Mrs. Maureen George-Oboh, a former bank worker and mother of three, is the chief executive officer, Winners Circle International (WINCIL). In this interview with ENE OSANG, she speaks on her empowerment scheme for unemployed youths and women.
How did you conceive Winners Circle International?
I was affected when Intercontinental Bank downsized in 2009. So, I started job hunting and after several failed efforts, then I decided to start buying and selling. But because I was not knowledgeable about buying and selling, I didn’t go far because a lot of people owed me. I had to quickly opt out and returned back to job hunting. Behold, I couldn’t still get any.
But, while job hunting, I met a friend, Amina Oyende, who persuaded me to consider the network marketing industry. I was actually involved in the industry around 2005 when I was still in the banking industry; so I was not just cut out for that. However, after this lady persisted, I gave it a shot and discovered it was good. And in one week I made one $1,000 from the business she introduced me to.
So, that gave me the drive to try. And in 2007, I promoted more than 30 network marketing companies both locally and internationally. This now gave me the passion and I started thinking of how to give back to my generation as a living being. My passion grew over time and I was able to figure out that this industry can actually help lift a lot of unemployed youths off the streets.
Since network marketing is about selling of products or rendering of services, so I thought of empowering people. And this is because I know that anyone who is skilful can never go hungry. But, it is not everyone that can afford money to acquire one form of skill or another to be empowered.
So, I thought of a programme that the low, middle, and high class, can afford and that is what gave me the drive to establish this business.
What is the programme all about?
We have empowerment programmes in auto-gele, slippers making, tailoring as well as make-up. Those out there waiting for the government can take advantage of our platform and empower themselves. And for our brand to fly quickly, we decided to leverage on multilevel marketing approach. An individual can be trained on any of the following skills with a registration fee of only N3,500 and introduction of three persons to the business; you cannot find this offer anywhere else.
How would you access networking business in the country?
Network marketing is still growing in this part of the world; however, approach and response have been massive. A lot of people have seen opportunities through this and currently we have over 7,000 registered members under our platform. Many of them have been trained on various skills, while others opted for cash rewards, probably because of the economic recession in the country.
And because we have been up and doing, and have not defaulted in our payment plan, more people are coming in and confidence in the company is rapidly growing.
Many people join network marketing only to make money, but it is not so here. It is team work and we urge leaders to identify and encourage passionate members in their groups to benefit from these skill initiatives to sustain our vision of empowering people. However, those who are already empowered before joining us can receive cash to grow their own businesses.
Also, we welcome and train other groups who want to benefit from our skill acquisition programs and not interested in the network marketing approach. We are flexible and our members reserve the choice to go for whatever they want.
How long has the network been in operation?
We are barely two years in business and the experience has been wonderful for me. I feel highly obliged that my idea has put smiles on faces and empowered many people. These people are happy because we have been able to empower them to make money.
Tell us about the impact on your trainees?
There is a woman that actually learnt auto-gele between August and September last year, she started up and in December alone, she made over N150,000. Every time I see her working I am super excited. I am happy that this person actually comes from Winners Cycle International. There are a couple of them that we have trained on make-up, we are projecting that in the next two years we would have empowered and lifted about 5000 Nigerians off the street through the array of skills we have to offer.
You appear to be doing a lot, what motivates you?
Yes, we are doing a lot but there is still a long way to go because what we intend to do is to raise leaders across the 36 states. We expect that these leaders are able to assist the network so that when people are qualifying they ensure that they are being trained because obviously we can’t be in all the states at the same time. If that is done we can achieve that, imagine we train 2,000 every month, in 12 months in 36 states.
It is actually a dream and in the next five years we will achieve that, I have come to realise through the books I have read that in any business one has to be patient and give yourself about three-five years to break even. So, for us, we are just starting and we are in our second year.
So, how profitable is this business?
Yes, we are in business for profit because everyone in business wants to make profit but we are not interested in excessive. I believe going by what we are making, though it looks small, over time we should be able to make enough and build ourselves a capacity centre where we can train a lot of people on various skills.
Aside the network marketing, we manufacture slippers and sell, and our future project is to see that we produce covered shoes for male and female, and high heeled shoes too.
So, going by the little we are making from the direct sales too we should be able to build ourselves a capacity centre in the next four years.
Some people see network business as fraud, how do you deal with this perception?
A lot of Nigerians have got their fingers burnt in network business. I won’t really say the company or business failed them; it could be as a result of wrong calculation. Many companies had to change their marketing plan at some point because they didn’t do their homework, their calculations well.
What’s makes your network different different?
I have come to understand that a lot of Nigeria networks do team work; everybody contributes money and pushes the team. In winners cycle there is a level you get to and you can use the funds to auto upgrade your team to the next level as against registering and registering down lines, which also stands us out.
Also, we pay 24 hours a day and seven days a week we are up and running.
What are the major challenges?
Finance has always been a constraint. As a person I know what I should do for the company, there are a lot of things I wish to do for the company. We know how difficult it is to access loans from our banks because they will start asking you for collateral they know you don’t have and for me funding has been a major challenge.
You know that without funding many businesses will fail, in fact it’s been by God’s grace that I am here because the funding has been from the little we are making here then family and friends.
An individual can bring his funds to support us but we have to go into agreement because there must be returns. If you are investing in any business it is to make profit, so when we have such people we will accept and in due course we will return their capital back with interest.
Where do you see the network in the next five years?
If Christ tarries and we are alive in the next 5-10 years winner’s cycle will be an international brand. People will know about us, our shoes and other products, we will have our own ware house and since the vision is to lift people off the street.
We will have our capacity centre and I know a lot of people will be empowered, people will be glad that they took the opportunity provided by winner’s cycle.
What is your advice to Nigerians seeking jobs?
I advise all to try marketing, not every company is bad, not every CEO is bad. Instead of waiting for the government for paid employment that at the end of the month you get a salary of N50,000 or N100,000 which cannot really do much for you because of the inflation rate in the country. You know that the value of the naira two years ago is different from what it is today, what you could achieve with N1,000 two years ago you can’t achieve that with N3,000 today. So, we don’t need to be reliant on the government.
Women and youths must be self-reliant, job creators, and entrepreneurs. I also feel that it is the only way our country can get out of recession, because no skilful person can go hungry.
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