By Ebele Orakpo
Miss Abimbola Jasmine Akinnuoye is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Sephsons Nigeria Limited, a public relations outfit. The 2008 graduate of Accountancy from Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, in a chat with Vanguard recently spoke on why she ventured into the world of public relations and the challenges she has had to face. Excerpts:

*Two staffers of Sephsons Nigeria Ltd displaying some of their products. Inset is Miss Abimbola Jasmine Akinnuoye, CEO of the company.

Sephsons Nigeria  Limited according to  the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Miss Abimbola Jasmine Akinnuoye derived its name from her late father who passed on in 2008.

“The history of Sephsons Nigeria Limited began with my late father. It was his name that was used for the company. But at that time, he was just into flags – outdoor and table flags,” she said.

After graduating as an accountant, one would have expected her to get a job in her field but as it were, fate had other plans for her. “After graduation, I started looking for a job in corporate Nigeria. I wrote a couple of aptitude tests but nothing came of them. I have always had an interest in my late father’s business and so after job-hunting  for a while without success,  I decided to go into the business.

By this time, my father had passed on and  nobody was doing anything about the business and it was almost dead so it was like starting from the scratch. I had to go and print cards and register with the Corporate Affairs Commission. I started all over again, the only thing is that I am still using the name,” she stated.

Apart from flags, “Sephsons is also into corporate branding and supply of promotional items like custom-made polo shirts branded in national colours and other colours according to clients’ design and specifications, lapel pins, branded car air fresheners, miniature head umbrellas, car flags and  wristbands,” she said, adding: “Flag is the core of our business but I just added these other things because the flag is not something that you can just take out and say ‘I am selling flags’ and people will buy. People that buy in large quantities are governments and big organisations like banks.”

Miss Akinnuoye who vowed to continue the fight against the abuse of flags said: “My father used to campaign against abused flags. I want to revive that campaign because if you look around you, you see torn flags, dirty flags etc. Flags are not even supposed to be hoisted overnight. We are dedicated towards eradicating abused flags from government offices and public places. Sometimes you see people sewing together different colours of cloth to produce a flag. Flags are printed not sown, when it is joined together by sewing, it becomes a rag in national colours.

She noted some of the acts that constitute abuse to include: hoisting  a flag made with poor fabric, hoisting a smaller or bigger size of a nation’s flag alongside those of other nations with the same size and specifications, hoisting a wet flag, soiling a flag with chemicals, hoisting a flag at half mast when there is no such directives from relevant political authority, hoisting a flag made with poor quality fabric, hoisting a faded flag, hoisting a mutilated flag, hoisting a tattered, torn or defaced flag etc.

On the challenges faced by the company which initial capital was about N30,000, Akinnuoye noted that “the major challenge at the initial stage was getting people to believe that we could actually give them the quality products we say we could give them. And then, the general challenges of doing business in Nigeria – power and technology – were also issues we had to contend with.

What I am trying to say about technology is this: You know we do a lot of printing and binding in the organisation, so for most of the printing jobs, people will tell you that you have to go abroad to do them when you can actually do them here in Nigeria. And if you tell them that they are strictly made in Nigeria, some people doubt the quality. Many people believe that the best things come from overseas when in actual fact, you can do the job here. We have some of the machines we need and we are improving. Like I said, we just started and we are building gradually.”

On how they source for jobs,  “We do micro and macro marketing. I have people who are in the field, who go out to organisations to source for jobs. And then I do one-on-one marketing myself, like corporate marketing. Presently, I have about seven people.

Two marketing officers, one research person, one business consultant/ strategist if you like. She is the one that comes up with ideas and how to penetrate the market, then there is an executive assistant who does all the documentation and then my humble self,” noted the Sephsons boss who said the clients include Nigerian Army, Customs, First Bank of Nigeria, Afribank etc.

“We have major dealings with the National Orientation Agency. What happened was that my father had a letter of introduction from the agency saying that his company provides quality flags that are made in the right specifications and quality. He would then take the letter to organisations and from there, he was granted audience. He did as high as 5,000 pieces for some organisations – both Nigerian flags and corporate flags of organisations.

We usually don’t make less than 500 pieces of each item because of the cost of production. The higher the quantity, the lower the price,” she stated.

Speaking on her vision for the company in the next 2 – 3 years, she said: “My dream is to see us going global.
I don’t see us as just a local company. I believe we will be all over the world someday. That is the mind set I have. I have changed the motto of the company to ‘The best way to predict the future is to invent it. I believe so much in positive thinking.”