Can you picture Femi Otedola, son of a former governor of Lagos state, sitting beside a driver in a pick-up van and going from door to door to sell diesel in drums?
Before setting up the monstrous Zenon Oil — which later became a monopoly in the Nigerian diesel market — that was exactly what he did, according to his revelations in ‘Making It Big: Lessons from a Life in Business’, the Amazon bestselling business memoir.
“To prosper, accept that nothing is beneath you,” the billionaire businessman wrote.
“In the beginning, I went around pushing diesel, riding in the van beside Samson, the driver. I always wore jeans and a polo shirt as we went from door to door, to market or deliver the product.
Advertisement
“When we met at nightclubs on weekends, my friends would tease me with questions like, ‘Where’s your truck?’ They’d laugh when I walked in and ask, ‘Are you here to sell diesel?’ I took the wisecracks in stride. I didn’t feel that selling diesel was beneath me. I had my wife and children to look after; there were school fees to pay.”
He said he had to survive “and face up to my responsibilities”.
It was in the processing of selling diesel from door to door that he realised the huge market he was playing in.
Advertisement
“Maximize opportunities and expand to meet demand,” he said in describing a lesson he learnt in business.
“After I’d started this small-scale selling, I came to realize that the entire country was running on diesel – homes, offices, factories, trucks and trawlers. The energy situation was dire, with constant blackouts and shortages, and the demand for diesel was enormous.
“The opportunity was certainly there; we had to rise to the occasion. I got to work on an ambitious marketing strategy. I employed 14 sales executives, all young, brilliant and driven women, and gave them new cars. In my experience, female salespeople were more effective in convincing prospective clients, perhaps because of their commitment, ability to charm and reluctance to take no for an answer.
“It also helped that the new trucks I’d ordered from the Turkish manufacturer BMC had arrived, which we started using for home delivery.
Advertisement
“With the marketing team out on an aggressive sales drive, the orders came rushing in. I had given them a list of big companies – Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Flour Mills of Nigeria, the Dangote Group – and they closed one deal after another. I would pay Marca or Eurafric for supplies, they would send trucks loaded with diesel, and I’d add my margin, which came to about N8 per litre.”
He started buying diesel in bulk and renting storage tanks.
From there he bought a tank farm, growing to importing diesel in vessels.
At the height of his market power, Zenon was grossing $6 million in sales per month before the global oil crash of 2009.
Advertisement
