This whole setup looks like serious hard work! Chinwe dey hustle ooo, Zahrah thinks as she runs her hand over a rack of stunning, hand-dyed Adire silk dresses. She watches Chinwe pace the length of the studio, her heels clicking rhythmically against the polished concrete floor.
It is Saturday afternoon, and the girls have converged at Chinwe’s fashion studio. The workspace is a beautiful, organised chaos of colourful fabric bolts, cutting tables, and the low hum of sewing machines from the back room where her artisans are working. Usually, they just hang out here to share local gist, but today, Chinwe is trapped in a dual administrative nightmare.
She drops her phone on her desk with a loud thud and exhales sharply. “I am going to arrest somebody today.”
Tola immediately sits up, her lawyer instincts activating. “Who are we suing?”
“First, this popular celebrity stylist,” Chinwe groans, rubbing her temples. “Two weeks ago, she took four custom silk pieces for a week of events that her client had. The retail value is about 850,000 Naira. The agreement was a brand tag in the content rollout and that the clothes would be returned dry-cleaned. The content started dropping two days ago. No tag, no mention. Now she is ignoring my calls and texting that the dresses were ‘gifts for the collaboration’.”
Zahrah gasps. 850,000 Naira. That is my salary for seven months, gone just like that.
“And that is not even the worst part,” Chinwe continues, her voice straining as she opens a WhatsApp voice note. “One of my textile artisans just sent me a voice note. I paid a deposit last month to start production of some Adire fabrics for two of our bestseller designs. Now she is saying that the cost of some production materials have gone up by almost fifty percent, so our verbal agreement is void unless I pay extra. She has threatened to refund, but if I take the money back and go to someone else, the current market price is what I’ll be paying. It’s annoying because I paid this deposit close to a month ago and my tailors are supposed to start producing those clothes in two weeks; now production will be stalled if I don’t send the money.”
“Wait,” Tola interrupts, pulling out her notepad. “Where are the contracts for the stylist and the supplier? Let me see the clauses.”
Chinwe looks away, appearing even more irritated than before. “Contract? Tola, I do everything myself! Between managing the tailors, sourcing fabrics, and posting on socials, I don’t have the time to draft legal documents for every market vendor or stylist who sends a WhatsApp DM. I run a fashion brand, not a law firm.”
Eunice, who has been quietly observing the room, turns towards Chinwe. “I understand that juggling these multiple hats would be overwhelming for anyone, but you still need systems and structures. What Tola is asking you for is part of the systems and structure you need. Thankfully, my darling Chinwe, we can help you sort this and create the systems and structure.”
Chinwe blinks, confused. “How do you mean?”
“You have outgrown your own administrative capacity,” Eunice explains, slipping seamlessly into her marketing strategist persona. “You have a steadily growing brand, but you are still operating with ‘hustle’ systems. Doing everything manually leaves your inventory and your supply chain completely unprotected. You need a standard PR Request System for the stylists, and a structured vendor service-level agreement for your suppliers.”
“Exactly,” Tola chimes in, catching Eunice’s drift. “We will help you create documented Standard Operating Procedures for your processes, including an automated form with a standard ‘Pull Letter’ and Liability Agreement for stylists; if they damage or lose items collected from you, their card gets charged. For the market, we lock in a fair middle-ground price by guaranteeing your supplier a three-month volume commitment in writing to hedge her inflation risks. It would require some talking but it’s doable.”
While they are still discussing, Zahrah pitches in. “Eunice, you should get on a call with the vendor now and Tola should shoot the stylist an email.”
For the next thirty minutes, the room transforms. Tola sends the email and calls the stylist with her own phone number to sidestep the stylist’s avoidance; she successfully gets the stylist to honour the initial agreement with Chinwe with a written promise via email to send the dresses over after laundering within the week. Eunice negotiates with the textile artisan who turned out to be amenable to their proposal.
Chinwe is visibly relieved after these phone calls. “Wow. You girls actually know what you are doing. Oya, send me the invoice immediately. It looks like I’ll be buying that SME Toolkit you spoke about. You just saved my production timeline and my sanity.” She exits the room to check on her tailors and organise food for her friends.
Eunice and Tola high-five excitedly, then Eunice turns to Zahrah. “And thank you, Zahrah. You moved us into action while we were still discussing plans and ideas.”
Zahrah smiles, a warm feeling of accomplishment washing over her. For the first time, she hadn’t just sat back listening to her friends’ massive business hurdles and shrinking into her own salary worries. She had looked at a chaotic situation, spotted the operational bottleneck, and triggered the execution.
Strategy is good, but execution changes the game, Zahrah reflects, watching the low afternoon sun stream across the colourful rows of Adire silk. My value at work isn’t just about waiting around for instructions or typing up captions to meet a daily quota. It is about actively driving results and moving things forward. On Monday, I am not going to present my boss with a list of my expenses. I am going to pitch an entirely new, automated content calendar system that prevents internal delays. I am going to show him that he has a strategist and an executor on the team.
Her phone buzzes in her pocket, breaking her train of thought. She pulls it out, expecting a casual notification, but her breath catches when she sees the sender’s name.
It is a direct email from her boss, sent on a Saturday evening. The subject line reads: Urgent: Q3 Content Strategy & Performance Review.
Zahrah’s heart does a quick, nervous flutter. Monday morning isn’t just a regular day anymore. The stage is already set, and the meeting she has been waiting for just got moved up.
