The Motivation
Salma was listening to her friends complaining of stunted hair growth, dandruff, rough hair, weak hair and hair products which failed to deliver promised results. Having herself tried many kinds of hair oils without finding the one that she could settle on, she decided to be the solution to the problem. That was in 2016 and she was still in school. Salummy Beauty Products was born.
Salma Abdulatif, a young Kenyan woman born in Malindi is quite accomplished at only 24. She is the founder of Salummy Beauty Products, an online beauty store, and a writer specialising in poetry and storytelling. Salma is also the community activist who founded Motivational Talks for Youth Organization, a community organisation that conducts empowerment programs on leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship. She is also a Mandela Washington Fellow 2018. Salma has been invited in various forums both regionally and internationally including the Africa Summit of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ASENTI) in 2018 in Nairobi as a panellist. She has been featured by the She Leads Africa website as a ‘hair nurse’.
Growing up in Mombasa with a single parent, Salma learnt to be independent and strong at a tender age. Her mother, her role model, is a professional wedding photographer who, although illiterate, has done everything that she set out to do. Her work is highly appreciated, and she has travelled widely for wedding shoots. She always carried herself together and however hard life was, taught Salma how to manage her stipend well. She inspired her daughter to venture into business. Salma’s first venture was a food business that she ran during the school holidays. This experience taught her how to operate a business and meet clients’ expectations.
Salma used her savings to initiate the business. She failed, tried again and finally created a brand. Her main motivation was to create awareness on the side effects of chemicals. Studies show that chemicals cause life-threatening ailments like reproductive problems, heart diseases, different forms of cancer, early puberty, fibroids and even mental health disorders. Relaxers disrupt the chemical balance of our bodies by entering our system through cuts and burns. Salma wants her brand to remind African women that they are beautiful and that their hair represents their identity, culture and self-love. When African women and men know their value and are not influenced by trends or misconceptions about their identity, they flourish.
Salummy Beauty Products offers organic beauty products with 100% natural ingredients and no sodium hydroxide, sulfate or preservatives. The result is manageable hair without chemical usage. Environmental and user-friendly, these products foster faster hair growth, thicken the hair and strengthen it, reduce breakage and most importantly, ensure good health and well-being of the users. The beauty company also offers beard oils for men and the hair products can be used by both men and women. Salummy’s organic products include shampoos, conditioners, deep-conditioning heena masks, chebe powder, hair oils, beard oils and hair butters for kinky curly hair. All Salummy products have had minimum side effects to the users and to the environment. The products can be used to style, condition and maintain hair softness; one of the reasons why customers prefer them over relaxers after their first trial. Salummy Beauty Products is not only providing economic viability but also combating health issues caused by chemicals. The company conducts natural hair campaigns every six months to create awareness on the importance of health and environmental preservation through use of natural organic products. They also offer goodie bags for events and workshops which promotes the brand to new markets.
With prices ranging from Ksh.200 to Ksh.1000, Salma’s products are affordable to a wide market across social classes. A variety of African herbs are added to Salummy products, which are infused with essential oils such as lavender, lemongrass and peppermint to provide a more soothing and therapeutic flagrance. This has led to increase in supplies to over seven stores. A team of two full time staff and 30 part time sales executives is in place for a reach as far as the rural areas where people don’t have easy access to the stores. The company offer delivery service mostly appreciated by pregnant women or housewives. Salummy Beauty Products sources staff online and through referrals by clients or friends. Salma sets a target for sales each month and sales executives that hit beyond their mark get additional revenue to the commission that they receive. This motivates them to keep moving. Feedback from customers is enthusiastic. Their clientele extends abroad to Uganda, Tanzania, Oman, England and Dubai.
Salma started her business with less than Ksh.10,000 that she had saved from her school stipend. She initially invested Ksh.6,000 on her first batch of Ayurveda oil. Salummy Beauty Products generates net sales of Ksh.100,000 to Ksh.200,000 per month. The annual turnover translates to about Ksh.1,500,000. When she started the business, Salma made a number of amateurish decisions on managing finances and trusting clients too easily. She then took time off to read on business development and finance handling, which opened her eyes to the understanding that even the least expected item should be accounted for in a business.
Good use of social media has played a role in the success of her business. Salma takes time and heart to pour out great content for her Instagram and Facebook pages and she constantly engages her clients through questions, giveaways and Friday Flash sales where she reduces the price for two of her products twice a month. This has drastically boosted the sales.
The Hurdles
The first major challenge Salma encountered was how to keep track of the cash that flowed in and out of the business. She also faces two kinds of competitors: the healthy competitors that also run organic firms but focus on their own creative ways of doing their work – this group inspires her; and the unhealthy competitors who copy every single thing from the branding to the design to the packaging to the slogan to how Salma arranges her work on the social media platforms. The other main challenge is penetrating new markets and getting clients to understand why Salummy products should be their best choice.
Salma affirms that learning how to create profit and loss statements and finding affordable but quality options for your packaging and your raw materials could save you a lot. She advises on working to establish good rapport with clients and looking for opportunities for grants such as the Tony Elumelu Foundation and local ones provided by the government such as the Uwezo Fund, as this could afford you great ways to manage your cash flow and allow you to break-even faster.
Speaking of investments, Salma believes in investing in personal development. “Whe you take time off to understand who you really are as a person, it becomes easier to get things done, to be more accountable of your actions and to grow your spiritual, personal and professional life,” she says. There is no comparison between a person who reads and one who does not. Knowledge is power and part of Salma’s morning routine includes a 30-minute break to read something refreshing. She is currently reading The secret by Rhonda Byrne, The art of poetry by Shira Wolosky and listening to a podcast titled The wooden spoon. Salma is now investing in her poetry and prose book to be launched on 16th of August. She is convinced that the money she has set aside will triple once she gets her sales done. As for investing in a business, Salma’s advice is to work with the options that tally with who you really are as person and to avoid shortcuts. “Success is not easy but it is most fulfilling if it becomes a process, a step-by-step improvement, a journey to finding the best version of yourself,” she shares.
Salma has noticed that people worry about the unknown, since as human beings, we tend to overthink and fear trying out things that are out of our comfort zone. Yet in business, you must give your best shot, stay hands-on and take risks. “Risks are to be taken, life is to be lived in the best way possible because there is always a potential within all of us that is yet to be unleashed,” she affirms “and no one remains the same after taking a risk. Mistakes shape you, grow you, and make you more resilient and ready to conquer the world.”
The biggest lesson that Salma has learnt is to always stay creative, to find ways of remaining relevant to the market, to your current clients and to new ones. “Stay original and try to create a need in your products or services,” she advises, convinced that it is important to adapt your concept to fit into the needs of your customers. Clients should view your products or services as a solution to an existing problem. Merely existing without passion or the customers’ demands at heart can make you irrelevant in the corporate world.
Finding a balance between running a successful business and personal life is crucial. With balance, one can be more productive and handle first things first. Salma spares 15 minutes daily for meditation and journaling as a way of understanding herself and knowing vividly how she is going to approach and conquer that particular day. Salma has seen a drastic improvement in her habits and her personality by spending time with herself. Many people would say that they are too busy to meditate or just get moments of solitude, but the question should be “Are we being busy or being productive; our millennial generation in particular?” Identify your productive activities and the ones which sap your energy. “There is always a misunderstanding on these two terms: productive and busy. Sometimes we are being busy but at the end of the day, we cannot account for what we have been investing our time and energy on,” says Salma. “When you are productive, you are able to gauge on performance and progress being made however small it might be.”
Giving Up? Not Now!
When running a business, at times you will definitely feel like throwing in the towel. Some days you won’t realize what you are doing or if what you are doing is the right thing. Other days you will question your sanity. However, you have to keep moving. Being an entrepreneur is not easy- you have to plan yourself and plan for uncertainties. Pay yourself a salary, discipline yourself and keep learning, unlearning and relearning because you will learn so many things about yourself and your business that you had not realised before.
Salma is proud of how far she has come. She started off with little experience with business development, but she kept pushing on and learning along the way. There is no perfect time or moment to initiate a business or work on an idea. This is the message she wants to share with the world. She knows by experience that you need to get started with whichever limited resources you have, and everything will work out along the way.
Salma recommends that an entrepreneur pays herself a good salary preferably after reaching the break-even point in her business. “Getting a little percentage to keep you motivated and inspired is not a bad idea; but it is very important to first pay back the directors’ loan and all the money invested into the business before allocating yourself some good salary,” she says.
Reading is an activity that excites Salma, as she believes that knowledge is the key to everything – to exploring new opportunities and even to new ideas and skill-sets to push a business forward. The organic products business offers numerous opportunities from hair to skincare to SPA products. Salma endeavours to keep her clients on the loop and close to her in order to grow a big network of customers. She observes that the organic business requires time and efforts to create the right proportions and work out the right ingredients for your products with the skin tones and skin types of your clients in mind. It is important to use neutral ingredients and oils that work for most skin and hair types so that your products remain relevant to a bigger audience and feedback and reviews remain positive. There is also the need to test your products on yourself, your friends and family before putting them on the market. When doing this, select people with various skin tones and hair types. “The beauty business is a good niche because who does not want to look good? This is a good place to be to generate that extra income, but first do your research, do it extensively and focus on creating unique chemical-free products. Do your homework first and do it properly least you mess with somebody’s body,” says Salma.
Salma believes that women play an integral part in a country’s economy. “Women are smart. Women are doers. Women can take up any role in business even in male-dominated sectors and be what they envision to be. The beauty industry like any other industry requires boldness and beyond gender boldness is about the amount of work you can put in and the value you add to the growth of an enterprise,” says Salma. “Women can create paths of success in the organic business if they believe in their passion and sell what they do use. Always keep the client in mind, all the time. Clients watch your steps and they pretty much get to know who you are in the process.”
Salma finds being an entrepreneur quite overwhelming sometimes and believes that it is important to avoid mixing work and private life. “Find time to unwind, to do something that you are good at or that you enjoy doing (not social media),” she says. Every day, Salma makes time to listen to some meditation songs, work on her poetry book or just sit by the window in her room to observe nature and to craft new concepts. After a productive day, she treats herself to some ice-cream, watches a movie or goes out with her family for a date. She particularly recommends scheduling a little getaway at least each month, to explore a new place that you had not visited before.
Salma envisions her products being used all over the world someday. She sees world-class investors, multiple profits and international market penetration. She knows that her business will undergo deep transformation over time, and she is looking forward to the amazing journey. In her eyes, Salummy Beauty Products will not just be a brand, it will be a force to reckon with, with products in all beauty stores and collections that will not only address Sustainable Development Goal number 3, Good Health and Wellbeing, but also restore the confidence and self-esteem of women all over the world.
Salma sees no limit to what you can achieve as a person. “You can be the star. You can be the iron-lady. You can be a meteor. You can be the most incredible version of yourself. Never underestimate your capabilities and strengths – you are useful, and your potential is yet to be unleashed,” she affirms. “Sometimes in life, we get people who tell us that we cannot succeed because we have limited resources, but we can and there is no doubt about this. We need to believe in ourselves and have faith in the Creator and put our best foot forth. It is all a learning process and it is not going to be easy. It might even demand the whole of you and the sacrifices will keep piling up but the joy that will emerge in the morning like a dandelion flower will prove that it was all worth it.”
