Power of persistence, creativity in Jumoke’s cocktail business

Jumoke Michael Ojo is the creative director and head master bar attendant of Mandies Cocktails Limited, a business focusing on providing cocktail catering services. The business has a training school called Hospitality Bar Academy, which trains and equips start-ups with skills needed in the hospitality industry.

Jumoke was inspired to start her business when she identified a gap in the industry during her wedding. According to her, she wanted to have cocktail on her menu list but couldn’t find people who could do it to her taste at that time. This, she said, limited her choice, pushing her to settle with the only one she could find.

To change that for others, she did some research on the cocktail industry and went to the UK to acquire skills in the hospitality business by attending a bar school, which saw her becoming a certified bar attendant. With this experience, she established Mandies in 2012.

Jumoke said that she had not got any loan from any money deposit bank and her initial start-up capital was from her savings. However, the business had grown tremendously since starting, she said, adding that her brand was one of the biggest in the industry today.

The lawyer-turned-entrepreneur said her business was able to achieve this feat because of consistent hard work and  ability to do things creatively and differently. According to her, this increased its client base, having a many referrals from previous clients.

According to Jumoke, the social media platforms had impacted her business positively, giving it wider reach to a bigger audience.

She urged other entrepreneurs to use the medium to advertise their businesses and showcase their products.

“The social media has also helped to shape our business because we were able to showcase our work and customers were also reaching us via those channels, and today we are among the biggest in the industry,” she said.

When asked what her biggest challenge was, Jumoke said dealing and managing people was one of the biggest challenges facing her business. She stated that the consistent rise in the price of food items in the country was also a big challenge.

In addition, poor power supply and tough business environment were equally taking toll on her business, she admitted, urging the government to set up framework for guidelines and requirement for players in the cocktail industry to address some of the issues in the industry.

“The market is becoming a little bit saturated because there are no requirements to meet before starting a cocktail business. You now find all sorts of people in the cocktail industry,” Jumoke said.

In her words, “the volatility in the foreign exchange has also made us start sourcing locally because the cost of our production increased tremendously at some point and we started looking at our local fruits to bring down production cost and still maintain our standards.”

“We now get our strawberries from Jos, unlike before when we were importing them. The FX volatility has made us creative in achieving same standards when we use local sources items,” she added.

When asked how her business had been surviving recession, she stated that despite the economic downturn, a lot of people were still celebrating and would love to have cocktail on their menu list. She stated that the industry could help diversify the Nigerian economy as it required little capital to start with, which was why everybody could easily venture into it irrespective of their qualification.

When asked what her advice to younger entrepreneurs was, Jumoke said upcoming entrepreneurs should equip themselves with the right skills needed for their businesses. She urged them  to be focused and ensure adequate research was carried out before venturing into any business.

“Most businesses fail because of lack of passion. A lot of people go into business without adequate research and planning adequately and this is why most of such businesses fail. Also, most businesses fail because the entrepreneurs were not patient enough, they just wanted to start making profit from day one,” she further stated.

Josephine Okojie