Admittedly, I did a little research on this first word before using it as the title, so please excuse any misinterpretations that I did not account for.  Kwanza is the Swahili word for first or best.  Kwanzaa is a holiday celebrated primarily by African-Americans and certain parts of west Africa.  I first heard the use of this word during my first week in sales activation.

A sales activation is the promotion of a new product in the market to boost sales.  Burn Manufacturing has a team of 10 sales activators.  They travel around Nairobi and surrounding areas to not only sell our stoves, but our passion for the environment and health of all people.  We have recently secured retail space in all of the large supermarkets in Kenya.  The stove retails for 3,800ksh which is approximately $42.  As you can imagine this is not a cheap stove.

The average household uses between 100-300ksh of charcoal per day to cook three meals.  The jikokoa (saving stove) boasts 55% reduction in charcoal and a 65% reduction in smoke/indoor air pollution. For some quick math, the average person will save 110ksh per day which makes the payback just over a month, and produces and annual savings of over 36,000ksh or just over $400.  If you could see a ten-fold return on investment in just one year, that’d be quite a no-brainer!

I digress.  It’s easy to see why the Swahili sales pitch includes “kwanza”.  I have taken (very slowly) to learning as much Swahili as I can.  “Jiko” is stove and “okoa” is to save.  Hence the name jikokoa.  This stove uses “makaa” as a fuel.  It also cooks in half the time and stays cool to the touch to reduce risk of burn injury especially to children.  It’s manufactured in Kenya, designed collectively with american engineering principles and there’s a one-year warantee.  Are you getting excited yet?  You can check out the manufacturing operations at http://www.burnmanufacturing.com and the research arm at http://www.burndesignlab.org.  Feel free to purchase or donate!

If you feel inclined or obligated, I have now succeeded in sales.  If not, well, it’s only my first week.  Though I’ve never been formally trained, speaking convincingly about something I believe in is not difficult.