Suleiman Adam was born to a family that traded in herbal medicine and the effect of modernity that has favoured orthodox medication against the traditional ones did not stop him from taking the risk of establishing his own business.
Now the CEO of Sule Alagunmu Herbal Mixture, the decision became a necessary action after completing his National Diploma at the Kaduna Polytechnic in 2018.
“When there was no work, I moved into teaching but the salary was too low to my standard as it was just N10,000. I thought of selling herbs on the street, which I still do. The trade of herbs is like normal work in our family and it is hereditary. I developed a passion for it from day one,” he said.
In 2019, he began to sell the product in his community in Tudun Nupawa, Kaduna moving from house to house. And fortune smiled on him during COVID-19 which he said he generated more sales.
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“It was a blissful year for me,” he said.
But to overcome the challenges he might have encountered with stereotypes on herbal medicine, he innovated packaging which according to him made him the first young herbal seller to adopt packaging and modernised method to market his product in Nigeria.
“When I started using the token, I had to do my packaging, people saw it differently but some viewed it as a young folly trying to do something. Along the way, many people patronised me and till date, I am doing better.”
Through his idea, he sold the products in measured kegs which enabled him to propagate his brand.
To get a wider reach, he made the use of social media as a key component while exploring other ways to attract attention on many platforms.
“There are ways people perceive what you advertise to them. It can be positive or negative but for me, I feel the nature of what I do elicited jest but I believe it still made me known. Also, moving on the street looks simple but thousands will laugh at you while few will appreciate you. I have a means to calculate my customers as one person is equivalent to 10 persons while 10 are equivalent to 100. So, out of that 100, 25 will come back and believe in what I sell.”
With this concept, he said he spent some of his profits on social media to do giveaways while expressing the same in his community during social events. He said: “Using this strategy, beneficiaries will tell others as we like free things, so the moment you do that you will make new people. Similarly, I used my name also to extend my brand because almost everyone could relate to the word Sule while the Alagunmu too can be easily remembered.”
While stating that he still organises giveaways, he added that he doesn’t go beyond his budget.
He however said it is not everybody that would appreciate such a gesture “as some will see it meaningless but I never get discouraged by what they say.”
Banking on the sales he made in 2020 which exceeded N1.5m during the year, he is now considering rebranding his business to incorporate laundry and delivery services.
“I am reconstructing the brand again to now be an empire. For the medicine, I want to move to producing capsules for the convenience of my customers. This is because some complain of the bitterness but when it is in the capsule, it will be easy to use. So, it will be packaged in capsules and teabags.”
He added that the growth of the business has seen him have a strong presence in three states of Kaduna, Lagos and Abuja.
But his major target is to export his products to other countries and he currently has his eyes on the United Kingdom.
Through the use of WhatsApp and other applications, he said he has been making contacts in the United Kingdom and would soon launch a website by the end of this month to generate traffic for his products.
On whether he received any help while starting the business, he said, “I didn’t get help when I was starting. I was able to scale through the little hustling I was doing. I used to put myself on target every year. My target this year is N10m.”
When asked how he is different from those who claim their products cure several diseases, he said, “The reason people say so on traditional medicines is that when we have many people, it is few that will spoil everything. When there is greed in success, there will be downfall in it. We have many people that sell one medicine for 100 cures but on the other hand, Africans have not appreciated what God gave us. For example, Moringa leaf, we have almost 16 health benefits; these are things the white people use but if we can use what we have, we are going to grow.”
He added that for him, he takes his products to the lab for testing before putting them on the market to sell.
He went on to state that the hands-on experience he has in herbal medicine has equipped him with knowledge to teach some doctors in the orthodox field what they don’t know as they are working on theory while he works on practical.
“Those working in the orthodox medicine believe in a 50/50 per cent chance of their interventions while we in the traditional field believe how work can achieve results at a 99.1 per cent rate,” he said.
On what the government can do to assist the sector, it must first understand and appreciate the work they do and look at ways they can work harmoniously with those in the orthodox realm.
“They used to see themselves as superior but they went to learn it while we were born with it. The Nigerian government needs to keep certificates aside. There are places in China where I get some of the materials I use. The government there celebrates them. Our attitude also needs to change,” he said.
On his next line of action, he said he has completed his Higher National Diploma in Office Technology and Management but hopes to grow to the point of reaching KEDI Healthcare.
While envisaging that financing might be his major issue, he said he already has the contact as he could boast of more than 10,000 contacts to propagate his product which according to his marketing calculations are 1m people already.