Kingsley Ndimele

ABOUT THE BOOKHave you ever picked up a business book written by a foreign author whose thoughts and principles could not be applied in the African market? Have you ever been lost on the internet trying to find business ideas or advice on how and where to improve your business, only to discover that maybe you were not looking at the most reputable sources?Coupled with his experience in the entrepreneurial field, Kingsley has consistently studied the African space and why most African businesses fail, and he has shared in this book lessons learned and proven strategies for Africans who are about to embark on the entrepreneurial journey and those who are already traveling through this adventure. These practical strategies have shown demonstrated records of significant success and have continued to help many African entrepreneurs build profitable and sustainable businesses. The most outstanding feature about this book is that it discusses extensively challenges peculiar to most African businesses, and practical solutions to navigate through them have also been proffered. Even if you do not have a business, your personal life is a business. This book is a must-read for every African.Why I wrote this bookOn my first day as an intern at the Teaching and Research Farm at Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, our farm manager made a profound statement that I can never forget. He said, “Forget about all those nonsense you have been fed with from textbooks of foreign authors. This is the Nigerian soil, and those theories you have been taught from your Part 1 to Part 3 do not work here."I have heard several African entrepreneurs complain that most of the business books they read are written by foreign authors whose thoughts and strategies cannot be applied in the African market. Well, I do not disagree. I ran a poll lately where 78 percent of the respondents attested that most of Branson's and Tracy's principles do not work for African businesses.Call me a racist for all I care; it really does not change the truth. I have said it before, and I am saying it again to all African entrepreneurs; if you must read a business book, read an African business book. You can only give what you have. These foreign authors do not live in Africa; neither do they have any business in Africa. Therefore, expecting a businessman who grew up, lived and owned a business in America to teach you how to run a business successfully in Africa is like putting a square peg in a round hole.Believe it or not, the Western market is different from the African market. What works for the Europeans may never work for the Africans. The 7 + 3 = 10 in America may mean 5 + 5 = 10 in Africa. The same business strategy that made a Swiss company successful may send an African company packing. How come Xiaomi - a Chinese phone company that started operations in 2010 is became the third largest phone company in the world in 2020, whereas Uchenna & Sons Electronics Company is still struggling to gain stability after 25 years?Think about it. If Mark Zuckerberg was an African entrepreneur, would he have scaled so fast in business? Would Elon Musk have had the same business opportunity if he was an African? Do the African environment and market conditions favour SMEs to compete globally? “Take risks. Fail often, fail fast and fail forward.” I’m sure this statement sounds familiar. Great strategy. Right? Before you adopt this strategy, think about the average African man who cannot afford to fail at all because failure means that his family will be hungry or homeless.In terms of strategy of business growth and the survival rate in the market itself, Africa is not like Silicon Valley. Lose Money and Scale Fast is one strategy that Silicon Valley uses. This is because there is a lot of venture capital moving around in the Western Market - easy to access, cheap and long-term. There are also several innovative platforms and mentoring systems.If not, one may wonder how Uber lost over $5 billion in just three months, yet it is still in business. Facebook did not generate any profit for its first five years of operation, yet it could pay salaries and even stay in business. For 12 years, Amazon recorded net losses from its inception (1995) through 2002. Who will believe that a company that still loses a huge amount of dollars every year is still the number 1 online retailer in the world?If you try that in Africa, you are gone. I mean, no investor will hold on to you when your business is losing money. Any African company that adopts that Silicon Strategy is likely going to fail and go out of business. In Africa, you must learn how to make a profit from your business in the early stage while growing your business; else, your survival may not be guaranteed.Electricity, rent, cost of capital, pressure to reduce the selling price, rising inflation, high interest rates and high exchange rate are the top economic issues affecting most African businesses. Most African entrepreneurs still struggle to access the internet. When you talk about the ease of doing business in Africa, what you read on paper is different from reality. Doing business in Africa is hard. The government policies alone will milk you dry. Just one policy, you are gone. This is why most African entrepreneurs start small, think big but remain small.According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, there are over 41.5 million private enterprises in Nigeria alone, and they account for over 80 percent of the employment rate in the country, and they have contributed to 50 percent of the national GDP. Most of these enterprises are sole proprietorships. However, many die as survivalists. Only a few become successful businesses. This is my heart's cry.Africa is a future frontier. Africa has a large startup ecosystem. According to the UN World Population Prospects 2019, Africa has the youngest population in the world with about 60 percent of the over 1.1 billion under the age of 25, yet there are only three unicorns in Africa out of the entire 266 unicorns in the world (a report by CB Insights as at 2020). Is there any hope for African entrepreneurs?SATURN is not another book of vague business theories. It is a practical guide for African businesses, and every topic discussed in this book is relevant to the African ecosystem. In these times of endless information at our fingertips, it is hard to know what advice you should seek from the vast world of 'experts.'This book is an alternative MBA for African entrepreneurs. It aims to educate you about the triumphs, travails and trials of being an entrepreneur in Africa.It is my gift to the Black race.PRINTED COPY is available on request ($20) excluding delivery fee.Send a DM on WhatsApp to 09059871471

ABOUT THE BOOKWith rigorous assessments and interviews, you can hire the best employees; but you need a different approach to retain your promising employees and high performers, or you may lose them to a happy competitor within six months. When an employee resigns, it is not only a loss to your business because time and resources have been spent in recruitment, onboarding and training; you are also losing revenues in the process of finding a worthy replacement. If only you could discern the warning signals, you would be amazed that some of your smiling employees have not walked out of your door yet, but they have mentally checked out. Some are actively hunting for new opportunities, while others plan to make a change in the next six months.Gone are the days when employers yelled at their employees. “If you cannot do it, resign! So many people are looking for jobs out there.” Recent times have seen a tidal wave of resignations. The numbers are alarming, and this trend is likely not over. Until employers stop using the soldier-go-soldier-come approach for employees, they may never be able to build a sustainable business. Until you have stable employees, you cannot say you have a business. Kingsley has had over a decade of experience working with several employers across various organizations, some of which he has shared in this book extensively. His practical strategies have helped many business owners to build stable employees and profitable businesses.Why I wrote this bookI used to admonish would-be entrepreneurs to have some working experience before starting a business. I was too quick to judge people who declared that they could never work under anyone. This mindset may be faulty, but from another perspective, they have genuine reasons for saying this. He who finds a good employer or works in a good company may not know what the Lord has done for him until he listens to the agony of other employees in different workplaces.  I have had over a decade of experience working with various employers across various organizations. I started working the same month I left secondary school in 2011. Wetin my Musa never see for gate? I have had some employers who I wish to work with again, and I have had some employers who I don’t pray to meet with, even in hell. There were some workplaces where I resigned officially by giving the usual one-month prior notice. There were other workplaces where I endured till the last day of the month so as to receive my last salary before zooming off.There were some employers I left as an omolúàbi, and there were some employers I left slamming the doors on their faces. Haven’t you heard of employees who gang up to beat their boss? There were some workplaces where I could convince my employer to change some management policies that were affecting the growth of the business negatively. There were other places where I was seen as a rebel for trying to champion or clamour for a change in policy.Many companies have ‘audio’ values that attract great talents to them, only for these talents to realize that the employers do not act by these values. Working with some employers is synonymous with choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea. Na wetin man go chop dey make most employees endure the physical and mental torture of most employers. There were times when I put my head on the office desk and cried my eyes out.Wale Agoro shared his experience on Twitter;I worked with a private school as a school bursar. No holiday! (Just two days of holiday if any – December 25th and January 1st) No leave! No incentive! No festive gift! Sometimes, I even go to the office on Sundays. Most of these employers are like Egyptian taskmasters. I resumed by 7 am daily and indefinite closing hours for no reason. I remembered closing at 5 pm on one midterm break, and my boss started complaining.  I remembered one of the schools I taught where it was taboo for you to take a nap, even during break time. In fact, teachers were compelled to be at work during public holidays just to sit down and do nothing. I know an employer who had over 15 employees. She never picked up her phone one day to call any of her employees all through the COVID-19 lockdown period.Dear employer, some of your employees have not walked out of your door yet, but they have mentally checked out. Some of your employees are already passively looking for another job. I wrote my resignation letter three months before finally leaving a job. I kept it in my room in a place where I could see it every day.I once worked in a company in Ibadan. Before the company was celebrating its first-year anniversary, ten full-time employees had resigned. I resumed in March as an intern. By September of the same year, I was the oldest staff. Before I eventually resigned in December, two other persons who were hired after me had already left too. Coincidentally, the three of us submitted our resignation letters almost the same day.I know of one lady who was immediately replaced without notice during her maternity leave. She came back to resume work after her one-month leave, only to discover that she had been replaced. This made everyone scared of taking a leave. Even the HR Manager who was planning his wedding could not request a leave.How you treat your employees will determine how they will treat every customer that walks into your shop. How you treat your houseboy is how he will treat your children and visitors, especially in your absence. If you treat your employees poorly, they will treat your customers poorly and vice versa. No matter the frequency of morning devotions you do in your workplace, if you do not take care of your employees, your business will suffer.According to Samy EL Samuel, “I was once hired by a restaurant in Abuja to run ads and to manage their social media. After running the ads and responding to a lot of inquiries that got traffic to the restaurant, the woman who owned the restaurant called me to complain that she only saw the crowd for just a few weeks and it was as if they all came in at once and disappeared at once. I was quite worried, but I assured her that if the ads could get people to send a lot of inquiry messages, then the fault could be something else. Then, I tried to ask those who made inquiries if they enjoyed the service and would patronize again. Many of them expressed their displeasure at the attitude of the attendants and workers they met, and they were never going to come again. I felt really bad.”Adejoke Okanlawon Raji shared her experience on Twitter;I had a contract job from 7:30 am – 5 pm with an hour break on my offer letter (a bank, actually). In the long run, new management came and said that we needed training which was supposed to last for six months. We were told to resume by 7:15 am so that we could do the training before the usual meeting. Lo and behold, the training that was supposed to be for six months stayed forever. Apparently, resumption time was 7:15 am, and closure time was unknown. Let's not even talk about the nonsense one-hour break. Breakfast was usually taken in the afternoon. The whole morning was already occupied with meetings like witches and wizards. To even apply makeup sef na war. I looked all gloomy in the early hours of the day. Let me give you an instance. For someone who got to work by 7 am, before you know it, the training and meeting ate up the time till 7:58 am, and you are rushing here and there to put things in place. You are already disorganized. Then, an impatient customer walks in at 8 am and starts yelling at you.Can you boast of at least two-thirds of your employees that have worked with you in the last year?Hiring the best talents to drive your business growth and achieve your business goals is as important as retaining them.Successful organizations and great businesses are built on talented and committed employees. PRINTED COPY is available on request ($10) excluding delivery fee.Send a DM on WhatsApp to 09059871471