Chinedu the Hawker who makes 1million monthly in Lagos- A lesson For Everyone
Penwise

You must have heard the story of Chinedu a man who earned about 1million every month from his job, which is "Hawking in Lagos traffic".



If you haven't, let me give you a quick run down of the story and then we can go into what we can all take away from his story.


According to a story on LinkedIn and howwemadeitinafrica.com Chinedu moved to Lagos from his hometown, an eastern part of the country to Lagos about 6 years ago.

When he started Hawking, he was making a N5 profit on every unit of Gala he sold and made an average sale of 300 units daily, solely in the Mile 2 traffic. This is about N40,000 monthly because Chinedu, like many other hawkers work for limited hours on Sundays.

In his sixth month in business, Chinedu had explored more than a few of the traffic hotspots across Lagos and decidedly moved to Oshodi. He started selling 10 cartons a day, more than tripling his previous average daily sales, and his monthly income jumped to N150,000.


Later, her travelled down to eastern Nigeria for Christmas. Inspired by his story, 12 young, able men in his village who weren’t gainfully employed followed him back to Lagos. He bought goods at whole prices and gave it to those boys to sell.

About two years after coming to Lagos, he had over 100 young men and women who were buying consumer goods directly from him, at least, once in a week.

At this time, Chinedu earned a monthly average of N550,000 – about N3,000 from each of the hawkers buying from him, totalling N300,000 and N250,000 from his own direct sales.

Chinedu still didn’t stop hawking at this point, he claims this is his secret to the knowledge of what works in traffic and what doesn’t.

It was around this period Chinedu diversified from sausage rolls and widened his portfolio, exploring newer products with better profit: Pure Bliss wafers, Bigi carbonated drinks, plantain chips, etc. His average profit per unit sale stared to average 38% of the unit cost.

Mangers from multinational companies started to seek him out. He provided a unique service to them. When they need a quick sales spurt, to end the month on a high, they visit him, offering a larger discount than normal.

Also, when consumables are close to expiry, these companies offer him ridiculous discounts, sometimes as high as 60%, to sell off the stock. With his network of hawkers, he quickly sells to consumers who do not have to keep the products longer than a few minutes or hours.

Presently, it was said that he made up to 1million per month based on his work.

Now here are the lessons we can learn from his story.



1. Don't look down on any work
No job that pays should be looked down upon, as long has it is legitimate, we should have nothing to be ashamed of. Imagine if Chinedu didn't hawk, I wonder if anyone would be telling his story today



2. Chinedu started small
He did not wait for a big sum of money to start or wait until he got a big loan before starting. We should start with what we have and then grow along the way.



3. Chinedu showed others the way.
Most people would not have brought others from their village, they would prefer to go home and be seen as the rich and give small small change to the boys. Without those boys, chinedu wouldn't have become what he his today.

By teaching them how to make money for themselves, he made some more for himself.



4. Chinedu didn't stop when he started making some money
Many people would have settled as a middle man, just reselling to others but he continued hawking, that way he knows the products that sell and the ones that don't thereby knowing what to buy and resell to others.

Also he tried different areas in Lagos to know the areas that sell the most. That is something all business owners should learn. Don't be too comfortable with what you have. Learn more about your market and find ways to improve.



5. Chinedu Offers Value
Even though his job is ordinary hawking, mangers of multinational companies sought him out. No matter what it is that you do as a business, as long as you add value to other people or other business people would look for you and money will come in.

Share to inspire someone. Comment what you think about this.

Ok

There is a CHINEDU in everyone of us to start from the buttom and make it to the top, but the JEREMY in us just want us to wear tie and settle for mediocrity and the CYNTHIA just allow us to spend blindly all for the facade that we are getting there.

Ok

Lessons learnt... God bless you op

It's not about the job but about yourself. There are still hawkers in that Oshodi struggling to make ends meet. Determination, innovation and consistency will take you far in anything you do in life.

And some folks here who have no job will be busy jesting these gala sellers whereas they don't have a Kobo in their accounts.