Branding her way to success

Most people quit employment to go into business because they are in a rut in their careers or because they feel that the career they went into isn’t quite for them. For Karimi, her need to quit employment was spurred by success in her career.

“Three years ago, I was working as the head of marketing for a communications consultancy firm in Juba. I was away from home selling my employer’s product to people with who spoke a different language and still, I was good it. I thought that if I could do business with these people, how much better could I do at selling my own products in a place I am familiar with?” she recalls her turning point.

So she packed her bags and came home to start a business. She had no idea which line of business she wanted to explore at this point.

FINDING HER PASSION

Kelly is a natural marketer. She is warm, chatty and has a contagious sense of humour. She had worked in marketing for nine years and moved up to management level when she quit employment and came back to her home in Chuka. “For most of 2015, I was searching for something to do. All I knew was that I love fashion and I wanted to do something in fashion,” she says.

She didn’t want to sell clothes though. She wanted to do something that would have a personal touch. Her first idea was customising hoodies. “I started customising hoodies for myself and for my son who seven at the time. I shared our photos on Facebook and friends began making orders.”

She had no machines so she would take the orders, travel to Nairobi to have the branding done and then travel back to make the deliveries. It was when she started getting orders from companies and from groups of people, especially for funeral shirts, that she decided to make her hustle official.

STARTING SMALL

Kelly had a lot of enthusiasm and a business idea that potential clients seemed to like… but it was now close to 12 months since she had walked out of her job. She had been living on her savings and now she had very little left.

“The first thing I did at the beginning of 2016 was find a mentor. I looked for an older gentleman who has been in the branding industry for decades to show me the ropes,” she says.

Then she found someone who could sell her the screen printing machine she needed on hire purchase. Next, she asked for a soft loan from a friend and sought premises.

“Then I got two employees and one computer. For one full month, we came to work every morning and spent the day just looking at each other,” she recalls.

Then she got her first client.

“I will never forget him. He just walked in with a black t-shirt. He wanted a design drawn on it, which we did, and he loved. The payment wasn’t much but it gave me an exhilarating feeling. I was selling something of my own and someone had just bought it!”

In the days that followed, Kelly did what she does best. While her team did the art work, she took charge of the marketing. She would get on a boda boda and ride into nearby towns to distribute fliers. Her efforts started paying off.

“It was a tough beginning. I lost a lot of weight. Were it not for my best friend Mwende and my family, coping would have been harder,” she says. Today, perched on the 2nd floor of Misako Building in Chuka, her company is now a fully-fledged branding company specialising in garment printing. “We are not where I want us to be but looking back, we have definitely made some strides,” she says.

The most valuable lesson she has learnt on this journey?  “Business doesn’t give you freedom at the beginning. Its hard work. The first year, we worked many long hours. It was so bad that when my son was home, I took him to work so that I could spend time with him,” she says. To get this freedom, where her business can run without her daily input, is Kelly’s ultimate goal.

KELLY’S SUCCESS SECRETS

•   She goes the extra mile to be good to people. People, she reckons, make the business.

•  Despite the fact that she started her business in a small town, she refused to conform.

•  She doesn’t compromise on quality. Word spreads, she warns.

•  She is very forgetful. To curb this, she doesn’t procrastinate. She acts on each idea as it comes.