BizGrowth with Augusta Nkanu

Apart from my recipe, another thing that has contributed significantly to the growth and stability of is our high staff retention.

I launched Premium MelonyPine in June 2023 and one of the things I knew I wanted to do was to establish a brand that was solid and well structured - a brand that could work well without my input and daily availability.

Building MelonyPine daily has made me understand that a business cannot grow and consolidate fast in the face of instability - when you’re changing staff here and there every single time.

So from Day One when I hired my first staff, I knew I was going to have to find a way to keep as many of my staff as I could to ensure some form of stability.

I had already tasted being the only one handling everything in my business and I knew it was unsustainable.

What did I do?
I first began with paying them the salaries they asked for so they could at least commit to the work.

Then as we grew, I told them their lives would improve as the brand grew and they began singing it as a song “as MelonyPine is growing, so will I be growing too”.

Fast forward to some time later, I set a structure in place for salary raise every six months that they worked with us, put in place some transportation allowance and other things to make their lives easier and kept to our word.

One thing that has greatly helped me in leading these people also is being in touch with reality.

I see and know how much things cost in the market and how much transportation costs because I always ask questions.

I know it would make no sense to offer any of them 30k as salary knowing that the amount may be insufficient for food and transportation.

This is why we work so hard as well to ensure business is growing.

That first staff stayed with us for two out of the almost three years of our operations, taught so many other staff, headed departments and transferred knowledge that helped keep MelonyPine stable.

Today we have several others who have crossed two years with us and a lot more who have crossed one year as well.

Business stability will help your business grow fast.
This is a simple truth.

Every now and then, someone asks me how I protect my recipe from my staff and if I’m not scared of them stealing it and all that.

I’ll answer this question simply in this post.

As someone building a brand that’s focused on production and who is very passionate about structure and scaling, I’m constantly in a place where my every decision must be in favour of

So one of the ways I deal with this is by creating my mixes and then labeling them and giving to those who produce the items.

After the mixes are made, we can call one “powder one” or call another one “syrup 3” and then we just instruct the team to add one or two scoops or cups of each of the mixes into whatever they’re doing.

Also, we have all measurements of the mixes documented so that if a member of the team isn’t available, someone else can pick up the written document and replicate the same results across all our branches.

As for being afraid of someone stealing a recipe, the truth is business is beyond a recipe.

MelonyPine is standing not just because of a recipe but because of several other things we’ve worked so hard to build into the business to make it function whether or not the team lead is available.

So if you’re concerned about anyone knowing your recipe, create your mixes and label them.
Then give your people measurements they can work with and get the same results as what you’d get.

Keep it simple for scalability and structure things by documenting.
This allows for consistent results.

I hope this helps.

Augusta how have you managed to have and retain so many staff in ?

I’ll mention just one or two of the many things I do in this post and it’s not a one size fits all, it’s just one of the many things that has worked for me.

Simply put, I worked on myself.

I am a Choleric and a very driven one.
I’m also a Melancholy with a high tendency to be very pessimistic and want perfection or nothing.

Back then in my home Church in Calabar, my Pastor used to teach us that if you go to different locations and everyone had the same thing to say about you, it meant you needed to work on yourself and I took that to heart and began to invest heavily in self development.

I had the opportunity to test my work while I was teaching teenagers in a secondary school where I worked in Calabar before I launched MelonyPine and we know how difficult raising teenagers can be.

Now fast forward to me launching a brand and desiring to go very far with this brand, 99% of my staff are young people with minds of their own and very opinionated.

The training of years ago became what helped me navigate through leading people who can immediately leave if the environment doesn’t serve them.

In my years of training, I learned how to reduce my demands and expectations, acknowledge effort and reward as often as possible with words and anything else that would be useful and I learned how to bring myself down to the level of the people I am leading, making them feel safe enough to relate with me.

I also learned to create a balance between being firm, disciplined, loving and raising right.

So my staff feel seen, heard, safe and happy to work in a non toxic space especially because I teach my leaders to do same.

I have a few staff who are just a bit older than me - I teach respect for both young and old and scold as well as discourage disrespect and unnecessary show of who’s the boss.

I have my staff all over my comment sections, I have them sending me sweet messages and I enjoy their goodwill a lot.

I’m certain that if I didn’t take the time to become a better version of myself, I’d have a different story.

This is part of what has worked for me.
I may share more😃

Influencer marketing does not work… except you know what to do with it.

We signed our first influencer for Premium in May 2024 and it converted for us for a couple reasons I’ll be sharing in this post.

1. We spent time developing our product and ensured it was great enough to not embarrass the influencer.

2. We spent time and energy spreading our product as far as we could go so that we had people who at least knew and supported us. They showed up in the comment section to show their support when he posted us.

3. We did our best to satisfy customers and this helped push our credibility and build trust for us faster when he posted us.

4. When he posted us, we engaged with comments in his comments section, posted content back to back on our page for those who were following newly and answered questions and objections promptly.

5. We did not depend solely on the influencer to do all the work, we ran ads that reached the new people who knew us from him and worked on our sales funnel to close sales as much as possible.

6. We delivered what we promised… making it easy for the influencer to be on our side. It would have been different if we had embarrassed him.

7. We chose someone who understood our niche and could sell it to his followers.

8. We negotiated deals that could allow us use his videos for ads to pull in more sales after the initial posting.

I’ll stop here… but please I want you to know that the work when you sign an influencer does not rest on them alone.
You have to work together with them to ensure conversion.

Also, understand why you want to sign an influencer before you go for it.
Is it for sales or for awareness?

This will help you appreciate your results and not have to drag anyone because they didn’t give you what you assumed you expected.

Lastly be very clear on what you want from them, negotiate well, understand that there’s no magic involved in influencer marketing.

Happy new week.
May God bless your business in this week.

📍Picture at 36 weeks😃
👗
🥿 .wholesales

Now is a good time to remind you to consistently do the right things for your business.

Some of the right things to do:

- Market your business like you’re a cra*zy person.

Talk about it every single day.
Get your business in the faces of people no matter what.

Don’t pay attention to people who tell you you’re doing too much, do that too much for your business.

- Structure your business no matter how small it is or if you’re just starting or not.

Structure will help you put things in place and arrange your business in a way that allows it function properly and with ease to produce better results.

- Be clear about what you offer and your positioning without being tossed to and fro.

Every business is positioned to serve either the mass or premium market.

Which are you serving and what products exactly are you offering?

Do you have your systems in place and is your output consistent?

Not today you are doing one thing, tomorrow another…

- Set up your business customer journey and make sure it’s so good that your customers enjoy not just your product but your service.

There are more things I can add to this but I’ll stop here for now.

It’s always not even about consistency, but you can consistently be doing the wrong things and may never see results.

Now is the time to fix these things for better results in your business.

I love you and I’m rooting for you to win.
❤️

People carry graces.

One of the best things you can do for yourself is to learn to honor people who carry the graces you covet.

If you see people doing certain kinds of things easily and without stress while achieving results, they carry a grace for that thing and I’ll give an example.

In my opinion, woman who raises nine kids who all turn out so well and sound without any of them becoming a prayer point has an unusual grace that only God could have bestowed on her.

You may not see it as a big deal until you hear what some other kids put their parents through.

Or someone has cr*azy results in their business, certain aspects of their lives, marriage or anything at all, that person has a grace for that thing and it simply means you can covet that grace and it works for you too.

But if you make a habit out of disrespecting and dishonoring people, joining everybody to drag everybody, it simply means what you despise can never be yours.

The same way God anointed Jesus with the HolyGhost and power is the same way He is anointing people today with uncommon wisdom, knowledge, strategy, and insights.

The moment you’re able to connect with these people, you’re able to tap into these graces and eventually get similar results that you desire especially when you understand that men are doors.

You cannot afford to rub shoulders with everybody or just take them lightly.

There are many things money cannot give you but honor and relationships will give you cheaply.

The anointed person may not care that you disrespect them but what they carry will care and this is why you cannot have what you despise.

When I look at people like my Mentor, I’m convinced that she has been engraced with wisdom, clarity and the ability to generate results with ease.

I started following and here we are today.

Learn how to honor people, it’s not about whether or not you like them.

If they carry something you desire, honour them.
This is how most of us live our lives and get the results we have.

📍Men are doors, be rich in money and in relationships.

Customers do not care about your feelings or anything else apart from buying what you say you’re selling and being satisfied with what they bought.

If you say you sell something, understand that you are among so many other options and customers don’t necessarily owe you loyalty or their money.

If you have your products available, they will buy and they reserve the right to give feedback, whether or not you’ll attach emotions to it is dependent on you and your ability to manage things you don’t like.

Now if you apply for an event as big as GTco in this day and time when we all have so much information at our disposal, the best thing to do is make findings about this event and prepare accordingly.

If I were a new vendor to such an event, I will ensure that at every given time I have at least 10-20 servings of my products.

I will think and ask myself, what if a set of friends come or a family and they want to buy for everyone?

I will make provision for refills and be very proactive and ready to do what needs to be done to keep serving the people who come to buy from me.

I say this because I know that from the point of applying, I have enough time to prepare, market and let people know I will be present and they can buy from me.

It doesn’t look good that people come to buy from you and you say you don’t have your products.
You won’t be taken seriously apart from the fact that you’ve disappointed that customer.

Holding onto past disappointments also don’t help - business is synonymous with risk taking.

On some days, you win and you loose on some days - it doesn’t mean you shut down.
You simply wake up and keep it going.

And your mindset plays a big role too.
Not every time “what if I don’t sell?”
Some times, ask yourself “what if I sell a lot?”
Ask yourself, if I don’t sell a lot, what’s the worst that can happen?

You want to grow?
Start now and set your structure up.
Understand planning & inventory management.
Be willing to take risks, stop playing safe.
Be teachable, not everyone is trying to attack you.

📍No growth can happen in comfort zones, we often do it afraid.

I’m in severe pains.
My chest is paining me right now.

I attended the just concluded GTco event over the weekend and I have a lot to say, but my chest is tight and I’m just very worried and concerned.

On day 1, I asked that in addition to the food and drinks my staff who went were given, they should be given pizza and more nice stuff.

The leader in charge went to buy and the pizza person said they had only 3 and this was by 5-6pm, event ends by 10pm.
We could not buy the pizza.

On day 2, I went with one of my sisters.
Before going, I sent funds and asked someone to buy ice cream and banana bread for my staff, I was to pick up as soon as I got there.

Men and brethren, we got there to pick up and ice cream person said she didn’t expect to sell 12 cups at once so it was unavailable… she would make it and bring it.

I asked my sister to purchase 10 pieces of one snack I liked, the vendor didn’t have 10 but 3 and she had to wait so long for them to make 10, I was so agitated.

This was 5-6pm, more hours left.

At this same time, in my stand they had requested 500 extra bowls in my presence!!!

It became so bad that anywhere we were going, we needed to start asking vendors if they had to sell because I was getting very pi**ed!

What is our problem vendors?
Lack of structure? Capacity? Common sense?
What is it really?

You go for an event as biggggg as that and you have 3 pieces only with hours left to the end of the event???

How is it really doing us?
And your stands are in front oo unlike us that they always throw at the back!

I’m trying so hard to be nice in this post but what are we really doing please?

The day I decide to teach structure, I will say my mind.
For now, please I beg us to sit up.

There is money to be made but we are the weapons fashioned against our businesses, I promise.

One vendor is asking for 500 bowls by 5-6pm, another has 3 pieces to sell at the same time - event ends by 10pm!

It is very very well with us.
💔