A couple months ago I started working on a corporate sales structure to boost sales volumes by selling directly to the staff of large corporations in Kenya. Most corporations have a SACCO which stands for savings and credit co-operative.  It allows staff to take micro loans and use pay roll deduction as a means of purchasing necessities for their families. This can range from solar lamps and stoves all the way to motorcycles and cars.  

In my very first tag-along with our general manager, my task was to observe and follow through.  On the chaotic ride to the first factory Eoin gave me the brief run down of how these things are supposed to work.  The only catch is we hadn’t yet had a successful corporate sale so the model included a lot of flexibility and negotiations. 

1. Speak to the Managing Director- “He” typically does not use charcoal to cook and has very limited perspective of the cooking needs of his staff.  We pitch the product, receive a relatively useless approval to sell, move down the chain.

2. Re-pitch to the HR Manager who handles payroll.  “She” does not use charcoal anymore.  But if you pitch correctly, you can get her to admit that her house girl uses charcoal, and that there’s a good likelihood most of the staff are using it as well.  Once she’s on board you move to the SACCO.

3. The SACCO has a chairman who makes the final decision on whether or not to sell, buying and selling price, payment terms and bonuses. This is the fun part. Once the terms are agreed upon then you are ready to activate and sell.

Steps 1-3 (with the exception of agreeing on the terms) can happen in the course of a couple hours.  Agreeing on terms is very uncomfortable for the SACCO because they’ll never express complete satisfaction. 

4. Activate the market. Our stove is a push product. Unless you see how it works, and someone directly encourages you to buy it, you won’t splurge on a stove that is 10x the price of the traditional option. We send a team of highly skilled Kenyan sales activators to demonstrate the stove, pitch the terms and benefits and hustle people to sign up for a loan. 

Repeat step 4 as much as needed-  Typically 3-5 times within a few weeks- before they actually purchase stoves

5. Take order for stoves. Our turn around and delivery time can be as quick as same day. 

6. Deliver stoves- upon which the first payment is due.

At this point, if these steps have gone according to the initial memorandum of understanding, you’re probably not working in Kenya. Realistically…

5. Send stoves because we know that once you’ve seen them, you’ll be more likely to buy.

6. Call, email, text, and send nasty hate letters to the chairman reminding him that he owes you a purchase order, new customer agreement and the first payment because the person delivering the stoves forgot to collect a check.

7. Head to his office in person after sitting in traffic for 3 hours due to hasty construction for presidential visit. 

8. Watch him fill out each item in great detail and patiently listen to all his stories, complaints, and pleas for renegotiation, because remember you are not giving him a good deal. 

9. Think you are done after 1 hour and 3 pieces of paperwork, to find that the person who needs to sign the check sits in another office down a busy road with more pot holes than flat road, right before rush hour.

10. Drive to second office to receive signed check and first have a cup of tea, talk about business and then, expectedly, renegotiating terms… 

11. Breathe.

12. Collect signed check, do victory dance and drive home before the traffic eats you alive.