Staff expansion and increasing salon & barber shop products
Hope
Nairobi, Kenya
100% repaid
Entrepreneur
Name
Hope
Member since
June 2020
On-time repayments
28 installments • 71%
About Me
I am the mother of a 2-year-old boy whom I love very much.
I grew up in the city in an area called Eastlands, went to school in the city but for college, I went to Uganda, Makerere University to study Marketing but I had to drop out since I lost both parents and had to look for work to sustain my younger siblings.
They all managed to graduate and am very happy about that. So I got married, got a baby, and opened my business.
I have always loved to do business and at 14 years, I offered tutoring to the kids in my neighborhood for 1 dollar a day. Then at 16 years, I did a business of selling snacks to my fellow students in high school and at 18 years I had a small business of growing and selling tomatoes.
Currently my business(Salon&Barber shop) is located in a residential area, occupied by lower middle class.
My dream has always been to offer quality and affordable hair services to the working community to boost their confidence & self esteem as they go to work and still make it affordable as the cost of living has gone really high for city dwellers and many women are bearing the negative ripple effects.
The women come to the salon and are able to talk about their issues on a light note and we listen, offer advise, encourage and boost the morale of our fellow women when they come for hairdressing or manicure
My Business
I own a salon and Barbershop in Donholm Nairobi called Adis Magic Hair Salon. I opened it mid last year and it gave me a lot of Pride and Joy.
We have a staff of 5 young women who are single mothers and 2 Barbers who live in the nearby residential area called Soweto.
The business is located in a residential area, occupied by the lower middle class. We offer Hair Cuts, Braiding, Weaving, Perming/Relaxing, Dyeing, Curling, Dreadlocks, Manicure, Pedicure and Massage services.
My expenses include USD 300 paid yearly to the city council, USD 400 Monthly for rent, USD 75 for water & Electricity, I spend USD 30 for supplies weekly USD 3 For Garbage Collection paid monthly and Salaries USD 1200 Loan repayments USD 450 Total USD 2458
My revenues, pre-COVID averaged USD 100 per day totaling to USD 3000 per month, therefore, my margins were at 22%, but now in COVID, the revenues have gone down to USD 40 per day, totaling USD 1200 per month. This makes it impossible to pay staff their full salaries, which has made life really difficult since they are single mothers who have to pay rent, feed their babies and pay for their daycare services.
This has forced me to restrategize and I have come up with a new plan that edges on economies of scale that enables customers(target 2000 customers) to pay a monthly subscription fee of USD 5 that will enable them to get services at the salon twice a month, this will enable them to save up to USD 15 monthly. To be able to roll this out I need funding to buy supplies add no of staff, buy electricity tokens as we continue signing up the customers.
We attempted this plan in late 2019 and were overwhelmed by customer sign-ups and had to stop signing in more customers until we got more funding for supplies and additional staff who get paid weekly.
Loan Proposal
How I will use the USD 5,000 Loan
Increase no of staff: USD 3,000
Supplies: USD 400
Staff Uniform: USD 100
Electricity & Water: USD 300
Overdue Loans: USD 900
Marketing: USD 200
Rent: USD 40
Overdue Rent(2m) USD 80
Council Fees USD 300
This loan will enable me to provide for me and my family (my husband also helps me manage the business)
It will also ensure that the staff keep their jobs and manage to feed their families, especially since they live in a slum and desperation can lead them to bad and dangerous jobs like prostitution, robbery and drugs. Which pains me alot.
There are very many people living in the area and signing up 2000 customers is very easy to pay USD 5 for hair services per month, since we had done this last year with a staff of 8 employees and got 200 sign-ups by just passing flyers outside the salon door.
This will give us a margin of 50%
I shall also be the one calling the customers and send them messages and emails to renew the subscription to ensure we retain the existing customers and acquire new ones. I have experience working in customer care and marketing for many companies for over 10 years like
Cellulant Group dealing with increasing customers for over 10 banks across Africa, Customer care for Debonairs and Steers, Airtel Kenya , Essar (Yu Mobile) through Horizon Contact Centre and therefore enjoy the practice of renewing, retaining and acquiring new customers
We shall also have special packages for families to ensure stickiness to Adis Magic Salon & Barber Shop
Income Source
We shall be targeting 2,000 subscriptions with each client paying USD 5 per month for hair services twice a month
The premise is large and able to accommodate up to 15 employees at once each with a client
There are around 500 apartments in the area containing an average of 12 units per flat, with an average of 5 household members. I am going to partner with the apartment caretakers and landlords to offer discount vouchers to tenants who pay rent early and put posters inside the apartment's main gate.
We shall also use Facebook ads for residents living in the area to be able to see the Ads.
There are also active large Facebook groups and WhatsApp groups for women living in the area
We shall have ground activation agents, who will be tasked with sign-ups
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Loan Info
Project Type
Classic Loan
Disbursed amount
$50.00
Date disbursed
Jun 16, 2020
Repayment status
On Time
Projected term
4 months
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