Evelyn Olang
Recommended read:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell,
Million Dollar Women by Julia Pimsleur
Mojo by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter.
Alata is actually a traditional outfit used in West Africa, a wrapper and a top. That’s where we got the name because I started with African wear.
After fourth form, I had my aunt, my dad’s sister who used to run a boutique and was tailoring outfits. I went and worked for her as I waited for my exam results, and that’s how I started. I got into working, results used to take a long time to come and then they call you to university. There is a gap of six months to a year, so you need to keep engaged.
Just before I joined university, I’d saved up 4,500 bob. Then, I went to Namanga, at the border of Tanzania and started getting and selling kangas [African-style garments]. I kept on selling them in campus to pay my fees. I stopped selling the kangas when I was about to clear because things got tough in campus. I went into employment, worked for about seven years in corporate and went back to my passion, which was business.
My degree was actually in mathematics, a bachelor of science and then I went into marketing. I did a master’s in marketing. Actually, when I finished my USIU master’s, is when I decided I can’t work anymore let me go back to what I’ve always wanted to do. From 2002, Alata was born and I’ve never gone back. I was in my late 20s.
I enjoy selling and marketing and I enjoy it better when it’s mine and I dictate what I’m selling and what I’m marketing. That’s when I just realized, you know what, I was in FMCG and I just quit it and went to fashion, because I always loved fashion.
When you are employed, you are given the hours by your employer. Now, I am more flexible and I love to travel. Doing my own business, it’s allowed me to see the world and see it in a different dimension – not in conferences, but in the fashion field which I find is more vibrant, more exciting.
It’s dynamic, it’s fun. What gives me pleasure, is when I bring that fashion here and it’s appreciated. Because Kenya of course is real time so they appreciate that. I make an effort to bring the good stuff in here. I believe I’m living my dream.
I’m married with two kids. Yes, nine and seven. My work requires me to travel frequently. I must say, the support system I have actually works in terms of the support I have at home with my house manager. My husband plays a very big role to fill in the gap when I’m not there. The advantage is, when I’m home, I’m like 110% there. I have the flexibility of picking my kids from school, doing homework with them, then going back to work. I have the flexibility of taking them for various sports and events because I can adjust my time according to my job.
I have good suppliers out there, so I don’t have to spend endless time out there trying to shop from the stores.
African wear, about 10 years ago, was very popular, especially in Kenya. Everyone needed an African outfit for a wedding, but things changed. Leadership has also changed globally. People look up to people like Michelle Obama wearing dresses and they want them. Even the designers out there designing with her in mind.
The demand for African wear kept on dwindling. As we are doing business within Africa, it becames very frustrating because of logistics. Getting the stuff out, using the airlines, trying to communicate within Africa is a bit challenging. Some of the West African states also changed their currency, trying to peg to the dollar which is ridiculous. The pricing changed ridiculously so, it wasn’t a lucrative market anymore. Slowly, I phased the African out; it’s very minimum in what I supply.
It becomes easier to trade with other countries than within our own continent. An air ticket to Ghana will cost me more than an air ticket to London.
The logistical bottlenecks of trying to import especially with our regulations. There is no clear directives and guidelines to importers like me. That waives a lot of stuff and that limits you to the markets that you can explore. Because now you explore markets that have cargo companies that make it convenient for you.
There are some markets that you’d love to explore, but since that cargo company is not there, you can’t. You won’t benefit much.
A couple of years ago is when I started really expanding, and I realized that I can’t do everything myself. Initially I was doing the accounting, the HR, the sourcing, the everything. It became too big. Right now in the organization, I have a professional accountant and I have a professional manager to help run the business. I have four outlets and a fifth one next month, all in Nairobi.
My strategy for out of Nairobi is different because of logistical operations. I do wholesale, I have a wholesale unit. I wholesale to people with existing shops, so that I don’t have to go into the nitty-gritty of the sales.
When I started business, I borrowed $1,000 from my sister. Our business is very cash flow based. When you are expanding you need capital. Everyday they’ll be an opportunity. Given that I know how to do the business and turn it around, then I have to access funds through our local banks.
I thank my background in doing a master’s which gave me the full circle of how a business should run. If you try and now plug that in into your business, it becomes easier to know the direction that you need to take. You know from beginning I have to do my process A, B, C, D to access the rest. Some people who do it ad hoc find it harder, when they need money, they go to the bank and they don’t have audited accounts. They didn’t bank the money. Somebody pays you 6,000 you go to Nakumatt, 3,000 is gone. You think the balance is too little to take to the bank, so you keep it for airtime. Then when you want to access funds they have to see your cash flow. You can’t explain to them I had 6,000 yesterday.
There are different organizations within Kenya that offer a lot of training on entrepreneurship. Business people should be more open minded to explore opportunities that are there for training. They don’t have to do an MBA, they don’t have to be a degree.
There are actually entrepreneurship courses and some are even geared towards women. Also talk to somebody within the industry that you want to mimic or be like.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a mentor, because in our industry it’s sometimes a very big, fat secret, what to do, where you go. I mean, if somebody just puts you in the plane to London and they look Kenyan, they are hepa-ing [avoiding] you from immigration because they don’t want you to follow where they are going to shop.
Open a shop today on Ngong Road, somebody will open, have a look at yours, call the fundi [carpenter], take pictures and open theirs. For myself, I find mimicry flattering, if somebody wants to copy you.
With Alata, the uniqueness that I offer in terms of product and in terms of service, is above board. Quality is guaranteed. There are no shortcuts. The second thing that I do very, very keenly, is the price point. My price point is an advantage. Yes we might get maybe one, or two items similar in another store, but the value you’ll get from my store is amazing.
My workers are always on constant training for me, because I have the experience, they may not have. I’ll meet them on a weekly basis. Every morning I would just give them input on how to handle a customer.
Maybe the business that I do is so women based anyway so I’ve not faced the challenge of being a woman in my business. But when I started business in 2002, as I just finished my master’s, even my own mother could not believe that I can study and start selling clothes. And remember I was doing it from the house, I’d do it for the car, I went to post offices and stuff like that. It was, how do you leave corporate in such a position and start hawking clothes.
That went on for a while, but now when most people are seeing you grow, and seeing that you are consistent in what you do, what you deliver and the background of what we do, is actually very corporate based. Because we try and run our small businesses like corporate. People now actually look up to you and I had a number of people coming to me, because my age mates are now retiring, or been retrenched, they ask, ‘How do you do business?’
There are lots of women that want to do business but they feel that they can’t pinpoint what they want to do. I would just tell them to first expose themselves in a short entrepreneurial course. There are actually guidelines that would help you to pinpoint exactly where your strengths are, and where your weakness are, so that you do your own personal SWOT analysis. You could even do this at home. Then you actually realize what you are ignoring.
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Because of the way my business started it’s still hard to separate me from the business. Actually some people call me Evelyne Alata; they don’t know my second name.
They think Alata is my second name. It’s because I started small, I started in the house, selling to people they’d come in the house. Then opened one store, then lasted there for 10 years before I could open another store. Now is when people are getting used to Alata when Evelyne is not there. They were so used to over the last 10 years, when you come to Alata, Evelyne is there to serve you, because I only had one shop.
That’s how it evolved and that’s how it is. Even when I’m not there in that store, my presence is felt by what I stock.
When I actually went into the social media, which I’ve not done in a big way, the presence it gives you, gives you extra sales Sometimes you’d find somebody has posted or commented on a dress that you had, and somebody else will wear it and somebody else will come because of that. If I didn’t have the social media, then that exposure would not be there. It gives me a wider platform to deal with and a wider market for those who can’t physically access, and we do deliveries.
Initially, it was easier to access one store. That’s why I stayed with one store for 10 years. The traffic situation changed, a lot. Now, the major other shift that got into business, is the foreign currency because I import. That has been actually a painful hit to the business. That bit into the profits that I can make because I had to maintain a particular price point.
I’d advice women to choose you market carefully and it goes back also to passion. Know exactly what you want and what you are doing. What I would also suggest is specialization pays. Because what happens to a lot of business people, they go they are getting ladies’ clothes.
Next thing you hear, my customers were asking for children’s clothes. They add. They have asked for a shirt, they add. If you are doing a kid’s line, men’s line, just specialize and become an expert. The theory of 10,000 hours, you become better at what you do if you keep doing it.
Alata’s market is the middle class, the upcoming, young, mature, from beginning of the age of 20 going all the way up. It’s a dynamic person who wants to look and feel at their best, in both casual and formal setting.
I’ve added a new brand called Turquoise Signature Scents. I started Turquoise going to four years ago. Turquoise deals with smells, I love smells. It deals with body mists and oils, bath oils and room fragrances and concentrated room fragrances. It’s just smells basically because smells make you happy and they dictate your mood and I love that about them.
Turquoise is a company which I started after learning that Alata is Evelyne Alata. If you want to really spread, you can’t put your face everywhere. I just wanted a brand that has me in the background and more identity of the brand and that’s how I started it.
My vision is to have my own brand of body mist all over. In the last many years, I just plough back my profits into the business and that’s why I expand, what’s what helps me to expand.