanted to save women time and money to prepare cooking ingredients in the house. With the hustle and bustle of Nairobi, plus the traffic, it is hard to come home and start pounding away ingredients. So what if you came home and just scooped already prepared ingredients from a beautiful jar in your kitchen?
Well, I knew I was deep in the money.
After getting the go ahead by KEBS to start producing, I started going round retail shops. Iwe! Hapo ndio nikajua things are thick. Some asked for the lowest price, others wanted me to write a proposal and tell them why my products deserve to be on their shelves while other just took down my details and never got back to me.
A month went by and I was really stressed. I then decided to look for the best other option to get my products to clients.
ONLINE SALES
The moment of ‘nilijua sikukua’ and my parthner suggested online shops to stock the products. I thought of using my social media platforms to push the products, but the idea of spamming my followers, logistics. dealing with a boda boda everyday really discouraged me.
A few days later, I discovered an online shop called Herdy.co. They agreed to give us space for our products and set us up an online shop for our clients to have easy access to the products, as we had 3 products by then.
Now, here is where the work is. I had to create posters to share on our social media pages to direct traffic to the blog. Sounds easy, right? NOPE! Seeing that I am not a creative, I had to learn a lot on the go and I will teach you how.
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Invest in a good data plan
Data is expensive. The first time I tried to even create a digital poster, I depleted my whole data as I was still trying to figure out how to make great posters that can be shared by your friends. Remember, you want to create something beautiful that people will want to share.
So I got myself and amazing deal where I got the 5GB for only Ksh 1000 for 30 days. Though it did not last me a month as you will notice, the online softwares to brand your business require alot of data, especially if you are just starting. For now, look at the deal Safaricom is offering for the new data plan. Remember, you are branding your business online and you may need to invest a few shillings and time to get a great branding online.
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Sign up for Canva
Remember where I said I am not a creative? Well, the internets have taught me how. Canva is a software that allows you to make digital posters from scratch and they will look like a professional creatives work. It has templates for instagram, facebook and twitter, allowing you to get as creative as possible
Don’t worry, you might take one hour creating the first poster, but after that, it will not take you more than 15 minutes a poster, that’s why I insisted on a good data plan to save money
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Use your social media to tell a story and share the posters
The art of selling is tricky. Not everyone is gifted, but thanks to the internet, there are many articles and youtube articles you can ready to help you with that.
It can be as simple as telling people how your started, or sharing a lesson on how the journey to started your hustle has been. Tell a story, make people laugh abit and ask them to share your posters.
I did this and in just three weeks, we had orders worth Ksh 30,000. I still stare at the LPO I got for the orders. Selling online has just started and I cannot wait to share with you how else I am getting my products to my clients.