Last Friday, people were wearing black and red clothes. In Ghana, people only wear these colors when there is a funeral, so I was confused. Until someone told me Ghanaians also wear this on 'Good Friday' because that’s the day Jesus died. Haha, how Ghana’s traditions are integrated!
Easter is always BIG here where I live here in Kwahu. From Thursday till Monday, there is a big festival going on. Every bar, every restaurant has some music, some food, some drinks, and people are dancing on the streets from morning till evening. It’s a kind of street carnival.
People from all over Ghana come to Kwahu to party! Kwahu has different villages and towns. We live in a small town here, and during Easter, we even have traffic! Haha! The whole town and the energy of the place shifts.
As I was walking around this weekend, I saw so many things that it inspired me to write to you about it.
What I will be sharing now is specifically for anyone who has a business or a project going on or wants to start a business.
Or if you want to bring something to the world that you want other people to see and experience ;-) Can be anything really!
Here are some lessons I learned about attracting people/clients while walking in the streets during the Easter Festival:
Go to where your people are. If you have something to offer, it’s important to know who your ideal customers are and where they hang out (online, in real life), and then make sure you go where they are! This Easter Festival, I saw banners and posters of products and services I had never seen before. They went where the people went!
Let yourself be seen. How can people know you exist and what you have to offer if they don’t see it or if they don’t hear from it? It’s important to dare to put yourself out there. Some sellers were giving out flyers to bring people to their place, others were having extra music to attract people, a huge banner, or some posters in other places.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. In Ghana here, Django is apparently a far better beer than Club, but it is from Club that you will see advertisements everywhere. Guess what people would buy? We think people often know what we have to offer by sharing it once or twice. But this is far from the truth. Especially in this day and age where our attention span is very short. So, yes, keep on repeating what you have to offer and how you can help people.
The Eye Wants Its Share. During Easter, you could see people gravitating towards the places that had nice decorations, a bigger banner, or some nice lights. These places were just catching your eye more quickly. There were many small shops, somewhere in the dark in a corner. I wonder how much they sold. The thing is, it’s not that these big, nicely decorated places had better quality products. That’s not how it works. The smaller shops were probably just as good, or even better. But the ones with the bigger/”nicer” stuff just were better in putting themselves out there and therefore attracting clients. So, if you are offering something, make sure it looks appealing and professional to people.
Just do it! Try out! Experiment! Often we may be scared or too much in our head before we even start, but just have the courage to start with something! Just try! Nothing is perfect from the beginning. Look at this picture! These are our MentorHerGhana girls ;-) They were also having their stand to practice their entrepreneurial skills. They are just doing it!
Find out what people need. The only food we could find was popcorn, yam, and grilled meat. Oh, and some meat pie and there was an ice cream place too. We always wonder why there isn’t more variety. Well, this would be interesting to find out: Maybe the people just prefer yam, meat and popcorn? Or maybe something totally different but delicious would be super popular because it isn’t there yet? Also: there were some bars operating during the day, while the majority was open during the night. Okay, there were fewer people during the day, but some people WANTED to go to a bar during the day. Those bars were finding the needs of some people (consciously or unconsciously) & playing into it.
Make sure you offer quality service/products! The only reason being that word of mouth is the best way of attracting new people. If your product or service is amazing, people will talk about it & eventually more people will come. If someone told me the music was really good in a particular place, I wanted to go and check it out! That’s how it works ;-)
Aren’t these lessons amazing? I love them! Great reminders!
This letter has been sent out on April 2nd, 2024. Once in a while Ama shares part of her newsletters on her website. Do you want to receive all the letters in your mailbox? Sign up below!