Creating an army of entrepreneurs and creating jobs!

Yesterday was my first day back in the office and I decided to start my year meeting 4 of our top agents in Lagos. Thanks to Lagos traffic I only met with 3 — two female and one male. I am always inspired further when I meet our agents — the agents I met are doing fantastic work in their communities and are ready to take it up another level this year for Paga. They are signed up to a new role for our top agents by becoming Paga centres. I can’t wait to see their locations with our full Paga centre branding!

Reflecting on my visit I am so proud of what our team is achieving. Outside of bringing convenience to the local community we are helping build an army of entrepreneurs and creating jobs. A few of my observations through the day:

• In total I saw 9 people employed by the agents. 5 were female. The two female agents have Paga as their primary business.
• One of the agents created her store because of Paga. She is in Ikorodu and her husband is extremely supportive of the business. On Monday she are launching a new Paga agency in Aja axis and they paid N1m for rent. I was quite moved by her commitment to Paga!
• All the agents are using computers — a majority of Paga agents use computers NOT phones. This means they also have Internet connections — I’ve always thought people give too much credence to mobile networks in this business…they have a role but not the be all end all.
• I got a few brilliant ideas of simple things Paga can do to improve our service. Seriously there is nothing like hearing directly from customers. I also asked questions about some areas we are grappling with.
• On the way I saw several Paga agent signs — our new signs are quite visible. Can’t wait for us to roll them out enmasse this year.
• I saw only one competitor agent sign through the day. I stopped to greet him. After he heard how much Paga agents make he was very interested. We will poach him. We won’t play the commission game though we pride ourselves in providing the best overall service for agents.
• It took us two hours to make it from Ikorodu to Yaba, thanks to the fact that two lanes of a four lane highway are left for the rapid transit bus! What rubbish

Finally, it is only going out so far that you truly see the potential of Lagos and indeed Nigeria. Lagos could be a country to itself. We have 200 agents in Ikorodu alone. Our team is confident that doubling that number still won’t cover Ikorodu fully. We have a long way to go! Exciting times ahead!