Kenyan entrepreneur with arguably one of the biggest online markets shares 5 secrets of running a business
She quit her banking career to concentrate on building one of Kenya’s most popular Facebook groups, Let’s Cook Kenyan Meals.
She quit her banking career to concentrate on building one of Kenya’s most popular Facebook groups, Let’s Cook Kenyan Meals and single handily turned it into arguably one of the biggest online markets in the country.
As of Friday, the group had clocked 1,165,193 and growing, effectively becoming a major and fertile advertising ground for most food and kitchen equipment manufacturers.
Pamellah is also the Proprietor of a catering firm, Spice Land, has vast interests in real estate and runs very popular holiday homes at the North Coast of Kenya, Mtwapa going by the name, Pacod Holiday Homes.
Business Insider Sub Saharan Africahad a chat with the entrepreneur who is also a mentor on what makes her tick and picked her brain to understand ways in becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Here are Pamellah’s five nuggets of wisdom
#1.Follow your Passion
Running a successful business is not a walk in the park, there are good and bad days, there days you will feel like quitting, days everything will go wrong and days you will seal a huge deal, so how you handle these challenges will be determined by your passion in what you do.
“Do something you love, don’t get into business because somebody else is doing it, do it because you love it, it stops being a job and becomes something fun which pays you”
‘Shark Tank’ investor Daymond John who has a net worth of $250 million as of 2016, seconds Pamellah’s sentiments and has been quoted severally saying.
“Every single successful person has that one trait in common: They love what they do.”
Business Mogul, Chris Kirubi who is the chairman of multi-million worth Haco tiger brands and Capital Media group among other ventures also works with this model before investing in a venture.
“You look at an area where you think you have competence to perform and in cases where you don’t, make sure you have the right people with the right skills working with you or working for you”
#2.Never Borrow
This may as well be the cardinal sin entrepreneurs should never ever commit.
Pamellah reckons starting a business without a loan shouldn’t be rocket science; budding entrepreneurs should instead learn how to reinvest profits back into the business, keep the overhead low and strive to grow organically.
“Never borrow money to start a business, rather start small, grow with it and invest capital as it grows”
American Investor Mark Cuban, who is owner of the Dallas Mavericks and star of ABC's Shark Tank show with a net worth of $3.3 billion, according to Forbes put it bluntly than Pamellah.
“Only Morons Start a Business on a Loan”
#3.Integrity
To succeed in Business, Pamellah says your word should be rock solid like currency itself, literary because anything short of that and you will close your business before you have even started it.
“Be that one person nobody needs to meet to do a transaction with, let them be able to trust you online or wherever place you are in, the little money a client sends to you as a down payment should not kill your business because of greed”
#4.Customer Service
‘Customer is king’ there are no two ways about it, if you are in business and hope to make a kill you better bring your game when it comes to dealing with customers.
By providing the best in customer service, you will increase trust, and that could mean the difference between customer loyalty and customers who jump ship.
While at it budding entrepreneurs should also actively seek feedback be it positive or negative since that is the only way to grow.
“Not everything you do will turn out well so accept feedback, it can be very harsh feedback but it is necessary and it will help you grow, attend to customer complaints as soon as possible, make sure you are listening to all your customers and never brush off a willing customer”
#5.Marketing
A business without clients is a dead business and Pamella has a beautiful way of stressing this important quality.
“There is a phrase that says do not wink at a beautiful girl in the dark, market, market and market some more put yourself out there and let the world know what you are doing as an entrepreneur and you will succeed”
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