Fear-Shara: A Silent Pandemic.

CULTURE – from the word CULT; abnormal; unorthodox; spurious!

Fellow Kenyans! And more importantly so, my fellow youth. Why are you so adamant in supporting each others businesses? You would rather support gossip blogs, new alcohol caves and harlot social media pages than your friends or family’s business? Explain to me how you are you benefiting from spewing all that hate? How are we to be taken seriously by our mentors when we literally show them that we do not care?

Allow me to submit to you the cost of your stupidity, excuses, ignorance and selfish behaviors!

On average, a one hundred shilling note spends 28 days circulating in the Asian community, 22 days in the Chinese community, 17 days in predominately the Somali community and 7 days with the foreign investor. The same note circulates for only 9 hours among Kenyans.  9 HOURS! In other words, when a Kenyan earns a hundred shillings, it is typically not spent on a Kenyan owned business. 77% of our Kenya Shillings 840 billion buying power is spent outside of our community. We spend less money on Kenyan-owned businesses than other racial and ethnic groups spend in businesses owned by members of their communities.

Why?

I recently saw a daft Facebook post, actually several, of persons detailing how they will not support their friends business social media pages because these business men and women did not like their shared memes! MEMES!!!! Are these sons and daughters of Jezebel proud of themselves? Here is a fun fact: foreign companies spend just 3% of their advertising budgets to market to you and you buy anyway. “I cannot buy anything that is not a Louis Vuitton or Gucci.” And you are Kenyan? Well.., Congratulations! You are bewitched!

When was the last time you looked to see where the closest Kenyan owned business is located (and what they sell)? More importantly someone in your circle? Christians! Are we supporting each others businesses? Even if you found a members business for the product you want and it was located an extra 10-minute drive away, would you frequent it?

But even when a Kenyan business isn’t too far to support, why don’t we support it?  Is there a lack of trust?  Do we unconsciously think that Kenya is inferior? I think about this woman who refused to be seen by Kenyan doctors.  She thought that White doctors were better trained, better qualified—simply better.  Do we have an unconscious bias against our own?

Some say that they don’t frequent Kenyan businesses because they receive poor treatment from Kenyan proprietors. Some! Do we lack professionalism?  Are we too comfortable with each other, so we provide “less than” professional service? My experience when you have an appointment at an UK service provider is that they usually see you at the scheduled time. Often times, Kenyan proprietors seem to have an automatic “ish” at the end of their appointment time. “I’ll see you at 11-ish” and still be 12-ish late! Others have said that sometimes service is given with a side of bad attitude.  True?  Go to some of these “5 star” hotels. See how the waiters serve Kenyan customers vis a vis other races! Dumbfounding! Do Kenyan business owners treat Kenyan customers poorly because they too are treated poorly? People always expecting a “hook-up”? Showing up late for appointments? Not paying fully or punctually? At the same time, have you ever received poor customer service at a non-Kenyan business, but still returned?

A Facebook survey shows that Kenyan sellers got 13% fewer responses to their ads than the other race sellers overall. And when they did get responses, they got 17% fewer offers to buy. Do i even start on KENYANS AND BARGAINING! 90% of Kenyans bargain on the price offered. Even the “bei ya jioni” offers will still be bargained! Come On!

We need to at least begin the discussion, think about our own biases, consider what we can do better because many Kenyan businesses cannot be successful without our support. Undoubtedly, Kenyan businesses need Kenyan support. It’s so tough at the moment for a Kenyan person to start and to stay in business. We should consider spending our shillings WITHIN! We should place our energies of having the right configuration of relationships (networks) for our businesses. Let us change. Let us be motivated by similar values. Let us appreciate rather than depreciate our heritage. There is power in numbers!

Have you followed these pages? Start there! And you reading, share your business page links on the comment section below we support you and let us know how we can partner up! I look forward to working with all of you. My email for business inquiries is elvis.andiva@adelante.co.ke.

See you at work!

AAE

Master Builder | The Counsel You Keep.