The program included Morolayo Igeleke, country marketing manager at UPS; Isaac Akanni, customer growth manager for Africa at Infobip; Omolara Olarerin, founder of PocketFood; and Success Ajilore, business analyst and founder of the Success Transformation Network. 

The session, which was moderated by Imoh Anselem, IT product manager and customer success specialist, highlighted methods for customer engagement, cost management and leveraging technology, among other topics to enhance business sales.

Understanding Customer Needs and Managing Costs

Morolayo Igeleke stressed the importance of understanding customer needs while balancing discounts and profitability. He noted flexible payment options as a strategy, explaining, “To help you sell during this season while maintaining your discount and profit margin, consider offering customers instalment payment options. Although it carries some risk, allowing customers to pay over time—say, in two or three instalments—could make a big difference. Many SMEs can benefit from this approach. You could even offer a 10% discount as an incentive, which would be appreciated and help stimulate their payment structure.”

This approach, he stated, allows businesses to attend to customer affordability without sacrificing margins.

For customers focused on affordability, Igeleke gave the option of alternative products rather than discounts. “Why don’t we look at a cheaper alternative product? That way, your customers will run to you better,” he said, adding that UPS had introduced a more economical shipping service for price-sensitive Nigerian clients.

Boosting Value with Product Bundling

Isaac Akanni highlighted the effectiveness of product bundling during peak seasons. He gave an example: “What can I add to these shoes just for this December period to increase my sales?”

He also illustrated how Infobip customises tools like SMS and WhatsApp chatbots to enhance product value. “At the end of the day, you’re not just selling your product; you’re providing a service,” he added.

Personalised Marketing as a Key Driver

Omolara Olarerin, founder of PocketFood, stressed the value of personalised marketing. “You can’t really go far without marketing,” she stated, advising business owners to utilise Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp ads and to build community connections. 

“As a business owner, you should be able to have a community where you can share your product and get your feedback.”

Olarerin further highlighted the power of personal branding, noting that customers “always trust the business that has a face to it.”

Data-Driven Decision-Making for Future Success

Success Ajilore of the Success Transformation Network emphasised the importance of data and feedback in refining sales strategies. 

“You cannot succeed in the future without understanding your past. We learn from hindsight,” she stated, urging businesses to gather feedback using tools like Google Forms and SurveyMonkey to measure satisfaction.

Ajilore further advised on tracking customer ratings to identify popular products and improve marketing and inventory decisions. “Encourage customer reviews and ratings… You can start a strategy, maybe invest more in what satisfies the customer,” she advised.

Ajilore explained that effective business strategy requires year-round planning, ideally preparing for the next year to leverage seasonal opportunities. 

Analysing customer and sales data helps tailor marketing and services to meet customer needs. Pricing should cover all expenses, including promotions, to avoid profit loss during high-demand seasons. 

Utilising Technology to Drive Efficiency

In discussing operational cost savings, Igeleke pointed to the role of technology. “For example, advertising—though often expensive—can become more affordable with social media and AI, allowing you to reach audiences with minimal spending.”

He explained how UPS leverages AI-driven tools, including robots and forklifts, to reduce labour costs and simplify logistics.

Competing Through Disruptive Innovation

Akanni talked about the idea of “disruptive innovation” by Clayton Christensen, which suggests that smaller businesses can find opportunities by focusing on areas big companies overlook. 

He pointed out that large companies often miss certain needs or types of customers—not because they don’t want to, but because it’s hard for them to serve everyone. 

He encouraged small businesses to pay attention to these overlooked areas by listening to customer feedback and checking online reviews to help them grow strategically.

Handling Seasonal Demand Peaks

Addressing the challenges of seasonal demand surges, Igeleke shared UPS’s experience in managing increased workloads during peak periods. “We had to hire more contract staff to help us sort things out, it’s a good problem to have,” he commented, emphasising the importance of strategic staffing during high-demand periods.

Olarerin further explained that seasonal pricing strategies should adapt to the industry and profit margins. For low-margin industries, buying in bulk to secure lower supplier prices can allow discounts without cutting profits. 

“Communicating with suppliers for discounts is essential, especially in high-demand seasons; if they don’t offer competitive rates, consider switching suppliers.

“Businesses should protect their profit margins by adjusting based on sales volume—higher sales can offset lower per-item profits. Genuine discounts build credibility, whereas “fake” discounts can backfire.”

Seasonal discounts work best on high-demand products, as these can maintain profitability through increased sales. Conversely, discounting less popular items may not yield sufficient sales and could risk profitability.

Incentivising Positive Employee Behaviour

The speakers recommended incentivising employee behaviour to improve customer satisfaction. “If employees get no customer complaints, they might earn points or a bonus. Or if they get a customer to return and spend a certain amount in December, they could earn a reward,” Akanni explained. 

He shared how Infobip has successfully used this approach to motivate employees by tracking and rewarding good customer service, incentivising behaviour tracking.

“Find out the things you want your staff to do, what are the behaviours you want them to emulate, then find a way to incentivise that behaviour,” he concluded, pointing to the benefits of a results-driven reward system.

The session wrapped up with each expert reiterating the importance of customer-centric approaches, technology, and strategic marketing to enhance seasonal sales success.

These businesses always seek ways to stay afloat and the only way to do this is to implement strategies that can increase productivity and efficiency.

Most Small and medium Enterprises (SMEs) are one-man types of business with few employees on ground to run the affairs of the business. Usually, SMEs’ business infrastructures are limited and they have to take one step at a time to grow their business.

A number of reports shows that at least eighty percent( 80%) of SMEs always quit the business within the first year or after five years.

The early stage of running an SME is characterized with low customer base and little or zero profits. One would ask, should it always be the case? Does it mean SMEs don’t have what it takes to keep it running? Should quitting the business be the end goal? .

All these questions boil down to one answer which is; Lack of productivity and efficiency leading to negative results and a downturn in business operations.

What is productivity?

Productivity is the process of using active measures to checkmate the level of output through the amount of input. Efficiency is the rate of efforts taken into consideration for a positive change in the business.

These two factors are the catalysts for most SMES growth.

How can SMES Improve Productivity and Efficiency?

1. Set Goals For Your Business

There is no business without specific goals. You have to define your goals. Choose wisely the type of goals you want to set for your small business.

2. Growth Mindset

As a business owner, you should be ready to accept criticism. You should be able to identify your weaknesses and be able to pave a way to fix them. Growth mindset is the ability to develop the habit of learning new things for a positive outcome.

When you receive complaints from customers regarding updates or delivery issues, design measures to provide better quality service to customers that patronize you as well as new ideas for your business operations.

3. Use Schedule Apps For Meetings and Appointments

There are so many scheduled apps on Google and Apple Playstores. You can use Calendly, Zoom, Email Schedules, Phone Calendars and Alarm clocks to set time and dates for business and staff meetings.

Instead of writing down appointment or meeting dates in your diary or a notebook, utilizing a calendar is efficient in setting up a reminder for goals or events.

4. Always Handle Urgent Task First Before Any Other Task For The Day

The only way to achieve to-do-list task goals is through prioritisation, to always start with the urgent task for the day.

Some helpful tips are

i. Tag tasks based on their status for easy identification.

ii. Early morning errands – Urgent and Important

iii. Checking Emails – Important

iv. Responding to Customers -Important but not urgent

v. Reconciling Payments from customers – Urgent

5. Always use automation software to reduce too much tasks in the office

Automation system is an automatic digital system that provides prompts and aids an employee to solve complex tasks. Use automation response to FAQ, bill payments, email management and tracking of deliveries.

An automatic response when clients pop up questions on WhatsApp or Direct Messaging.

Examples are;

“Dear Customer, thank you for messaging us today. How may we serve you?”

You can also set prompts in resolving customers complaints by providing information that are relevant to the problem.

Most financial institutions’ social media handles always have automated reply prompts.

An online form such as Google forms can be created for customers to provide their contact details and state out the kind of service they need and  their budget.

6. Create Teams For Each Business Activity

If your employees are up to 20, you can create different teams that will be in charge of different activities. For a logistic business, you can create a team in charge of taking orders, packaging team, HR team, management team and customer service team.

There are so many other ways to improve your productivity and efficiency as a small and medium business and it is by keeping the focus on the relevant tasks that relate to your business.

The writer; Emmanuel Otori has over 10 years of experience working with 100 start-ups and SMEs across Nigeria. He has worked on the Growth and Employment (GEM) Project of the World Bank, GiZ, Consulted for businesses at the Abuja Enterprise Agency, Novustack, Splitspot and NITDA. He is the Chief Executive Officer at Abuja Data School.