By Linus Akomolafe & Olajumoke Fakomi
“I was still paying my workers during COVID-19 lockdown when sales were down,” Victor, a furniture entrepreneur, said.
In 2020, most established businesses around the world witnessed a high decrease of sales in the wake of COVID-19 virus, with lots of employees laid off while those with business ideas doused their passion.
For Victor Iwerumor, the CEO of Bento Furniture & Interiors, a furniture company based in 13, Toyin Street, Allen, Ikeja, amidst the economic downturn, he kept paying his workers. He revealed to IkejaBird he was able to do this by increasing sales using Jiji and Jumia.
Speaking on his utilizing social media tools, he said: “During the lockdown, sales were poor and I had three staff working with me. I realised they had to feed, pay their rents and do other things. So we opted for platforms like Jumia, Facebook, Jiji and others to tell the world what we were doing.”
He continued, “When orders came, I just asked them to go pick the item from the store and hand it to the customer then receive payment.”
Victor explained that despite the competitive nature of his operations, he ensured his ideas were built on passion and advice of his mentors.
“People have asked me how I am progressing in this area where there are big competitors, I tell them when your business is flexible there is nothing impossible and when you have a mentor that will guide and tell you how things are done there will be progress,” he said.
While stressing the need to have mentors, he added that challenges are also necessary to enable better strategy to succeed in business.
However, he urged young entrepreneurs to explore social media tools as there are no limits to its reach.
“Social media doesn’t have a limit to the people you can reach but first for anyone going into a business, you must acquire knowledge which takes time, build on it, have a mentor and work hard to retain the success. To be a big man may be easy but retaining it is a problem,” he said.
Victor is a graduate of Business Administration, University of Lagos, and has been in the business of Interior Decor and Furniture sales for 20 years.
