Secrets of Building a multi-million naira Baking Supplies business.pdf - Chinedum Onwuka

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CURRENT STRATEGIES FOR StartING and GrowING A Trading business. Chinedum Onwuka TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 3 2. Starting The Business 4 Capital Requirement Products to Start With Your Location 3. Marketing Your Business 7 Finding customers Keeping Customers Paid Advertising 4. Growing Your Business 14 Record Keeping Re-Investment Preventing Leaks 5. Conclusion 22 3 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Introduction My name is Chinedum Onwuka. I’m an accounting graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and the CEO of Sonkas Trading Enterprise @sonkasbakingmaterials on Instagram & Facebook. I founded this business of selling baking supplies in 2018 after some months of “Learning the trade”. Sonkas has served over 1000 customers (most of who are returning) in this short period, which comprises of Wholesalers in Aba, Umuahia, Ikom, Eket, Obigbo, PortHarcourt Markets, Bonny Island, Uyo, Yenagoa, Calabar as well as bakers across Nigeria. Believe it or not, we are just getting started. So are you thinking of entering the baking materials business? Perhaps you're a baker and you want to diversify.. Or you're currently into the business but sales are not coming forth. I understand that o. I used to come to work in 2018 (when I commenced business) and sit down and sleep and play Ludo. Sales were very poor. Gradually things changed..If I have to play my beloved Ludo now, I have to make out time for it. But it wasn't the passage of time ALONE that changed my story..It was some things I was doing. Those things are what I want to share with you in this book. You’re at the right place. Are you ready? Let’s go! PS: Even if you are not in the baking supplies business, The nuggets contained in this book applies to a wide range of businesses. baking materials, tools and equipment 4 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Starting The Business The first question I ALWAYS ask myself or anyone who intends to start a business is .. “Alaye, how do you plan to get your customers”? If you never figure that one out I no go lie for you.. Don't bother. If you just plan to launch without: Cheaper source of goods Sweet location of your store (if offline) Superb marketing strategy Or whatever advantage, I no go lie for you, no waste your time. It's not that it might not work, but the chances are slim guy. The climb could also be slow and frustrating. Capital Requirement I hope you also have reasonable capital to start with? I'm not calling any figures before you people say Mr. Sonkas has come again. But I hope it's reasonable enough? I'm a firm believer in START WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, yet a very realistic person. I don't know how you plan to start a pure water factory with 100k capital.. ..Or cake tool business with 50k capital.. Well you can, this is not my specialty. In-fact I no sabi abeg, All things should be possible with the help of God. So let me not dwell on this, lets move to the next thing.. Products To Start With You should start relatively little even if you have a lot of money, and then increase what your customers are buying most. As a seller, I know that : For Aluminium foil, (the type used in wrapping moin-moin) People in Portharcourt use more of Xtrathick Foil Brand while those in Akwa-Ibom buy more of Superior Foil Brand. For Icing Sugar, People in Portharcourt also buy more of Susan Icing Sugar than people in Akwa-ibom who buy more of Bakers Choice Icing. baking materials, tools and equipment 5 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com So what moves might be dependent on your location. Start small and know what your customers demand more of, then buy that. So you don't tie up valuable capital and start battling expiry dates. Also make sure the items your supplier is giving you have far expiry dates. Also make sure the supplier is not overcharging you in terms of prices, because he can see you're a JJC (novice). That being said, On a general note, You'd like to have: Margarine = Bucket, Sachet and Bulk (15kg as they call it) Icing sugar Sugar Flour Yeast Baking soda Colouring Flavours For these materials listed above, the particular brand that sells fast is usually location based as I illustrated with the Aluminium Foil example. However , those are the general baking materials you should stock. As For Baking Tools, you might want to have: Measuring cup and spoons Piping bag Cake board (more of round and size 8,10 and 12) Cake Boxes (more of size 8, 10 and 12) Spatulas Palette knife Icing pump Smoother Scrapper Shape cutters Baking pans (more of Round and size 8 and 10) Handmixers Nozzles Turntables (Plastic and Metal) Rolling Pins (Candle, wood, and plastic) Note though that there is much less profit in Materials / Consumables than tools and equipment. All those margarine and icing sugar stuff...gain no dey am oo. At all. It's like 3% Gross profit margin. That's tiny..but they move much faster than the Tools which have better profit margins. baking materials, tools and equipment 6 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com You should be careful stocking tools. They can tie down money for Africa. You should be careful with materials as well.. You might battle expiry dates and rodents. That being said, I stock both. You can too.. But I'm just pointing it out so you know. If you are already in the business, you will by now have a fair knowledge of what your customers demand more. Your Location You will also have to decide which way to go, will it be a walk in store, or will you run online then fulfill orders via courier? Or both? Sha choose.. I wouldn’t go into details of which is better, because it really depends.. However, If your capital is low, you may want to strongly consider an online store being run FROM HOME as it would save you a lot of money in form of Rent, Store licenses, and maybe even transportation costs. Ultimately, you should assess your peculiar condition and choose which you think will work best for you. Let’s move. baking materials, tools and equipment 7 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Marketing Your Business This na my area. Because marketing is what makes money for a business. Marketing is not only for new customers o. Marketing is about: Finding customers Keeping customers Rinse and Repeat All your categories of customers should be marketed and re-marketed to. The marketing materials / strategies/ posts you put up should be speaking to one or all of your customer group. Sonkas has 3 major customer groups we serve: Wholesalers Bakers Cake Training Schools Which of my customer groups do you think I'm marketing to via this e-book? Which group do you think I’ll be targeting when I launch another course titled “HOW TO START A CAKE TRAINING SCHOOL AND GET STUDENTS?” Which group do you also think I'll be targeting when I launch another book “HOW TO PROPERLY COST AND CHARGE YOUR CAKES”?. You gerrit? Finding Customers I don't care what you do/sell. If your business doesn't have an online presence, you're making a huge mistake. Come on, this is 2020. It mustn't be a website. But you have to be online. It's a lot easier and cheaper to get customers that way. For free or with 5k you can start making small noise online. A good guide to help you decide which platform to go in on should be: Where are all your customers spending their time? Facebook, most likely. baking materials, tools and equipment 8 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com I don't like Facebook much though as the organic reach is kinda dead (People hardly see your posts on your business page unless you run Ads) Instagram? Killer platform for me. I sell cake tools. Where do you think all the bakers are showcasing their talent? Yea, Instagram. So Instagram is currently the deal for a cake supplies business. Bakers on Instagram be like sand. O porr! So yea open an account like now on the platform you feel your customers could be. You can still use your personal page on Facebook to talk about your product for now. No wahala. Just make sure you're talking. … make sure you're showing your business online on the platform you think your customers are. Keeping Customers Do you think it's wise to be steady pumping in new customers, and keep losing them through poor services? I always tell my staff especially when it comes to pricing “I value repeat business from a customer more than one-off huge profits.. I'm not happy that you sold this thing @ #700 when we can sell it at #600”. You make more money in the long run when you have a long string of customers who are satisfied with your services . If you're reading this and you buy your goods wholesale from Sonkas, I may have contacted you to tell you that “I was going through the invoices and I saw this item was sold to you at #700 but we are adjusting it to #650 so we owe you #2000 (assuming you bought 40pcs).. This might not be peculiar to your business, but the lesson is simple… Value Customer Retention as much as Customer Acquisition. This also reduces your average marketing cost. When I used to comb Port-Harcourt markets in search of Wholesale customers, each trip of leaving Aba to PH and back cost me up to 5k. Even if I make just 1 new customer, eventually I make back more than that 5k over the course of doing business together for many years to come. I have not run conversion Ads in months simply because repeat business from old customers keep us very busy at the store. I have told you now. This is a tip o, take it to the bank. baking materials, tools and equipment 9 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Let me write it in different fonts for you: Value Customer Retention as much as Customer Acquisition. Value Customer Retention as much as Customer Acquisition Value Customer Retention as much as Customer Acquisition. Also, If you are in the trading business, Pricing is important. Charge a fair & competitive price for your market oo. Avoid people that tell you to “Package” yourself so you can charge premium. My brethren, I'm not saying it's a lie o but this is ultimately a trading business. This isn't selling Kayan mata (charms) where people can debate whose products work better and patronise regardless of price.. Or a service business where the quality of results usually speak for itself... This is trading.. Unless one person is selling expired or fake products, a carton of Susan icing sugar is a carton of Susan icing sugar. Which package do you want to package now that will make someone buy yours 10% more expensive (ALL other things being equal?) Please if you know how, Please write the book, I wee buy 5 copies. I really need it. If prices were not important in a trading business, you think Amazon, Walmart, Shoprite would be hammering on their low pricing?You package pass them? I hope you don't misunderstand me though.. There are many businesses charging premium for regular goods… Don’t go about cutting your price & hoping to make up on turnover. It usually ends in premium tears. Know your costs, and charge a reasonable price which should be in line with what's obtainable around you. Personally I despise price wars. It's a lose-lose for everyone at the end. But your pricing will matter..Ultimately. Source your products from someone who sells well. Not just selling price but the landing cost to your warehouse is alright. After ordering a hand mixer from China for N2,800, you spend N4,000 shipping it when you can get it from a wholesaler near your location for N4,200. E make sense so? I have no supplier to recommend on this apart from Sonkas. Hehehe. Do your own research according to your location. baking materials, tools and equipment 10 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Note: Although Sonkas ships retail orders nationwide, we currently do not serve Wholesale customers outside Abia, Akwa-ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa, Imo, Cross-River state due to the cost of sending bulky items across . This is as of September 2020 though, we are still coming nationwide. Ps* All customers will not stay. Some will leave for unidentified reasons. Some for very illogical reasons. You might fire some yourself. Scratch that.. You SHOULD fire some yourself. The ones that disrupt your business operations. Fire them with an AK-47 double assault machine perere. Lol Some customers have left us. We have fired some ourselves. Mostly due to owing us and rudeness/being impossible to please or debt. I fired my biggest customer back then.. He used to demand goods of 600k+ at once. But he was always owing me. Another one was always complaining… Whenever we supply her goods we wait in fear.. If the vehicle transporting her goods broke down..she’d ask us why it broke down. Next, that the carton of icing sugar we gave her looked smaller.. She wants to return.. She once implied I was vicariously liable for her phone that was snatched from her..She was chatting with me when it got snatched she said.. Orisirisi. E shock me honestly One day She placed a late order and we couldn't meet up with supplying all the goods (icing sugar in particular) before the vehicle got filled up. We informed her and she understood until she went to pick up her items when they arrived at her location and saw her competitors goods (also supplied by us) with icing sugar. She called very upset and pointed out her observation. I explained that here at the store, different people handle different orders we receive and due to the fact that the order was placed late, the person loading her orders couldn't meet up before the vehicle filled up (All our goods are not stored in 1 location) . She wasn't having it. She accused us of favoring her competitor over her coupled with some insults, subtle threats and topped with curses. The camel's back shattered. Surgery won't even have helped. It was like dragon glass shattering White Walkers to bits. baking materials, tools and equipment 11 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com So I brought out my scissors and cut. No regrets. Another one, a baker .. we charged her #1000 for delivery to her destination which was not a regular route. We knew a particular driver who would run it for us.. My staff went to do the waybill.. Few minutes later, I receive a call from her (the customer) that we shouldn't give her goods to whichever driver we were planning to give it to.. That he was impatient & rude to her on the phone as she was trying to explain where exactly he will bring the goods to.. I apologized wholeheartedly and tried to calm her down.. My staff still at the park called me asking what should she do? I told her to go elsewhere and do the waybill..The new place charged #500 extra. It was not a regular route. We bore the extra cost to please an irate customer..My staff had to come back to make up the money. I called the customer that evening forming “caring business man” to know if she received her goods..No answer. The next morning I got a text message from her “Thanks for sending my order. Goodbye” The Goodbye didn't sound right.. I was confused.. I thought we went the extra mile to satisfy a customer? I called her back immediately. No response. Twice. Silence. Brethren, wetin you say make I do? Abeggg We are not perfect and there are customers we have offended. I feel deeply sorry whenever we don't meet up to our promise, but I just told these stories to illustrate that not everyone would be worth the trouble, so you don’t kill yourself with this commandment of retaining customers. All customers won't stay. It's an exercise in futility. Do your best, and leave the rest. Anything that constantly put you in negative anxiety or in a bad mood, is not good for you nor your business period. baking materials, tools and equipment 12 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com But just remember to VALUE CUSTOMER RETENTION as much as acquisition. Anaghi eji akpata atufuo aba ogaranya. (you can't accumulate wealth with wasteful habits) Paid Advertising I remember when I put my business Sonkas Trading Enterprise on Instagram January 3, 2019.. For the first 4 months or so. I refused to convert my page from a personal page to a business page. There are rumors that doing so reduces your organic reach (The ratio of people who see your post without you paying for Ads) because Facebook (which owns Instagram) wants you to spend money on Ads. I believe it's true. So I left my page on personal. One of the down side of personal pages is you can't run Ads. Fuck it, I was happy to be getting one or two orders from people without spending a dime dashing Zuckerberg my hard-earned money. Smart me. Looking back now, I just laugh. That wasn't smart. Will you rather: Spend 5k and make 30k Or Spend N0 , and make 10k? I’m not teaching Facebook Ads here. But try to run Facebook/Instagram/paid Ads. Everything mustn't be free. Abi you are a freeloader ni? Ana eji ego achu ego (Money is used to make money). It takes a bit of skill to learn how to get the most while spending the least, but you'd most likely still be better off than someone who isn't running any Ads. And hey, before you whine that Facebook is declining your card.. Have you tried using a barter card? (If you need the course video on how to create a free Barter Card, send "Barter Card" without the quotes to WhatsApp 09039297337). If the barter card doesn't work for you, there's no reason for you not to walk into your bank and open a dollar account and get a USD debit card. baking materials, tools and equipment 13 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Like you want me to sympathize with you that you can't tap into this wonderful era of getting customers while laying on your bed because Facebook is declining your payment method? When there's a solution? You never serious. The targeting options on Facebook are mind-blowing. You can make your ads to be shown to just people within your area. Although I don’t use many of the more advanced features, Facebook Ads have a lot of power. I've watched my younger sister @judify_ (on Instagram) build her clothing business from scratch to having 9 staff just on the back of good product, a little marketing strategy (Pre-order Sales) and Instagram Ads. Don’t waste the golden era. Facebook Ads won’t work as well as time goes by. Email marketing was king, it still works.. But it’s still not as good as it was 10 years ago. You get? Ps. WhatsApp marketing is currently “it”. Watch out for my book on WhatsApp marketing which drops October 2020. Follow @MrSonkas on Instagram if you want to be alerted when it drops. Paid advertising is part of marketing and marketing is too important.. Because marketing done right will lead to more sales.. More sales usually mean more profit.. More profit usually means you can hire more people and accommodate the increasing level of orders. Which will further increase profit and the cycle continues on and on... Draw you ears…MARKETING SHOULD BE YOUR FOCUS. Keep marketing That's how you grow. It should never end.. After watching your daily dose of KiddWaya and Nengi (for those that do), the next place you should should be headed to is www.google.com You should be on Google everyday.. Your search history should be : How to use Facebook marketing How to Run Ads WhatsApp marketing Marketing for a retail business baking materials, tools and equipment 14 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com That's all I really have for you in this book o.. O tan I keep delegating different aspects of my business out just to create more time for marketing . When some old customers that have my personal line contact me to place orders, I gently refer them to the office line. Or I take the order and just forward to the office WhatsApp for my staff to process. Nowadays the majority of the sales invoices are not written by me. I almost never pack orders. I'm not priding. Doing those things take up ALL of my time leaving me little time for MARKETING my business. And I know MARKETING should NEVER be neglected or relegated to a passive activity if Sonkas must grow. That's why I do it. Don’t fool yourself though. If your orders are low and you can manage everything yourself, then do that. When the orders grow, you go feel am yourself. On a side note, many successful businesses, their CEOs are also actively involved in marketing.. Perhaps that's why Elon Musk still comes on stage to introduce new Tesla models, why Tim Cook / Steve Jobs does the same for the iPhone and many other entrepreneurs. Start today. If you don’t know how to install Instagram, Google is a good place to start.. Don’t know how to use Google? Ask your nephew to teach you, ask that your friend you know is familiar with these things to show you how to set up an Instagram page. But saying you don’t know where to start in 2020 is not an acceptable excuse o. Growing Your Business (Additional Points) You can grow your business through: Record keeping Re-Investment Preventing Wastage Record Keeping Very important in growing a business. Doing business without record keeping is really like driving drunk… You might get to your destination but maybe with a lot of dent that would've been avoidable. baking materials, tools and equipment 15 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com You might also die in the process. When you're running a retail shop it could be really difficult to keep records. Honestly that's why we don't sell lots of items for now in very little quantities because it gets difficult to keep the records… But having no records is a no no. You should have a debtors book (more on credit sales later), you should keep track of your sales. Historically speaking, September is usually my worst month in terms of sales volume. When I see the pattern repeat, I know it's normal. Instead, I can compare with last year's corresponding sales value (of the same month ) to know if I'm really improving or not. That's why we don’t sell on credit. A lot of business people have little or no records. They just see a lot of cash in their tills and they assume it must be profits. But a little record keeping may have shown them that although they have 200k cash in their till, and 420k in the bank which makes a total of 620k, they are owing different suppliers a total of 843k. The person is in trouble without realizing it. Perhaps the salesgirls have been stealing the cash .. or inventory. He doesn't know. He just sees a lot of cash in his drawer and assumes things are OK at least. You can use this format below to roughly check your business health every week or as frequently as you can: Date Inventory = xx Cash at hand = xx Cash at Bank = xx Total Debtors= xx Total creditors= (xx) Goods in transit = xx Loan = (xx) Any other asset = xx TOTAL baking materials, tools and equipment 16 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Compare it to the previous period's report and ensure there was some growth. Where there's none, investigate the cause. This isn't proper accounting. Or a proper way to ascertain profits at all. But it will work. If you use this, it's better than not using any at all. Na stage by stage, just don't forget to level up and adapt to the new technology that your business requires as it grows. If you sell on credit, monitor the ratio of your money in other people's hands. Formula = ( Total debt/ Working Capital x 100) Working capital is current assets minus current liabilities. In lay man terms, add your inventory, debtors, goods in transit, Cash & bank figures then less the money you owe. Eg, if your total debtors amount to 230k , while your Working Capital is 900k, then your ratio will be: 230,000/900,000 x 100% = 25.6% Ensure the ratio is reducing or at least hasn't crossed a reasonable threshold, say 20%. But how would you do these if you have no records? Records help you take decisions. Number they say don't lie. Use a cheap or free accounting software if you can. Keep it updated. There's Instant Inventory App on Playstore to manage Inventory (stock). There are tons of FREE Apps to help with your book-keeping. The paid ones don't cost much.. More or less the cost of 1 Sunday Outing. So keep records. Debtors book, Sales Book, Purchases book, Expenses Book, etc. Re-Investment “Ana azu ego azu” (Wealth is built). Re-Invest in your business. If your marketing is working, pump more funds to it. Pump more funds when you need an extra staff... or more inventory.. add more product lines to meet demand, more gadgets and technology to help effeciency etc. I've spent good money.. On softwares.. (Sage cost me 150k), The Software I currently use isn’t free .. I have 2 laptops..one for the office. One at home. baking materials, tools and equipment 17 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com When the Infinix hot 6x we use at the store started being slow due to the number of contacts we have on WhatsApp, I went out and bought a higher device of 84k.. Brand new. I needed the faster processor and higher RAM. If my phone starts hanging when my whatsapp contacts get to 5k+ , you can bet your ass that i will buy a 500k device if i have to.. When our devices started dying on us frequently (battery), I bought a generator. . When I couldn’t cope with record-keeping, I hired a bookkeeper, upgraded the free accounting software we were using to Premium, and bought a thermal Bluetooth printer to save us further time. When taking orders through WhatsApp became unbearable (still is, but thank God for the website easing things.. Geez).. I paid for a website. Basically I buy every value adding equipment/ item that my business can afford. Till tomorrow I will keep paying for courses that I feel will help my business. I invest anything I can afford on my baby (business) as long as the benefit justifies the cost. One word on courses: Always listen to practitioners, not motivational speakers. Some people just package lots of bullshit and sell online as a means of making money. Some attend a course, then feel like experts, create their own courses and start selling, using sweet story selling tactics to get you to buy. Someone is selling a course on How to Build a Successful Marriage That Lasts, whereas he’s not married or his marriage is barely 2 years old or worse still, isn't even peaceful . The information he provides may be correct o but my point here is don't go about throwing money away and convince yourself that you're investing in your education as Mr Sonkas told you to. I will deny you 600 times. Don't be reckless with buying assets. Some investments were a waste for me. I eventually dumped Sage software after using it (Sage) roughly 4 months. Sage is good, but wasn't the best suit for my business at the time. It didn’t have some features i wanted. Some courses I bought were nicely packaged horse shit. baking materials, tools and equipment 18 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Preventing Leaks You won’t grow your business well if you keep losing money via leaks. Leaks can be in form of: Stock Wastages Theft Bad debt etc. Stock Wastages: Monitor expiry dates, use FIFO (First in First Out) to sell stock and communicate this clearly to your staff. Crosscheck goods received with what your supplier billed you. Mistakes occur.. Store inventory well, out of reach of rodents and accidental breakages. Theft: Bad employees steal, same as bad customers. The best way I combat this is by using an accounting app to crosscheck mathematical accuracy of data and through regular stock-taking. I have a staff, her major work is inventory. Recording, Storage, Stock taking, etc. There are goods we check the stock daily. Goods with high turnover and / or that are expensive. . Icing sugar is 7,200. 1 bag of Milk is 48k. 1 carton of Simas sachet margarine is 10,200 (as of Sept, 2020) Imagine losing a carton to theft or mistake? My profit for the next 40 cartons may have been wiped. Think of control processes to help protect your inventory, cash and other business assets from theft/loss, especially if you have staff. A business without controls to prevent some of these things sometimes encourage theft. Even an employee that ordinarily would not have stolen, when they see how easily they can get away with stuff, one day the idea will occur to them. If your business is heavy on inventory like mine, take stock- taking very seriously. baking materials, tools and equipment 19 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Bad Debt: Have you been looking for a cheap and fast ride to your village? Sell on credit without caution. When your friends ask for your product on credit to pay back “Month end” , Sell and tell him “No Problem”. Lemme advice you though. Go to the market and price a travelling bag you like the design.. Because your village home-coming no far again. Don't say I didn't warn you o.. Monitor your credit levels and get your debtors to pay up ASAP. If possible, totally avoid selling on credit. If you read this book well and implement it, within some months, you will get cash customers that would make you stop wondering if you'll meet up with the next rent payment. Don't attack me yet I get it. Sometimes desperation to sell will make you want to sell goods off on credit. So you can know you “sold” that day. I used to come to work back in 2018 and my only target used to be “Let me make up to 1,600 profit”. How can i forget? 1,600 was my daily cost; Transport To and Fro = 200 Breakfast = 400 Lunch = 400 Shop rent then came to 600 naira a day. No Staff I didn't use to pay myself a salary. After the day I would use a calculator to estimate my profits.. If it crossed 1,600 I would be happy. If it was under, I would be a bit sad. If I was under for days in a row, mini depression kowai. One day I asked myself “O ukwa a ka nama ji aga Umuahia” (Is this how I would get to my destination? baking materials, tools and equipment 20 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com If you are asking yourself same question... The solution lies largely in marketing. Please pardon my digression. Go on Google now Search “Marketing strategies for a xxxx business” Replace xxxx with your business industry. Read. Re-Read Jot down ideas as they come Tweak it Try some out (without spending a fortune o) Notice the ones that work Double down on them. For me, it's WhatsApp Marketing. I’m firing down on it. It's been serving great for Sonkas Trading Enterprise. I’m currently writing a book (NOT FREE o) on WhatsApp marketing. I will launch it next month (October) hopefully.. But lemme finish this one first. My main business is selling baking supplies, ebook na side hustle.. This book you're reading is a marketing tool for me. I’m making it FREE not because i don’t like money. But I know FREE will make the most people download it.. When they read it and like that I imparted something in them. They will trust me.. Some will follow my personal page on Instagram @MrSonkas to get more updates, Some will follow my business page @sonkasbakingmaterials. Some will follow both (shebi you will follow both?) But more importantly, most of you will know, like and trust Sonkas..Some will patronise me, And you will recommend me to your friends who may want cake tools (thank you in advance). Ehen, I have finished digressing. Lol So yea the desperate times came.. Plenty days of no sales. Like Arsenal FCs losing streak.. Pathetic. baking materials, tools and equipment 21 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com I yielded. I sold some uncalculated credit some days. Though I was not as reckless, I did. The credit I give myself though was.. I had records. I knew how much of my capital was in other people's hands. I worked with the ratios then. I tried to keep it to less than 20% of my capital. 20% means not more than one-fifth of my capital was in other people's hands. As my business grew , and I got more customers, I cut the ones that used to tie down my money. Gradually I kept cutting and cutting, And cutting.. Maybe I should've really been a tailor..Cutting makes me happy. It reduces my anxiety /blood pressure. My debt ratio is more like 5% these days; comprising people that know to return Sonkas money ASAP ... It's better for me jare. I no like wahala .. lol In my short time running this business, I've seen people open businesses and shut down. Sister, the culprit was almost always debt. I'm not making up stories. I was lucky. I only lost 42500 then... Yea, to a family friend who decided to “patronise” me. #ThugLife . We move. baking materials, tools and equipment 22 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com In Conclusion For some reason, life issues may not let you be great. Difficult Pregnancy, Family issues, Health issues, Etc. I respect that and I empathize with you if you're in that bracket. However, this is not the case of 95% of the people reading this. As humans we just love to make excuses.. And convince ourselves that they are valid excuses. Including my humble self. Luckily for me I'm honest with myself. I hope you are too. I know when I'm fooling myself. Thankfully, I don't fool myself for too long. One easy to know if you're fooling yourself is.. Are you Healthy? Do you have functioning Legs and hands? Aboki if you replied YES to both above, you have it better than you think. Leave your excuses now and go do. First action is tough but start with baby steps. Hehe I'm beginning to sound like a motivational speaker oo…lemme stop lol. After all has been said, please the lessons in this book as a guide not as a law. There are many ways to kill a rat. What I said up there might not apply to your business. For example, if I sold e-books as a source of living, I COULD be more lenient with credit sales. What's the profit margin on an e-book? 80%? But me wey dey sell Butter with 3-5% margins? Hehehe You get the point? You're doing well. Like I said, this is a guide, THERE'S NO TEACHER BETTER THAN BEING A PRACTITIONER. baking materials, tools and equipment 23 www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com Thank God you read this book even up to this point. It's a good sign. But that's the easiest part. Nothing will beat DOING. Thanks for staying with me up till now. I believe you learnt something valuable. I’d love to hear your feedback! You can contact me through my personal Instagram page @MrSonkas. Let me know your thoughts about this book. Give me some time to revert though.. I run a business full time. Please do not message our official WhatsApp line oo for feedback relating to this book.. That one is solely for business plus you’d most likely not be chatting with me. Feel free to share this amazing book with as many as you feel may need it. They would thank you for it. The End It's the beginning for you. Go and do. Sonkas Trading Enterprise www.sonkasbakingmaterials.com baking materials, tools and equipment