Why I shut down my Perfume business and how it can help you grow.

I want to tell you about what happens when erosion meets you in a business, using myself as an example.

I have been using agriculture as a foundation to show you why you should apply fertility to business, so I will still use it to give you this gist.

In Agriculture, Erosion is something farmers experience that is usually beyond their control.

Erosion means the gradual destruction or diminution of something. This is typically caused by wind, water and other natural agents that the farmer cannot control.

In January 2021, I started my own fragrance business by myself after leaving the other one I was managing.

I started well.

Product, Experience from the past, sales knowledge, encouragement etc

I was on the right track. My ads were converting, I was selling and I was doing really well.

By month 3, I had done way better than I was doing in the other business I left. 

I even sent out care packages to those who supported me as a way of saying thank you.

By the first week of the fourth month (April), I was eroded.

Facebook stopped my ads and my sales were reduced by a lot.

I kept it pushing but by the second week of the same month my page got deleted by Instagram.

Ghen Ghen.

I was sad o but I was like, “na just page”.

I created another page.

Zuck and co deleted it, again!!

Instagram deleted 6 pages and rendered 4 ad accounts useless, all in under 2 months.

I went from making ₦1M a month in sales to ₦200k a month to ₦50k a month to ₦0.

I crashed.

If you were me, you would have crashed too.

This was a business that I had put all my focus into because I wanted to distract myself from the pain of heartbreak.

When my sales stopped. I crashed. HARD.

Still having small faith because na me, I can do this thing. 

I went out and bought a new iPhone 8 because it was like the people at Instagram knew my Samsung and were fighting any activity that happened on it.

I created a new page, but I didn’t have money to run ads.

Why?

I had eaten my seed and I had ₦2M worth of perfumes unsold.

In my bid to raise money, I then started doing a 50% off sale.

Omo. Why will I be doing odindin 50% off sale in June? Why?

No money anywhere.

I can’t pay for ads with perfume.

I needed customers. 

God sha helped me. I was able to raise about ₦70k and I was ready to start again.

This was on a Saturday.

I had suffered a lot so I decided to ask God for help because this one obviously pass me.

I prayed the next day, Sunday. All I was singing throughout that day were Psalm 23 themed songs.

Monday Morning 11am, I was ready to run ads. All was set.

I picked up the new iPhone, opened Instagram and I saw “Page Disabled”

I started laughing because at this point, it was funny.

I went to sit down fast so I would not faint, and I kept laughing.

2 hours after laughing, I shut it down.

I still had ₦1.9M worth of perfumes.

I called my suppliers and told them I wanted to return the perfumes.

2 agreed, 1 did not.

One of the suppliers agreed to take it back but will take ₦1,000 off each bottle for the stress.

The second took ₦4,000 off 

Everywhere was red. Thick dark red.

I made a few mistakes that affected the fertility of my business, and I want you to pay attention so you avoid making them in your business.

1. I had just 1 sales channel. Instagram. 

When it disappeared, I encountered issues and started struggling to grow on WhatsApp. This in turn caused me to have stock I could not sell. I had money, but I could not use it.

If when I started in January I went out to look for my fertile Audience on Facebook, Whatsapp and other platforms, I would have been stable enough to withstand being eroded in 1 location.

2. I did not have a database of prospects. 

All I had was the contact information of old customers. This helped, but not for long.

3. Low sales & No new prospects caused me to lose money and I ate my seed.

Bringing this back to Fertility in Business, your Fertile Audience is not in 1 place.

A farmer will not go to just pick a section of his farm, pour seeds, water and nurture only that one section.

He spreads them and creates ridges and roads inside it so he can access the grown seeds.

Please, create spaces on every platform possible and find your paying customers on each platform.

Will I sell perfumes again?

Honestly, I don’t know. I miss it a lot.

Maybe I will, Maybe I won’t. I will know with time.

Right now, my assignment is to help prevent other business owners from crashing like I did by helping their business stay fertile through my new project "The Fertile Audience Road Map (The FARM)

visit: ecomlens.com/thefarmreport to know more.