Whether you love or dislike matatus, one thing is certain: the type of labor they conduct is a phenomenon.
From dealing with irritable and often outright hostile customers to surviving in an incredibly competitive sector, being a’makanga’ demands steel nerves and the capacity to go above and beyond the obvious.
The rules are not too different in the world of entrepreneurship.
To ensure your survival, you must overcome all odds and put up your best effort.
I’ve gleaned a few practical lessons from the dusty streets of Nairobi, and here are some methods you can borrow from your matatu crew’s playbook for the principles of business management.
1.Yell About Your Product At The Top Of Your Voice
You are in business to sell; not to sit down and look pretty. And our matatu guys seem to know this quite well. They shout at the top of their voices about the destination of the matatu.
They understand that if they remain silent, another matatu would get ahead of them and make the money. Similarly, in business, you must yell a little louder about the problems that your product or concept can solve.
Is it not your instinct as a commuter to always turn your attention to the matatu that announces your route? The same is true in business.
The merchant that is continually reaching out to new markets is naturally at the forefront of the customer’s thoughts.
2.Teamwork is the key to success.
Have you ever seen how the driver and his tout work together? When the tout bangs the side of the matatu, the driver knows it’s time to go and doesn’t debate it. He goes.
Similarly, when the driver notices a possible customer, he swiftly steps on the brake, and the tout realizes it’s time to make some more money, so he entices the person inside.
During rush hour, as traffic becomes congested, the tout does not sit comfortably in his chair; instead, he rapidly exits and runs ahead to survey the territory for an exit. He won’t return until he has a recommendation for the driver.
This type of teamwork is an admirable feature that we should cultivate even in our enterprises. Be a team player. Allow your staff, if you have personnel, to learn to work effortlessly both autonomously and interdependently.
By doing so, you can increase your productivity and foster a sense of collaborative responsibility at work.
3.Create a sense of scarcity to increase sales.
At the bus stop, the touts know that most passengers will choose a partially packed matatu over an empty one. So they hire a couple of people to fill the seats for a bit.
wow! It works like magic, and after a few minutes, the previously empty van leaves the bus stage with a full load of paying passengers. Have you ever fallen victim to this bizarre tactic? I have also been a victim several times.
But instead of being enraged, I can’t help but respect the amount of marketing brilliance displayed by these completely untrained individuals.
Likewise, in business, sometimes you have to create a sense of scarcity and urgency in order to drive the sales.
Only that you need to do it with a measure of ingenuity just like our beloved makangas do.
4.When the market runs dry, test the limits.
Matatus, like most businesses, operates throughout peak and off-peak hours. During off-peak hours, the staff will drive through an estate and even reverse the van to pick up a customer directly at his gate.
When a fresh prospective buyer is sighted, the tout will call, woo, and persuade them before opening the door for them – and this strategy consistently works at the highest percentage.
This is the life of an entrepreneur. To keep your business running, you may need to get out of your own way.
Even if it means working midnight or treating customers like royalty, if you want your firm to survive, you must be willing to push the boundaries.
5. Every crisis has a solution.
Your matatu driver will always find a way to move forward. He will take various unorthodox routes, even breaking the rules and overlapping. He will sometimes take shortcuts and detours in order to keep going forward.
His philosophy is that there is always a way. He is conditioned in this way, and this teaches entrepreneurs a crucial lesson about tenacity.
Not immoral perseverance, as seen in most matatu drivers, but a strong will to overcome rejection and keep a consistent speed.
And while everyone else is trapped in the traffic of “I don’t have capital” or “The market is saturated”, you know there is always a way to keep going forward.
So chastise the matatu driver for overlapping, but silently take away this valuable lesson of believing there is a way forward even when everyone else is stuck in conformity.
To summarize, working in the matatu industry is twice as challenging as working in most other industries. It is commonly stated that if you can apply roughly half of the matatu crew’s efforts, you can dramatically increase production, improve teamwork, and, most crucially, increase sales.
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