How Salha manages business firms well

Dar es Salaam. A poet named John Donne once said “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main” which means that no one is self-sufficient and that it is important to create your own tribe in both your life and career. This is evident for Salha Kibwana, cofounder of LAS consultancy and founder of Neeko Foods.

Her journey began with two of her friends named Lilian and Asnat, whose names together with Salha’s form ‘LAS’. Their business idea was to give the spotlight to startups and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

“We were all working in an organization that dealt with public relations and through our work, we found out that most startups and SMEs did not have a budget for their Public Relations (PR). Our plan was to do all the communications work without charge at first until when these businesses could stand on their feet and pay for the services. For us, it meant exposure of our work,” she narrates.

The first move was for Salha to quit her job and start working on their idea. She was the first person to do that because she could still afford to live without a salary due to the fact that she was living with her parents at the time.

Their first client was Salha’s aunt who owned a boutique. After a while, they started getting clients who were willing to pay for LAS’ services. When their work attracted a few more clients, Lilian and Asnat joined in full-time.

“With the three of us, it was like a synergy. Asnat was good at crunching numbers and organization, I am the social butterfly in finding clients and growing our network, Lilian on the other hand was the visionary and was great at presentations to our clients,” she explains.

The three began to get retainers such as Exim Bank, KCB, Pizza Hut and KFC.

“We transcended and touched different industries such as Banking, Entertainment and Fashion. This enabled us to build a network of people and companies we could work with when working with our retainers, some of them are Hugo Domingo and In Focus Studio, who are still our partners,” Salha details.

In 2020, the three of them parted ways and Salha began to work on LAS towards growth and exposure in support of her team of seven people working in different departments.

“When they left, there were already systems in place and a team I was working with. I also like to call Lilian and Asnat my angels because whenever I need help, I can still reach out to them for assistance on different matters,” Salha says.

She details that one of the interesting things of doing communication and event consultancy for different brands is the ability to think on your feet and the uniqueness every brand brings along.

“As of now, my creativity room is vast and different at all times. Every client means a fresh idea that has to be cooked from scratch to fit in their vision of the kind of event they want to host. With that, our minds are ever working and my team is ever growing because of the opportunity to learn from different industries that we serve,” she explains.

On the other, Salha is also a founder of Neeko Foods, a catering company that she developed three years ago. It began as a hobby in which she created different recipes, her friends would order food that would be delivered at their doors.

“It grew slowly but very organic. It kicked off with the first event called ‘Yoga and Chow’ where people came to do yoga and they would eat at the end of the session. I was more focused on the experience because I wanted every person who attended to have the taste of my food as well as the event in its totality. The rest is history,” Salha narrates.

Since the two businesses complement each other, it has been easy for Salha to balance the two of them with the assistance from her team. She stresses that it is important to have a team that has the same need to grow, whose ethics and standards align with yours can do wonders in your business.

“The lowest I have ever felt in my business was after corona pandemic. I had no money to pay rent. I was lucky that my team was on a short holiday because had they been present, I would have failed to pay their rent on time. I had no client that could have helped me sustain the company. I then made one call to one of our partners and expressed my concerns, our partner offered a collaboration that would help us to get clients while at the same time offering them our services,” she recalls.

She explains that it is important to have an ecosystem in a manner that every part is supportive to the other as this will ensure your thriving in the business world.