Business Growth

Hello, my name is Stephen Mugabe, I’m the founder and CEO of Cod Clinic, a dental practice in Kampala, for the last five years. Now, when I started Cod Clinic, I had this mentality that you know, I would just build it, and people would come. It was because of my background, professional training, as doctors, we are taught not to go and advertise, and so we have this fear, we don’t know where the limit is, you don’t want to be unethical, but it’s just being naive about how to do business. You can still be ethical, and still inform people about the services you’re offering without advertising as a professional. So, I built Cod Clinic, I just hoped that people would just come, I prayed, and people, you know, there were not many people to make an economic benefit out of Cod Clinic. But, I slowly learned that I had to step out, interact with people, they get to know what I do, I mean, I went to school with people so I had to tell them about what I do. I had to tell people that I interacted with at church, I had to tell people in rotary what I do, and I was given opportunity to do talks about oral health, and that started getting me more clients. And when these people came, I decided from the beginning when I was starting that I would make sure they have a good experience, I don’t like causing pain, I don’t like pain so I didn’t want to cause pain, I wanted to relieve people of pain. And so I made sure they get a good experience, and those happy satisfied people would refer others to me, and thats how we kept growing. Now, the other thing a business owner has to remember is that it’s not only your clients that are your clients, your staff are your clients, and so happy satisfied staff will also make happy satisfied customers. So I had quickly realized that I had to take care of my staff because since we’re working as a team, then we’d have to serve people better. That was a hard lesson for me because I hadn’t, you know I thought if someone is motivated to work, I don’t have to motivate them again and again, but I had to learn how to keep my employees happy, and that way keep my people happy, my staff happy, and keep the customers happy, the happy customers keep referring people to us. If you always want to keep growing your business, you have to keep getting out there, interacting with people. So, for me, networking is the thing that works for me. I go meet people, get to know what they do, I get interested in them, and that way they get interested in me. Theres one major networking organization I’ve joined called Business Network International, BNI. It’s fresh in Kampala, but it has brought me quite a lot of business, and thats just one such network, but there are other networks, you have associations you belong to, in your residences, the places you come from, all of those associations, people you need to keep interacting with, and once they get to know what you do, when they have a need, it’s you they will be looking for. You ought to be out there selling yourself and of course when the people come do a good job, because if you don’t do a good job, theres no way they are going to send the next person to you. That’s how a business is grown, that’s how I’ve been growing. I wouldn’t advise anyone to just build it and then come, just start networking now, get out and tell people what you do or offer value to them. If you are a professional in one category, there’s information that you can share that can be of value to them so the next time they are in need of that, who will they think of? It’s you. If you’re a lawyer, you can share about commercial transactions or real estate transactions. If you’re a dentist, you can teach people how to take care of their teeth. If you are, you know, name any profession, you can teach people, that is for free, you’re adding value, and trust me it’s you they’ll remember. So, don’t sit on your knowledge, because that is the knowledge that is going to help you sell your business, and it will make it economically valuable for you to run that business. Thank you.