Daniel Ikechukwu is the Country Sales manager of Forever Living Products Nigeria, a health and wellness product company. This year, Forever marks 20 years in Nigeria but, the celebration was stalled by the outbreak of Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. In this interview with AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE, Ikechukwu shares his thought on how Forever Living Products fared in Nigerian market amid the outbreak the pandemic. He spoke on other issues. Excerpts:
Covid-19 has altered the opportunity to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Forever Living Products Nigeria. How do you react to this?
The Covid-19 pandemic actually has had a downturn on businesses globally. However, we are in the health and wellness industry, so Covid-19 did not really impact negatively on our business because the products we provide are food supplements and some of these food supplements were actually needed during the pandemic. Some of these products are immune boosters, which people are actually looking for to boost their immune system. We also offer personal care products such as hand soap, hand sanitisers that people were looking for, all over the world, and these helped to curb the spread of Covid-19. Though, we regret what Covid-19 has done to the world generally and sympathise with businesses as well as people who had lost their loved ones due to the pandemic. However, for us, as a business, Covid-19 actually helped people to know more about our products because with Covid-19, we were able to reach out to many more people. It did not really affect our business.
Forever had hand sanitisers before the pandemic. Are there other supplements that could help check Covid-19?
We have a range of supplements that a lot of Nigerians presently use to boost their immune system. For us, they are not drugs. They are food supplements that can help people and we have varieties of them. It all depends on what people want. The challenge we had was meeting up with the demand. Our products are known by people and those who came for these products and others who are coming for available ones actually benefited from these products. We did not really bring in anything new. What we did was to boost our supply chain and try as much as possible to provide the products for Nigerians. We did not increase our prices because we saw it as something we could do to help to fight this global pandemic.
Due to Covid-19, you decided to celebrate your Success Day online. How did it go?
The Success Day is an integral part of our business. It is the one singular event that helps us showcase and celebrate our Forever Business Owners (FBOs) who had achieved successes in this business either during the quarter or past months. So, the Success Day is integral. The advent of Covid-19 made it difficult for people to meet physically. Since, this is an integral part of what we do in Forever, we had to find a way of celebrating our people virtually. Our people really appreciated this and everything that we needed to do was done. We used all our social media channels to broadcast it live, and the social media platforms provided a bigger reach for us.
The world is waiting for Coronavirus vaccine. How ready is your company in this area?
Development of vaccines is for the pharmaceutical companies and medical industries. We are not in the race for the vaccine because that is not our core competence. I strongly believe that the medical community is doing everything possible to give us a vaccine and what is important to everybody will be the potency of the vaccine when it comes out. Until we get that, we still advise that people should use all the necessary measures like wear masks regularly, observe social distancing and use hand sanitisers.
The pandemic has affected many companies, with some sacking workers. How did this affect your people?
We are committed to Nigeria, her people and our staff. The only thing we did was to equip our staff, and enabled them to work from home. We did not reduce our staff strength. We did not cut salaries. What was key for us was our ability to bring in products, so that Nigerians can have products to boost their immune systems. So, Covid-19 did not affect our structure, it did not affect our numerical strength.
Many expected new products from Forever this year. Did Covid-19 have impact in this?
Introduction of new products has always been part of Forever. In the next few weeks, we are going to have Forever Super Screen that was launched some few months ago in the US. We are going to have Forever Focus and Forever Eye Vision. Product development is part of Forever and that was not affected by Covid-19. Our factories and advisory board are working to ensure that new products are developed.
Are you still in touch with your people across Nigeria?
Yes, for us in Nigeria, the only concern that we have is what is happening at Tin-Can Island Port where shipment is being delayed for weeks, beyond what one could imagine. Aside this, all our plans are intact. We have not changed our plans on our business up-north.
However, because of obvious reasons, all those areas are now red flags. You can’t travel to those areas. Not just because you don’t want to travel or develop the market in the North-Eastern part of the country but for obvious reasons, we cannot go either because of restrictions, or Boko Haram insurgency.
Though, we understand that where there is a war, people must always eat, and look for personal care products. So, our responsibility is to make these products available. Before going, we have to ensure that we motivate one or two persons who are ready to build a team in those areas and we can now go with them. That is how our business is structured and we cannot change it. Again, all our leaders are still here. The managers now have new measures, new goals because without these things you can’t succeed. One thing or the other will weigh you down. This is why I am doing this. So, all our leaders are here and they are all doing well.
