My Journey 2b (Out of my comfort Zone)

Out of My comfort Zone- First pitch

With all my lack of knowledge and experience in marketing or sales, i was at least wise enough to bring on board a person who is more knowledgeable and a professional marketer to help me out since now i am seriously into ensuring that the business takes off. The first advice is that "at our age we are not playing "kalongolongo" (this is a game children play of trying to imitate how their mothers or older girls in their lives cook) and neither are we here to trout and fail". This was interesting given that i was not sure yet that he understood what he was getting into.

After explaining my vision, expectations and products, i was surprised that it was easy for him to transition and easily align his mindset form selling financial products to products for use by humanitarian agencies with ease, which made me ask repeatedly "you think you can do this?" After comprehensive review of the  products for him to get to interact with them and know the details i scheduled a Skype conference (talk about the convenience of technology that i intend to fully utilize) with the manufacturer in South Africa to answer specific questions and also understand their perspective on our partnership we felt all set to go.

We identified all our potential customers and mapped out an initial contact plan both for one to one visits and phone appointments (which was not really working out). I discovered that meeting people face to face gives better results, better interaction and builds a relationship that can not be built on phone.

As i said earlier, the first organization we met was one that is big in nutrition program in Kenya and graciously agreed to meet us giving me my first real experience at pitching a product. Seeing a whole 3 people scared me and i was sure i was not going to make it through the session. However things went better than i thought, and when it came to answering what and why it flew out like i have done it many times before. All this i attribute to the fact that i believe in the products that i am offering and the passion that i have to ensure that the business succeeds.

Back to the meeting, and one important lesson i learnt is that people react differently towards a new product or towards a new person. In this case the team welcomed us as people but reaction to the product was different. The Leader of the Nutrition program who was more on the hardships and impossibilities that gave us a feeling that we were not going to make it in this line of business as getting Kenya Bureau of standards (KEBS), Ministry Of Health (MOH) and Poisons and Pharmacy Board approval was going to be impossible. However the other two were like go get those approvals and should there be any way you need our help call us we can assist. One even insisted on giving us his business card in case we need further information and was very interested in the products explaining that immediately we get the approvals we should contact him.

This was very encouraging despite me having the first shock that tended to justify my belief that i can not survive in sales and marketing while at the same time disappointing as we did not make any progress.

The second organization that day was a private hospital nearby and the response was very different and had my day a bit uplifting. The Dietician was very welcoming and even proposed to try out one of the products with a patient who had refused all supplementary food due to bluntness of taste. We then left to come back the following week as a follow up.

My next  update is on the experiences with KEBS and MOH that made me think that the hostile guy sent us on a wild goose chase and why would he do that.

 I will also touch on my campaign to raise funds for the business and why i chose this as the best way for me to get capital required, on https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/create-a-circle-of-life/x/5714551#home that has 7 days to go and no contribution yet and the most recent one on  https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/8jpp5/ab/93CTRd. In the meantime contribute to my campaigns and lets walk this journey together.


Happy Labour day all.....