Quincy Ayodele has taken the pill of a lone long-distance runner. TEMITOPE DAVID-ADEGBOYE takes a look at her innovative entrepreneurship skills.
Her firm, Quincy Herbal Slimmers, blazed the trail by specialising in body slimming using herbs. It offers a diverse range of services.
In the process, it stimulated demand for its products which are needed by those who want to shed weight. Tummy blasting and general skin care services are among the services. Like any other pioneer, Quincy Olasumbo Ayodele has thrown up a lot of copycats.
The delightfully charming lady, known simply as Quincy, has shown that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Her enchanting natural good look is the walking advertisement of the efficacy of her methods. In the process, she has also become an authority in traditional medicine, not only in Nigeria, but also across the African continent and beyond.
Quincy has sustained her business model by being innovative and being a step ahead. By applying this strategy, she has attained the status of an icon in the herbal slimming industry, growing the business from scratch and ensuring a succession pattern for the sole proprietorship. Her daughter is now a co-director of the business.
June 16, 1996 was the defining date for Quincy. Then she ventured into herbal therapy.
However, she had been into entrepreneurship four years earlier. As in so many successful start-up’s, there was a clear perceived gap in the market. That, of course, is what innovators seek to fill.
The business came natural. The diva had grown up prodigiously knowledgeable about the use of herbs as an instrument to be used in solving many health and beauty problems.
Her grandmother had facilitated her immersion in the use of natural products, with grandma assuming the role of tutor-in-chief. The business model has worked beyond her early pioneering conception. It has transformed from a small-scale business into a conglomerate.
The learning curve has been steep. The usual hassle of doing business in Nigeria presented numerous hurdles.
However, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Starting the business at Obafemi Awolowo Way, Ikeja, Lagos, she encountered the most significant hurdle. Perception, of course, is everything in brand-building and business acceptability.
The perception of the potential market here presented a potential stumbling block. It could have knocked the business model right off. At the time, most people believed that herbal medicine was rooted in fetish practices.
Herbalist is the name. And it stuck. This translates to the perception that any herbal medicine practitioner is a babalawo.
A tough stumbling block in a country where the greatest world religions are on the ascendancy.
She had a steely resolve and was not deterred. She was convinced that herbs are blessings from God and are meant for human consumption and sources of meals and medicine. She exploited the gap and what followed are positive results.
The perception subsequently began to change slowly.
Her words: “When people discovered the effectiveness of our herbs, the new discoveries we were able to make and the relative wonderful results we were getting – especially in our own peculiar field, which includes slimming, skin treatment, bust enhancement among others – the level of acceptability increased.”
The experience also revealed the atmosphere of a society in transition from traditional mode into modernity. How to manage the change is important. She is emphatic that the government has to keep on encouraging traditional medicine in the decision-making process, as it is an integral part of the nation’s medical industry.
New challenges come from success. The demands of customers have been shifting. She gives an example of changing demands relating to skin colour. It’s not, of course, a particularly Nigerian phenomenon.
There is also a raging debate on-going in India. She gives graphic examples of some Nigerian men who bring their dark-skinned wives to her for toning.
She explained the dilemma thus: “Many Nigerian men consider fair-in-complexion women more beautiful than the dark-skinned. This erroneous perception has made many men prefer their wives fair-skinned, and surprisingly they bring their dark-skinned wives to me to bleach them into fair-skinned women.”
It gets really weird when she has to deal with an instruction such as: “Quincy, bleach my wife, let her be like you; otherwise keep her. I don’t want her to return home until that is done.” Wow!
There are, of course, clear ethical issues involved here. For example, a couple of months ago, the Indian Cable Network (NDTV) devoted two hours to the same ethical and indeed medical issues, since they have the same dilemma in India.
The issue, as she points out, is that unfortunately most of the women just go for any type of skin-toning cream to get rid of their dark complexion. The danger is that such skin-toning creams usually contain hydroquinone (even the word is alarming!) which is harmful to the skin.
The ace card from her model is that they are fervently opposed to the use of hydroquinone “as everything we use are derived from natural herbs”.
The firm’s research has led to an alternative skin-toning cream. This method uses alternative natural, skin protective and friendly herbal creams, which lighten the skin without causing harm like hydroquinone does.
“We have also discovered that some hormonal issues associated with treatments on losing weight darken the skin and we have, through intensive research, made the herbal creams and soaps to take care of the issue,” she disclosed.
She is very passionate in an endearingly thoughtful way about open-sourcing her patents to other beauticians. “…So that we can save our people, especially our women, from damaging their skin with the use of hydroquinone.” A positive example of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Having blazed a trail, the indomitable Quincy is carefully nurturing an enduring future. Her daughter, who (by taking liberties) we can describe as the heir-presumptive, has come in with a carefully choreographed expertise. The daughter has a much needed science background and solid immersion from educational institutions abroad. A successor generation brings in youthfulness and zest. Once again, in her succession planning, the irrepressible Quincy has left nothing to chance.
