{"id":39171,"date":"2018-08-10T00:27:18","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T00:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/cregital\/disha\/2018\/08\/10\/defending-your-turf-providing-value-for-your-customers\/"},"modified":"2018-08-10T00:27:18","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T00:27:18","slug":"defending-your-turf-providing-value-for-your-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/msmehub.org\/staging\/6671\/defending-your-turf-providing-value-for-your-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Defending your Turf – Providing value for your Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I moved to Gbagada, Lagos Nigeria, a
\nfew years ago and I still remember clearly what “The Prince Superstore”
\nwas. The Prince used to be the only supermart in the locality. The
\nbusiness was simple – sell the basics. However, in recent years, I have
\nwitnessed a deliberate attempt by the business owners to diversify
\nrevenue streams. The question is – “if I have ten thousand people walk
\ninto my store daily, what else can I offer them?”<\/p>\n

Over the years, The Prince has
\nincluded the village market where they sell tubers and other food items.
\n The store now has a smoothie bar! In this day and age, where people are
\n more conscious of their health, a smoothie bar within the store is not a
\n bad idea. Recently, I saw a vanity store, where women can buy all their
\n accessories from human hair to jewellery amongst others.Surprisingly,
\nthey added Suya, Shawarma, pepper soup and other snacks to their service
\n offerings. I concluded that the owners of this business are trying to
\nensure that their 10,000 customers have all they require from one spot.<\/p>\n

How to retain your clientele<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is important for your startup to
\nthink about what else to offer to its range of clients. The best way to
\nview this is to understand the space your business is playing in. Then
\nyou seek to understand the behaviour of your customers and see what
\ncomplementary services you can offer. Imagine you are in a food
\nbusiness. Consumer behaviour suggests that people that buy food might
\nalso request drinks. Then you can offer drinks to these sets of
\ncustomers.<\/p>\n

A number of startups have expanded
\ntheir business using this strategy. Hotels.ng started as an online hotel
\n booking platform, but now, it has transited gradually to become a
\nforemost online travel agent by adding other service offerings to its
\nhotel booking business. Now on its platform, you can buy airline tickets
\n or book a holiday package. <\/p>\n

Cars45 is another example. It started
\n as a platform for used car sales, now you can trade in your old car for
\n a different one. Again, I applaud this quality of thinking. People want
\n to buy a newer car, but they currently drive one. What typically
\nhappens is that the buyer will first have to look sell his current car,
\nadd a few hundred thousand naira to buy a new one. What Cars45 has done
\nis that it has taken away that stress of you looking for a buyer for
\nyour old car. You can complete the transaction all on a single platform.<\/p>\n

SureRemit just concluded an ICO to
\nleverage Blockchain technology for remittance services to Africa. I
\nbelieve that this offering is from learnings from its existing business –
\n SureGifts. Relatives abroad want to send in cash for specific purposes
\nincluding food for the family, relatives’ school fees or medicine for
\nthe grandmother. But a lot of times, some of these monies are
\nmisappropriated by the uncle that received the cash, hence the need to
\nbuy the value (through a gift card) rather than send cash. This same
\nrationale can then be extrapolated to people trying to send cash to
\nspecific people.<\/p>\n

Flutterwave started by providing
\npayment infrastructure for businesses and other payment gateways, but
\nnow, through Rave, it is competing with some of its own customers. To
\nstay relevant in this business, you have to own your value chain. Your
\nbusiness is as strong as its weakest point, please remember that.<\/p>\n

I can go on and on about examples of
\nNigerian startups already doing this, but I think EVERY startup should
\nlook for ways to ensure that they add a lot more value to their current
\nlist of customers. So, in the coming days, I will expect PiggyBank to
\noffer loan services at least to its consistent savers. This will no
\ndoubt serve as an additional incentive to save on the platform. <\/p>\n

Defending your Turf<\/strong><\/p>\n

You, however, need to be careful that
\n your startup is not an extension of another. This is a tricky point and
\n it is dependent on how fast you grow. For instance, Facebook wanted to
\nconsolidate its position as the leading social media site. Based on
\nconsumer data, users prefer images and really short videos, hence the
\nneed to incorporate that into their business. Rather than building their
\n own product, Facebook acquired Instagram. In other to deepen engagement
\n with the younger generation, Snapchat was another interesting
\nacquisition target. However, the founders of Snap were not willing to
\nsell, hence Facebook was compelled to build its own Snapchat features on
\n all of its platforms including Instagram and WhatsApp. <\/p>\n

If your startup is an extension of
\nanother, you have to grow quickly enough to be a potential acquisition
\ntarget. If not, you might just lose that space to the bigger company who
\n will just build the feature on its own platform, thereby killing your
\nstartup.<\/p>\n

In conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You need
    \nto diversify your revenue stream by ensuring that your customers have
    \naccess to all they might need within that vertical from your platform. I
    \n am not saying that Hotels.ng should add online retail to its business.
    \nBut I am saying that if it has Hotels listed, Holiday Packages, Airline
    \nTicket, why not add a taxi service at least for airport pick up and drop
    \n off.<\/li>\n
  2. Be careful
    \n if your business is an extension of an already existing (larger)
    \nbusiness. This is because the larger business can just add the feature
    \nto its own. But if you grow fast enough, you can just be an acquisition
    \ntarget, or you might expand your operations to compete with the larger
    \nbusiness. Anything can happen!<\/li>\n
  3. It is all about creating value for the customers and ensuring that your business stands the test of time.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Happy Entrepreneuring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Defending your Turf – Providin…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1095,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[316,348,350,303],"tags":[697,500,392,735,747,600],"class_list":["post-39171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expanding-your-business","category-operations","category-sales-strategy","category-start-up-basics","tag-business-expansion","tag-customer-service","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-msmes-in-nigeria","tag-retaining-your-customers","tag-startups"],"yoast_head":"\nDefending your Turf - 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