Round and Round We Go

What’s it like day-to-day here, from a business perspective. A lot of people ask me that. How do you startup a business in Ghana?

Well, I can't speak for all businesses, and our business is not like any other business that I’ve seen here. The level of service we provide, not only to our customers, but to our resellers is quite different from anything I’ve seen here. Sure, there are companies that deliver – Coke, Unilever, etc. – but they are huge multi-nationals with high volume turnover. Also, they’re selling wholesale to retailers who know how to sell things or, in smaller towns, to local wholesalers who can then sell to small mom & pop (mostly mom) shops in outlying villages. In any case, the retailers who take these everyday products usually have shops or bars or restaurants. They put the stuff on the shelves and people come and buy it. It’s pretty straightforward. We, on the other hand, have to train our resellers how to present and sell our product, because it requires a lot of explanation. They must also be trained to visit their clients regularly and collect the batteries when they lose their charge, replacing them with fresh ones. That makes it a business that never rests. Twice a week, for each of our routes (eventually six unique routes per branch), we drive a circuit delivering fresh batteries and other products.

Some resellers are actually in the towns where we stop, but most of them have to come to the road to meet us, often from several kilometers into the bush. They make this trip by foot, bicycle, or if they are lucky by taxi. We meet with them at shops or drinking spots or just under a tree depending on the location and the number of different retailers we meet in that location. The transaction during the stop is managed through the use of colored bags and simple paper forms.

Each reseller has five string-top bags. They have a large red bag for dead batteries, a large green bag for fresh batteries and a small blue bag for any batteries a client says didn’t work well. These we test extensively and re-condition, if necessary. They also have a small green bag and small red bag so they can carry around a few fresh batteries wherever they go in case they run into someone who needs to exchange. We learned that one the hard way. One of our resellers was carrying around a few fully charged batteries in his pocket, along with his spare change, and nearly set his pocket on fire when the spare change finished the connection of (+) to (-).

On the day a resellers are scheduled to meet us, they have two choices. They can come in person or they can send their locked bag to the drop point by way of a taxi, trotro, small boy or girl ("small" used this way can apply to anyone up to ages in the 20's) on the way to school, someone going to market, or any other method they can come up with. When they meet us or send their bag for the route, the reseller brings/sends: the large red bag of fallen batteries, the small blue bag of potentially faulty batteries if there have been any complaints, new customer forms if they have any, and whatever cash they’ve collected. We count their dead batteries (we actually use a scale to weight them to determine the number – counting is slower) and make sure the paperwork and batteries match the cash in the bag. Then we count/weigh the items they need in return (fresh batteries, additional devices – lamps, phone chargers, etc., blank forms, and so on) and place all that in their bag, write a receipts to document the transaction, and move on to the next bag or reseller. Each transaction should take about 5 minutes, but when there are issues or discrepancies, the time can drag out considerably.

We used to take turns doing the route, but now that we have two routes, it requires someone to go out four days a week, so we’ve hired a route administrator. Since one of the key requirements of this job is being able to drive, it narrowed our selection considerably. In the end, we hired a man who had been a driver for Guinness. Funny thing is, he doesn’t like beer but loves wine.
XO